"Terrible decision" - Tom Brady is not a fan of NFL's new 17-game-long season
One would think Tom Brady would be a fan of the NFL's newly minted 17-game schedule, marketed as the "biggest season ever" by the league. Well, it does give him an extra opportunity to extend his hold on certain NFL records. Alas for the powers that be in the league scheduling department, that doesn't appear to be the case. On the latest episode of his podcast, Let's Go!, Brady labeled the schedule expansion as "pointless" and "a terrible decision."
Why isn't Brady a fan?
Regaling his co-hosts, fellow future Hall-of-Famer Larry Fitzgerald and former NBC Sports reporter Jim Gray, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback thought the customary 16-game schedule introduced in 1978 was "plenty."
"I don’t like the fact that we’re playing a 17th game at all," Brady said. "If you’re fortunate to be able to make it through a season and you got to play the 17th game, I think there’s a lot of things that I would adjust to, you know, the offseason, you know, the regular-season schedule.
"A lot of people know my feelings on some of these topics. I’ve been pretty vocal about NFL issues over the last couple of years and some of the things that are done that I don’t necessarily think are in the best interests of the game.”
Brady was also frustrated with the lack of a natural halfway mark to the season. The Buccaneers (6-2) went through their bye week following their eighth game of the season, an October 31 loss against New Orleans.
Brady explained that the implication that multiple players were displeased with the 17-game slate likely did not matter to the 32 team owners, who have more or less unlimited power in instituting such decisions, no matter how unpopular they may be.
"The owners haven’t had to listen to the players... usually what the owners want the owners get... that’s just the way the business has gone," Brady said. "We need strong union leadership from the player standpoint and a unified union in order to have the right amount of leverage to negotiate what we think is appropriate for an NFL player. But right now it’s more like we get told what to do and, yeah, there’s a vote and a CBA, but the choice is: don’t play or play under these circumstances. And we’ve essentially agreed to play under their circumstances.”
Brady clarified that he understood that the 17-game schedule was formulated for the growth of the game. He simply wished there was further collaboration between the owners and players, saying that "there can be a much more constructive way of doing the right thing by all parties."
"How do you come together to put together the best possible product for all the people who are watching and investing their time?" Brady asked rhetorically. "We’ve been in an incredible economy the last bunch of years, we really have been. The growth of the sport has been great. And I think that the owners and the league have done a great job in growing it to a global audience. The business of football is great."
Tampa Bay return to action on Sunday afternoon on the road against the Washington Football Team (1 pm ET, Fox).
Also Read: A tour inside Tom Brady’s House