Tom Brady, Buccaneers have gotten better since Antonio Brown exit

There was some intrigue about how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be without Antonio Brown. If the stats are to be believed, the Buccaneers are just fine.

The saga of Antonio Brown has been the gift that keeps on giving for followers of the NFL, especially in today’s internet-dominated age. Of course, when the dog and pony show came to Tampa Bay, it became the Bucs’ problem. Things were going swimmingly, then AB got hurt, and things took a turn for the strange.

It seemed like every week there were conflicting reports on if Brown was making progress, then trending towards playing, only to be ruled out every time. When he was finally activated, he flashed his Hall of Fame talents. The problem is, he probably won’t ever get there because of how he exited the Buccaneers, and possibly the NFL. Brown’s exit (Brexit?) was the talk of the league, but once all the theatrics were behind us, it became time to focus on the football side of things.

How would the Buccaneers’ offense look? How would Tom Brady do down so many weapons? The answer to these and any other related questions was just fine.

Since Brown became “no longer a Buc”, Brady has completed 75% of his passes for 780 yards and seven touchdowns, oh, and a bagel in the interception column to boot. The GOAT did all this in slightly over nine quarters of football. Simply stunning.

While AB was (pretty safe to use past tense at this point) a remarkable talent, Brady is simply not of this Earth. The Bucs keep sailing along, and their offense looked remarkable during the beginning of their playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles before taking their feet off the gas for a bit.

While they wait and see if they will host the Los Angeles Rams or Arizona Cardinals in the divisional round, there isn’t much to worry about since the offense has gotten better, and the defense has gotten healthy, but that’s a discussion for another time.