Troy Aikman: Tom Brady, Bucs will be ‘dangerous’ Monday night
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are getting the prime-time treatment in the first round of the NFL playoffs, as they’ll host the Dallas Cowboys in front of a national audience Monday night.
Troy Aikman will be on the call, and the Hall of Fame former Cowboys quarterback knows better than to take any team led by Tom Brady lightly.
On a recent radio appearance, Aikman broke down why Brady and the Bucs might be a tougher out Monday night than many might think:
Getting pressure on Tom Brady
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“Yeah, they’re going to have a hard time sacking Tom Brady. A lot of talk about the offensive line for Tampa, and yet they gave up the fewest sacks in the league this year, and the reason is Tom. I’ve seen Tom throughout his career — there were years in New England where they didn’t have an offensive line that could protect him, and he would not take a sack. And that will be the case in this game. They’ll provide him — and this was part of the problem when they first got to Tampa; he didn’t have the outlet to get the ball out. So, things started to change offensively, they started to incorporate things that he was more comfortable with, and part of that is when he has pressure he has outlets to go with the football. “
What separates Brady from young QBs
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“So, I’ve said this before, and this isn’t a negative to the younger quarterbacks. It sounds like it, and in a way it is, but it’s not, that they’re just not trained in the same way. So, I think a lot of young quarterbacks, not all of them, because there are some young guys that I would say understand situational football, but for a lot of young quarterbacks that come in, all they do is throw the ball and that’s kind of their mindset. And you watch some of these quarterbacks and they’re great players, and they make mistakes in key situations in games, and you think, ‘Man, all you had to do was fall on the ball and kick a field goal and you win the game.’ But that’s just not the mindset. That’s not the way they think, whereas with Tom the reason that he’s won so many games besides being a great player and have a lot of good players around him is he knows what’s required to win the game.
Why you can never count Tom Brady out
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“So, that’s why I say, the longer this game goes, and you give Tom an opportunity, he’s going to find a way to win the game, and I’ve seen it. We saw it against New Orleans. They couldn’t do anything for three and a half quarters and they were down 14 points and they win the game. They’re down that with six to play. So, he knows that if they’ve got a lead, how to protect that. He knows if they’re behind, what they need to do. And a lot of guys don’t. And that’s why over the years in New England especially you combine him with Belichick, they didn’t give away very many games. They won a lot of games because a lot of teams kind of gave it to them, and they made the mistake. And one of those was the game I called in the Super Bowl, the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history against Atlanta.”
Why we're in for a good one Monday night
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“And, so, that’s the way Tom operates, it’s the way he’s been trained, and he’ll dangerous. He’ll be dangerous come Monday night, and this team will be. I’d be surprised if we don’t see the best of Tampa Bay on Monday night, and I would think that we’ll get the best of Dallas as well. What that looks like, I don’t know, but when you go back and you look at Week 1 with those two teams, a lot of players on both sides of the ball, and we know how that one went.”
