Joe Montana Says Brady 'Wants a Lot of Control' of Offense and 'More Weapons'
Joe Montana gave an interview to USA Today about Tom Brady and why we are being subjected to the abomination of him playing in America's Wang instead of the bucolic, utopian paradise that is Massachusetts. It's a good interview with a lot of insights. But also one of those instances where the headline buries the lede:
... and buries it deeper than the treasure on Oak Island. Because the main takeaway from Montana's comments had nothing to do with whether or not he thinks the Patriots should have Brady under center in 2020 and everything to do with Brady's reasons for going to Tampa.
And who is Montana to know the answer? Well for one thing, he's Brady's Spirit Animal. Remember "The Simpsons" when Homer's guardian angel showed up in the form of someone he would recognize and revere?
Brady's angel would take the form of Montana. (The way mine would look like Brady, but that's an issue for another time.) More to the point though, Joe Cool talked to him directly at the NFL 100 events during the Super Bowl. So he knows. And he's spilling.
“It’s not about appreciation,” Montana said, dismissing one of the prevailing theories. “He wants control. I mean, he wants a lot of control. I don’t know what Tampa Bay gave him, but at some point in time, you’re just a player. You can try to get what you can and do what you want, but in the end, you’re still not in the hierarchy when it comes to hiring people, firing people and all that.
"I don’t know exactly what he’s looking for, but my understanding was that he’s just looking for more control of the offense. But I don’t know. I haven’t had a long conversation with him; I talked to him a little bit at the Super Bowl, but not enough time to really get in-depth.” …
“What he wants is a bit more weapons,” Montana said, mindful that the Bucs are loaded with arguably the NFL’s best tandem of wide receivers in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. “But more weapons doesn’t always mean you’re going to continue to win. There were times we had a lot of weapons later in my career, but we had up and down years; Steve (Young) had up and down years with the same group. That’s not always the case that happens with it. …
"Sometimes you’ve got to be careful of what you wish for. Sometimes you get it and it becomes a little more pressure if they don’t perform."
That's from the horse's mouth. Or from the mouth of the horse who heard it from the mouth of the GOAT. He wants control. He wants a lot of control. He wants more weapons. Even with the disclaimer about not having time to get really in-depth, there's your headline. It's not about appreciation. The money the Patriots were offering wasn't so different from what Tampa's paying him that you'd uproot your family for it. And at the risk of contradicting the story that Brady hasn't asked for anything except for his teammates' phone numbers:
… control - a lot of control - and better weapons were ultimately the deciding factors that motivated this radical late-career change.
It doesn't matter if he "demanded" control over the offense or not. He's getting it. We've been hearing reports that Bruce Arians promised him control, and now he has it. Brady will finally be able to do whatever he wants for the first time in his life. He gets to call the shots. Arians' and Byron Leftwich's offense is his to do with what he pleases. A say in personnel matters. He gets the best pair of wideouts in the game to throw to. He can finally relax and play for fun instead of playing for a guy who's relentlessly hyper-focused on winning rings and impossible to please.
And those things he's getting in Tampa, he was never going to get in Foxboro. Bill Belichick's system works and it's built an empire no one was going to get him to change. The change could only come if Brady left, and he found what he wanted in Tampa. Like Montana said, "It's not about appreciation." It's about different desires. Different philosophies. And in the long run, a different approach to pro football. I'm glad he said it, because it goes a long way toward getting me to finally accept that this #Braxit was for the best.