The tandem of Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski looks a little different down in Tampa Bay.
Since both players joined the Buccaneers this year after spending their entire careers prior with the New England Patriots, the duo hasn’t exactly been lighting up the stat sheet.
Brady, of course, still is the quarterback, but Gronkowski’s role as tight end has seen him with fewer targets in the Buccaneers’ play book than he’s used to. Through the first two weeks of the season after coming out of retirement, Gronkowski has just two receptions for 11 yards on four targets.
Tampa coach Bruce Arians was not surprised about the future Hall of Famer’s lack of production, and even doubled-down on his assessment of Gronkowski based on how he’ll be used this season.
And when Brady was asked by reporters about his chemistry with his longtime teammate, the signal-caller downplayed any possible concern.
“Well, I think we all have a lot of things we’ve got to (work on),” Brady said during his Thursday media availability. “We’re going to be improving from the time we started until the time we finish the season. I don’t think we can be discouraged by certain things. Some weeks it’s going to be some guy’s week. Other weeks it’s going to be other guys’ weeks. Everyone is working hard at practice to try to find their spot, their role. We’ve got to figure out what works, what combinations work, what we do well or what we don’t do well. That’s just part of the season.
“You wish everything would be perfect, but that’s just not the reality of football. There are too many things to orchestrate. There are too many moving parts. You’ve just got to figure out ways to win games. It starts with eliminating negative plays, turnovers, penalties and putting ourselves in good situations to score points. Because in the end, it’s got to be scoring more points than the other team. If our defense gives up 40, we’ve got to score more than that. If they only give up three, we’ve got to score more than that. You ebb and flow as the season goes. Some weeks the defense plays better, some weeks the offense plays better, some weeks you get contributions on special teams. Either way, we’ve got to figure out how to win the games when the opportunities present themselves to make them happen — we’ve got to be able to do it.”
We’ll see if those numbers improve as the Buccaneers head to Denver to face the Broncos in Week 3.
