Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn't look anything like a playoff team Sunday when they were absolutely dominated by the NFC West-leading San Francisco 49ers in a Week 14 rout.
Led by rookie seventh-rounder Brock Purdy, the 49ers scored touchdowns on four of their first six first-half drives while simultaneously forcing a trio of three-and-outs from Brady's offense. The complementary effort helped San Francisco take a 28-0 lead at the half before Brady threw interceptions on a pair of second-half possessions. It was never close.
"Look this is the NFL, you play a really tough game. You play a tough team on the road, they're physical, they're tough," Brady told reporters after the 35-7 beatdown, per the team. "They kicked our ass. The reality of this sport is every time you take the field, you have the opportunity to get your ass kicked or to kick ass. And obviously we're on the wrong end of it today. But you got to put the work in and you got to dig deep and keep fighting."
Brady and the 6-7 Buccaneers are back below .500 and their lead in the NFC South is down to one game over the 5-8 Carolina Panthers and 5-8 Atlanta Falcons. There now is a realistic chance the Super Bowl LV champions miss the playoffs. Brady blamed Tampa Bay's lack of consistency and pointed the finger at himself one or two times, including his NSFW reference to the throw he made to Mike Evans on a missed touchdown opportunity.
"I think all year we just never get off to fast starts, we're behind and turns it into a pass-athon and it's hard to play football like that," Brady told reporters. "So, you know, that's a good football team. They're good. They played well today. Brock played really well, they made a bunch of plays offensively, defensively and special teams. And we didn't make many offensively, we didn't make many defensively, we didn't make many on special teams. You win because you make plays, you keep them from making plays. When they make plays and keep you from making plays, you know, you lose by 28 points.
Brady added: "It's easy to say, just everyone's got to play better. We're just not playing. We just have not played consistently well very often. We haven't played it for four quarters. Maybe we've played it a little bit at times. Not today at all, but some games we played well for five minutes and don't play well for 55 minutes. Some games we played pretty well for half. We just have not played consistently well for a game."
It only gets more difficult before it gets any easier for the Buccaneers. Brady and company will host the 8-4 Cincinnati Bengals in Week 15 before closing their final three weeks against the Arizona Cardinals, Panthers and Falcons.
