Tom Brady is no stranger to heartbreaking losses, which is the cost of doing business for playing so many big games over the course of a historic career.
But this might be the most frustrating stretch of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback’s entire NFL career.
Brady and the Bucs lost again Thursday night — their third straight defeat — as the Baltimore Ravens ran away from them in the Week 8 opener. The Brady-led Tampa Bay offense scored just 22 points, an inflated figure after a garbage-time score in the final moments. It still marked their second-highest offensive output of the season and the most they’ve scored in a month.
It is the first time the seven-time Super Bowl winner has been 3-5 in his legendary career. The three-game losing streak is just the second of Brady’s career, and the first since a four-game skid in 2002.
The notoriously competitive QB sure looks and sounds like he’s reeling. Brady, according to The Athletic, sat at his locker after the game for an extended period of time. He then did his perfunctory press conference at the podium, in which Brady’s expression lingered somewhere between dejected and shellshocked.
“Losing — we’re playing to win. Losing is no fun for any of us. We put a lot into it, and we’re just coming up short,” Brady said Thursday night when asked about how this compares to some of the frustration he has faced over his career.
Brady wasn’t particularly illuminating with any of his postgame comments, but when he was asked to break down how the Tampa Bay offense was struggling, he made it rather clear there’s a lot of work to be done.
“We’ve struggled at pretty much everything,” Brady said. “Struggled in the red area, struggled on third down, struggled in the run game, two-point plays, short yardage, backed up, start of the first quarter, start of the third quarter. Not very good offensive football.”
The numbers back that up, too. Tampa Bay entered the week as the NFL’s 19th-ranked offense by DVOA and 20th by EPA. There’s no run game to speak of, as evidenced by the 45-year-old Brady leading the league in passing attempts for the second straight season. Brady’s passer rating of 92.4 is his lowest since the final year of his Patriots career, and his 49.5 QBR would be the lowest of his career dating back to 2006 when it became a stat.
And to make it all worse, his personal problems at home with his wife, Gisele Bündchen, are no secret, either.
The Bucs have 10 days to try and turn things around before a Week 9 game with the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams.
