Mac Jones might one day become an elite quarterback and in turn, make the Patriots look smart for moving on from Tom Brady.
But for now, it's pretty clear who's winning the breakup.
Brady largely looked like his prime self over the course of his first season with the Buccaneers, which concluded with a Super Bowl championship. We've seen more of the same from TB12 through the first three weeks of the 2021 campaign, as Tampa Bay's offense looks like one of the best units in all of football.
With Brady showing no signs of decline, it's fair to wonder why New England didn't make a stronger effort to keep the future Hall of Fame quarterback beyond the 2019 season. Former Pats linebacker Tedy Bruschi believes it boils down to the "formula" Bill Belichick operates with.
"I think he (Belichick) had this feeling of what happens to a quarterback when he's 43, 44, 45," Bruschi said Wednesday on NBC Sports Boston's "Early Edition." "Could anybody project what they could have seen from Tom Brady's season last year when he led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl? It would have been extremely hard to do."
Bruschi added: "I would like to have seen maybe Tom still being here, but the formula that is Bill Belichick, he projects. His formula was moving on from Tom Brady. You're talking about a man that doesn't change his ways. There's a formula that he believes in and he will stick to."
Of course, nuance is needed to have this discussion. Would Brady still be playing at an elite level if he was working with the Patriots' latest receiving corps? Probably not. Tampa Bay very clearly was an above-average quarterback away from being a Super Bowl contender, while New England needed -- and still needs -- more to reach that echelon.
Brady and Co. will try to get back in the win column Sunday night when the reigning champs visit the place their quarterback called home for two decades.
