We must say, when legendary QB Tom Brady this week came out firing regarding the "mediocre'' level of play in "today's NFL,'' it struck us as odd. Not because Brady lacks qualifications to offer his informed opinion, not because it's inappropriate for him to bite the hand that feeds him, and not because we have a horse in the race of any such debate.
No, we thought Tom Brady's roasting of "today's NFL'' was odd because ... Tom Brady just finished participating in "today's NFL.''
And now Alex Smith, the former Washington and NFL quarterback who was a contemporary of Brady's, is firing back in part because he agrees with our point.
"He hasn't been retired that long!'' Smith said. "He was just playing! He just won a Super Bowl in the 'current game.' Is he discounting (the quality of the NFL in) that one?''
Smith, who was respectfully enough to make sure to mention that Brady "is the GOAT,'' is dead-on here. Brady led the Tampa Bay Bucs to a Super Bowl win just 33 months ago. And Brady was still playing for Tampa, before his "final'' retirement, 10 months ago.
That's not a bygone era when "these kids nowadays'' wouldn't understand or couldn't hang; Brady's era of the NFL is NOW.
Smith, by the way, has earned his qualified opinion, too. He was the first overall pick in his NFL Draft and played 18 seasons in the league, finally with Washington, before hooking up with ESPN ... where some of the pushback on his sound remarks come from his desk-sharing colleagues.
They were especially aghast when Smith further noted that a great deal of Brady’s success was the result of playing in the long-"mediocre'' AFC East, where arguably a perennially good Patriots team had the freedom to post perennially great records.
“My biggest complaint with this, and no offense to you guys — well all three of you guys,” Smith said on Sunday NFL Countdown. “He played in the most uncompetitive division, I think, in NFL history.”
Sitting alongside Smith? Randy Moss, who played for the Patriots, Tedy Bruschi, a Pats lifer, coach Rex Ryan, a long-time AFC East figure. Of course, because this is ESPN, one of the panelists was obliged to overreact cartoonishly; here, it's Ryan who draws the short straw.
But the protestations in opposition to Alex Smith's remarks, cartoonish or otherwise, are wrong. If Tom Brady is saying "today's NFL era'' is "weak,'' then Tom Brady is saying "Tom Brady's NFL era'' is "weak.''
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