Expectations for Tom Brady and the new-look Tampa Bay Buccaneers are sky-high as the 2020 NFL season nears.
Perhaps too high, if you ask ESPN NFL insider Dianna Russini.
Russini isn't among those who believe Brady will lead the Bucs to the Super Bowl in his first season as Tampa Bay's starting quarterback. In fact, she believes TB12's new team will miss out on the playoffs in the upcoming campaign.
" ... Everyone is predicting they're going to the Super Bowl and I don't even think they're going to make the playoffs," Russini said Tuesday on ESPN's "Get Up." "At the end of August, I'm going to stick with that despite the fact that this offense is raving about Tom Brady's work ethic, his intelligence. Here's what we know about Brady: He likes routine, he likes to be comfortable and he likes to be coached hard. This has been a very strange offseason. He worked out on high school fields before he got to training camp.
"All of this is different. He's in a new system. He also led the league last year in throwaways. He's a little skittish, he doesn't like to get hit. But in a Bruce Arians offense -- if you take a look at the numbers over the last two seasons with the Bucs and when he was with the Cardinals -- his quarterbacks were getting hit a ton and they were getting blitzed even more. This is going to be a big change for Tom Brady. I expect them to come out sort of flat and never really peak, although next season I think will be the year Tom Brady and Bruce Arians will be stars together."
A great first step in staging a Super Bowl run is by winning your division. That will be no easy task for the Buccaneers, who will be hard-pressed to usurp the New Orleans Saints in the NFC South. Tampa Bay will have the benefit of an expanded playoff field in 2020, but the NFC as a whole is fairly loaded.
The Bucs are set to be tested from the get-go in the new season, as they're scheduled to open their 2020 slate in New Orleans against Drew Brees and Co.
