One thing is certain about Tom Brady’s retirement: He won’t be back with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Bucs recently signed former No. 1 overall Baker Mayfield to replace the departed Brady.
Whether Brady stays retired is another discussion entirely.
But Bucs coach Todd Bowles thinks the franchise can maintain its newfound standard even without the future Hall of Fame quarterback.
“When you replace a player of that magnitude, first of all, you don’t replace him,” Bowles told NFL.com‘s Judy Battista at the Annual League Meeting. “You lose aura. You lose the expectation of being great. That doesn’t mean you can’t be great. You just have to do it more as a team. We did it as a team when he was there, but he was such a great player and a great person that you focus all on that. And now that that is gone, the perception is that everything else is gone when really it isn’t.”
Bowles expects to compete in 2023.
“We have a lot of good players on our team on both sides of the ball. We have some pieces to fill, but we have a lot of good football players on our team. And we just have to understand that and not go with the so-called outside narrative and do what we have to do to win ball games.”
[NFL.com]
