Shannon Sharpe didn’t exactly pooh-pooh the fact that Tom Brady reportedly played through a torn MCL last season while guiding the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title.
But the former NFL tight end also wasn’t in awe Friday while reacting to the news on FS1’s ‘Undisputed.”
“It’s impressive, but I’m not that impressed by it,” Sharpe said, “because he plays a position that’s not reliant on physical ability, his ability to move around. Now, because it relies on him to be subtle, not sudden — Lamar Jackson playing with this, Kyler Murray playing with this, would be more impressive.”
Basically, Sharpe believes that because Brady isn’t a mobile quarterback, the injury didn’t affect him all that much. Which probably is unfair when you consider the physical demands of moving around in the pocket, even if Brady isn’t necessarily taking off and racking up rushing yards.
This isn’t to say Sharpe, a longtime Brady hater, was totally bored by the QB’s success in his first season with the Bucs at age 43. Sharpe just believes overcoming an MCL injury is far down on the list of accomplishments.
“I think the more impressive thing for me that Tom Brady did last year is uprooting his family, leaving one team after 20 years, going to a new team — although the team was immensely talented, he goes to this team, it’s in a COVID season, he doesn’t have the normal (season),” Sharpe said. “The one thing we know about Tom Brady: He likes the monotony of doing things over and over and over again, being able to show up at the same time, being able to get his throwing in, being able to meet like he normally would. But because of the COVID protocols that the NFL set in place, he was not able to go through what Tom Brady would like to think is a normal season.
“So that — and him going there, playing as well as he did, getting his team to a Super Bowl in his own building and winning that — was more impressive to me than him playing with a torn MCL, because he’s not reliant on his legs to move around and make plays like that. He’s a subtle player, not a sudden player.”
All told, Sharpe still was prepared to defend himself against his colleague, Skip Bayless, who long has been one of the biggest Brady supporters on national TV.
“Skip Bayless is gonna come out here and bang on the table: ‘He beat Aaron Rodgers, he beat Drew Brees, he beat Patrick Mahomes on a torn MCL,’ ” Sharpe said. “When the guy was never that mobile. So it didn’t require him to do anything out of the ordinary.”
Sure enough, Bayless made good on Sharpe’s expectations.
Nevertheless, Brady will seek his eighth Super Bowl title upon returning to the Bucs for the 2021 season. And if we’ve learned anything over the past two decades, we probably shouldn’t doubt him under any circumstances.
