Baker Mayfield Says He Brought 'Joy' to Tampa After That 'High-Strung' Tom Brady Had Everyone 'Stressed Out'
You have to pity Tom Brady, just three weeks into his new career. Watching the ineptitude of the Cowboys - even if it was just 3 1/2 quarters worth, before they finally straightened their shit out - has to be hard on a perfectionist like him. And all the kale smoothies in the world can't erase the painful images from his mind. He comes to Foxboro in two weeks. And Fox better be ready. If the Patriots play then like they did Thursday night in New Jersey, it might approach a violation of OSHA's workplace safety regulations.
But he knew what he was getting into. This is what he signed up for. There will be moments when he's like the word's greatest maestro having to endure a 3rd grade recorder concert struggling through "Hot Cross Buns." His standard of excellence when it comes to football is not like anyone else's. Not just in the broadcast booth, but in all of life.
So it seems Brady's relentless pursuit of perfection in all things had a negative effect on everyone around him when he was the quarterback in Tampa. At least that's the story of the current quarterback in Tampa. And he's sticking to it:
Source - Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield ... said on the Casa de Klub podcast that he and Brady have “very different personalities” and that he thinks it’s a relief to some in the locker room that they’re not dealing with Brady’s intensity anymore.
“The building was a little bit different with Tom in there. Obviously, playing-wise, Tom is different. He had everybody dialed in, high-strung environment, so I think everybody was pretty stressed out,” Mayfield said. “They wanted me to come in, be myself, bring the joy back to football for guys who weren’t having as much fun.”
Mayfield says Brady would make it clear that it was his offense even if he had to demonstrate it by throwing an incompletion on a play call the coaches liked better than he did.
“You hear some of the stories about if he didn’t like a certain play call and he didn’t like it throughout the week and they still call it in the game, there might have been a throwaway on purpose or throwing it at the running back or receiver’s feet,” Mayfield said. “There were a lot of mind games going on.”
Well, well, well. So the Buccaneers weren't having fun under Tom Brady's leadership? I confess, I missed how miserable he made them all with his petty mind games. I was under the false assumption that they were enjoying all that success:
Silly me. That looked like a good time for all involved. Players, coaches, and citizens of Tampa alike. But nope. What they really needed all along was the joy that comes from having Baker Mayfield being himself. Mr. Fun QB.
Now, a cynical person might point out that the Bucs are 11-9 on Mayfield's watch despite all that joy in their hearts. And despite the lack of mind games in their new, low-strung environment, they just got their brakes beaten off at home by an 0-2 Broncos team:
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But I am not that person. I'm just a man who's happy when others are happy. Mayfield is playing great. He's putting up career-best numbers. He's helped make the Buccaneers a playoff team in football's weakest division. And if that's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
It's just funny though. In an ironic way, not an "lol" way. Brady left New England because Belichick was too much of a perfectionist and impossible to please. His Patriots experience was "Intensities in 10 Cities" and he couldn't take another season of it. He went to Tampa Bay to relax, be himself, and bring joy back to football. Only to export Belichickian culture to a franchise that rejected it once they had a taste of success. They were no longer willing to keep paying that price. All of which makes the fact those two high-strung, stressed out, Type A obsessives kept their collaboration going for 20 years all the more impressive.
Still, congrats to Tampa Bay and to Mayfield. The true football success is the friendships you make along the way.