Would a poor performance Sunday at New England have any long term impact on Tom Brady and the Bucs? | You Pod to Win the Game
Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Pete Thamel discuss the marquee matchup in Foxborough, as Tom Brady returns to Gillette Stadium to face the Patriots. Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: Tampa Bay is a better team. Tampa Bay comes into New England, they're the better team. Defensive struggles aside, from a skill position standpoint, as you said, the comparison is not close. A rookie quarterback, the Patriots are, I think I agree with you, kind of an eight, and eight team sort of figuring it out and trying to get the compass turned in the right direction. The Buccaneers are not. This is supposed to be with the addition of Richard Sherman, I'm sure they'll continue to try and tweak that defense. They're going to try and make it like last year, hit their stride in the second half of the season.
Richard Sherman is a Brady signing. He is. This is Tom Brady recruiting a guy thinking this is someone who can-- he knows Richard Sherman. He's known him for years thinking this is a guy who can add to the team, whether it is in skill set, or mentality, or whatever, particularly down the back-- and by the way, I think it's a back half signing. I don't think it's an addition for the front half this season. It's a addition for the last three or four games of the season and then the playoff run. That's it. And I think that's, if it works out, great. That's the point.
And then again, whatever he adds to that locker room, what he adds to that meeting room, the defensive backs meeting room, the defensive meetings, it's just another leader in there that I think can still be valuable. But this week, and you and I kind of talked about this a little bit before jumping on, what if the kind of unthinkable happens and New England beats Tampa? What if they beat them handily? What if New England somehow-- what if Tom Brady comes into this game and we all think, hey, there's not any pressure here. Tom's got the better team.
I think it's a very important game for Tom. I think it's extremely important for him to come in and show out. And I think if there were any game on the schedule where he might press a little bit, it's going to be a game like this. Does it really affect, and again we're going to keep doing these autopsies this year, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, does it have any impact long term if Tom Brady comes in and fails the first time he returns to Gillette?
PETE THAMEL: No because regular season games in the NFL don't really matter in the long, especially a sort of goofy non division game like this. This is all for the same reason that Seth's book is written. This is a legacy game. All right? This is an event. It's like a preseason game in some ways. It's just like in the grand scheme of where these two franchises are going this season, it is simply not that important. For the billion dollar entertainment industry that New England and now Tampa are, they're forerunners in.
In this billion dollar industry, there are not two bigger drivers right now outside the Cowboys than the Patriots and Tampa. They are at the full throttle forefront. So this is an event and a spectacle much more so than it is an important regular season game in my opinion. I mean, the Patriots are a little bit chasing their tails right now. And Mac Jones is going through some of just some of the regular old rookie struggles. And that's not to be unexpected when you really take a long look at what's around him right now.
The result will be overanalyzed and overwrought. And there will certainly be some moments. There will be some emotion that is captured in this game that will be analyzed in this game. But I don't think this game is going to define either of these franchises season in any way.
