Tom Brady May Return In 2023, But It Shouldn’t Be With The Tampa Bay Buccaneers

If Tom Brady returns for a 24th season, it should be with another team.

After the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were defeated 35-7 against the San Francisco 49ers, one thing became very clear — Brady’s not going to win another Super Bowl with this team.

We can sugarcoat it by pointing towards the offensive line and the key injuries facing the unit — starting tackle Tristan Wirfs and starting center Ryan Jensen continue to be sidelined — but the problems go beyond just the porous offensive line.

As Brady suffered the third-worst loss of his 23-year career, the offense struggled through yet another poor outing, going scoreless in the first half and converting just 4-for-16 on third-down conversions. To top it off, Tampa Bay committed eight penalties for 62 yards in comparison to the San Francisco 49ers’ two penalties for 15 yards.

In a play that exemplifies how sloppy the Buccaneers have been this season, Mike Evans had a 68-yard touchdown pass nullified in the first quarter due to a holding call by tackle Donovan Smith.

“In short, we got our asses kicked,” head coach Todd Bowles said after the game. “We played bad in all phases. We coached bad. We got outcoached. Credit to Kyle (Shanahan) and his guys, they did a great job. We got our ass kicked on offense, we got our ass kicked on defense.”

Outside of a solid defensive unit, the Buccaneers don’t excel in any aspect. The passing game is sluggish and heavily reliant upon dump-offs to running backs Leonard Fournette and Rachaad White to counteract an inept offensive line. Fournette led Tampa Bay in receptions (six) while White ranked second (five) in the loss.

The running game continues to underwhelm, with White merely providing a band-aid to an offensive attack that’s become accustomed to relying upon a 45-year-old Brady to throw 50-plus pass attempts a game.

After finishing the 35-7 loss to San Francisco with 55 pass attempts, it marked the fifth time he’s thrown for at least 50 pass attempts in a game this season. He entered the game leading the league in pass attempts (524) and is averaging 44.1 pass attempts per game. For perspective, Brady is on pace to throw for 751 pass attempts on the season.

That number would exceed the 719 pass attempts he threw last season and would shatter the record for pass attempts in a single season set by Matthew Stafford with 727 pass attempts.

The difference is, Stafford did it at the age of 24 in 2012 while Brady is doing this for the second consecutive season in his mid-40’s.

“Everyone’s got to play better,” Brady said. “We just have not played consistently well very often. We haven’t played it for four quarters. We’ve played it a little bit, at times. Not today at all. Some games, we’ve played well for five minutes and don’t play well for 55 minutes. Some games, we play pretty well for a half. We have not played consistently well for a game.”

The coaching, the offensive line, the running game and the play-calling is simply bad. And guess what? The Buccaneers aren’t nearly as stacked on the offensive end of the ball to counteract all of the bad traits without Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown.

What we have here is a Buccaneers squad on its last legs battling for a playoff spot in a putrid NFC South division. It’s a division that they only lead by one game over the 5-8 Carolina Panthers, who previously defeated Tampa Bay with PJ Walker at quarterback just days after trading Christian McCaffrey earlier in the season.

While the Buccaneers will still control their playoff destiny as long as they defeat the Atlanta Falcons and the Panthers over the last two games of the season, anything is possible for this lackluster squad.

Brady will be a free agent this offseason. And while it’s still unclear what exactly his future holds, what is clear is that there’s a very realistic chance he returns to play for another season. As Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reported just prior to the Bucs’ loss that “all options” are on the table for Brady — including playing for another team next season.

As Jeff Howe of The Athletic noted recently, there shouldn’t be a shortage of potential suitors for the veteran quarterback — the 49ers, Las Vegas Raiders, New England Patriots and Tennessee Titans are all possible landing spots for the ageless wonder.

Brady may have lost a step since last season. He does appear to be missing open receivers more often than in previous seasons and it’s obvious he tries to minimize the amount of hits his 45-year-old body takes by simply throwing incomplete passes.

It doesn’t help that his touchdown percentage (3.1%, ranking 27th) and his yards per attempt (6.4 yards, ranking 30th) rank towards the bottom of the league.

But it’s all the more reason why Brady should look for a team with a better supporting cast to mask some of his deficiencies in the last stage of his career if he plans to play another season.

The Buccaneers will enter the 2023 offseason over $45 million in the negative as far as cap space, the second-worst number of any team in the league. That means Tampa Bay will have to make major moves just to create cap space for next season.

If Brady wants an opportunity at riding off into the sunset with another ring, he’ll have to make a tough decision entering the offseason.

That means leaving Tampa Bay.