Tom Brady Thinks NFL Penalizes Defenses Too Much Due To Mistakes Made By Quarterbacks

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady has a soft side for defensive players around the league.

And when talking about the recent crackdown by the NFL to penalize defenses for illegal hits, Brady said that a lot of times the offensive players are to blame for those instances.

 “If you’re a quarterback, you’ve got to protect yourself and your players,” Brady said during a players chat on the Bucs website. “It shouldn’t be the responsibility of your opponent to protect you. It creates really bad habits. You feel like I can basically do anything. I can run and not slide. I can throw my receiver into coverage and not have any repercussion for it. 

“What they’re going to do is, they’re going to blame the defensive player for making a good, solid hit and now the defensive player is going to say, ‘I can’t do that,’ and I think it’s an offensive mistake. So in the end, it’s really a disservice to the sport. Because the sport isn’t being played at a high level that I believe it once was. It actually deteriorates, because you’re not teaching the players the reasons for the fundamentals of what the sport should be. …

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“I feel like they penalize defensive players for offensive mistakes.”

Let me find out @TomBrady has a lil defensive heart.

This is so spot on. pic.twitter.com/cbHlpXKCGX

— Carmen Vitali (@CarmieV) September 3, 2021

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Tom Brasy continued:

“A quarterback should only throw the ball to certain places, because your receiver is in danger of getting hit,” Brady said. “For example, when I used to play against Ray Lewis, I wouldn’t throw the ball to the middle of the field because he would . . . hit them and knock them out of the game. And now, every hard hit is a penalty on the defense. So I feel like they penalize defensive players for offensive mistakes.” …

“The quarterback messes up, doesn’t see the blitzer, or the line screws up,”  Tom Brady said. “I don’t know what happened, the quarterback or the lineman on offense. The defensive player comes in and hits him hard and they throw a flag on the defense.”

Like many things Tom Brady says, this feels like a subtle flex of how he conducts his business. Brady is ultimately blaming a bunch of quarterbacks around the league when it comes to not protecting themselves or their teammates.

With Brady having a couple of years left until he likely hangs it up, I wonder if Roger Goodell will ask him to be an asset for the league offices.

Tom Brady has become more outspoken about the salary cap and new rules in recent years, and it seems like he has some well-thought ideas to offer.

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