Tom Brady Rips NFL for Having 'a Lot of Mediocrity'

Tom Brady didn't hold back when sharing his thoughts on the NFL. The seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback recently appeared on The Stephen A. Smith Show this week and ripped the league for being "less than what it has been," while calling out the coaching and development of players. 

"I think there's a lot of mediocrity in today's NFL. I don't see the excellence I saw in the past," Brady said, per Sports Illustrated. "I think the coaching isn't as good as it was, I don't think the development is as good as it was. The rules have allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game. I just think the product, in my opinion, is less than what it has been."  

Brady also sounded off on the officiating as the rule changes have limited defensive players, which has harmed the game in general. "I look at a lot of players like Ray Lewis and Rodney Harrison and Ronnie Lott… every hit they made would've been a penalty," Brady said. "You hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled… Why don't they talk to their player about how to protect themself? We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time, now they're trying to regulate all the time. Offensive players need to protect themselves. It's not up to a defensive player to protect the offensive player. A defensive player needs to protect himself. I didn't throw the ball to certain areas because I was afraid players were gonna get knocked out. That's the reality. I didn't throw it to the middle when I played Ray Lewis because he'd knock them out of the game and I couldn't afford to lose a good player." 

Brady played in the NFL from 2000 to 2022, which means he played in different eras of the league. When Brady first entered the NFL, teams had more padded practices and the coaches were more focused on coaching players instead of learning plays, per CBS Sports. But as much as the NFL has changed over the years, the league still dominates in television ratings and it doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon.