Brady Retired But Continues To Impact The Buccaneers As They Look To 2024

When legendary quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement from the National Football League and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ahead of the 2023 Gridiron campaign beginning, as fans will know, our odds and expectations for the season plummeted and bottomed out as those in the wider world of the NFL were simply unable to see how we would compete without his experienced leadership.

Naturally, Buccaneers fans had their own concerns as Brady was obviously a massive player on our roster, and his nouse and experience, more than lifted other younger players up to a new level, especially in difficult moments.

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For those who like a flutter, the lack of trust and belief from the wider NFL would certainly have effected game day odds, and that would have been no different in the continually growing UK NFL market and the offers from the betting companies that were offered. Fans in the UK will be looking forward to the 2024 international games that will be held at both the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley, and they will again be incredibly well attended.

But most fans did not quite panic as much as those in the media happened to, and they right to basically hold more confidence in the side than the so called experts did, as although the entire NFC South had been predicted to be extremely average at best, nobody gave us a fighting chance of lifting the division – and we of course, obviously went on to do just that.

Having harped on about the qualities of perceived journeyman quarterback Baker Mayfield, defensive questions being at the fore front of most minds, and some harsh questions about our overall talent base without somebody like Brady to marshal them, the doubters conveniently went quiet pretty quickly when the season began for real and results turned in our favour.

Buccaneers Tiebreaker

We took 2023 9-8 and won the division over the New Orleans Saints via a tiebreaker, and whilst nobody would even try to pretend that the record was in any way actually impressive, it becomes impressive when you factor everything in, not least we were given the lowest odds of any team to triumph.

The cherry on top was we then absolutely hammered the Philadelphia Eagles 32-9 in our decisive Wild Card round victory.

Speaking in a recent interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio, Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht explained that he hopes that we continue to be the perceived underdogs in 2024, as the bottom line is that it is a label we don with pride and relish, because there is nothing better than proving a doubter wrong and making them eat their own words.

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Licht wants it to continue to be a part of our DNA moving forward, as given how well it worked for the side in 2023, we will certainly be hoping to repeat it in 2024 – with hopes of also showing significant, or at least tangible, improvement in our divisional win record as a further cherry on top.

Although Brady left a legacy, his arrival in 2020 on a two year $50 million deal saw us lift the Super Bowl, before his first retirement u-turn, before he then retired for real 12 months later, but Licht pointed out that despite the semi-confusion his plan changes had caused to off field plans, he felt that Brady’s status during his time with us was still having a lasting effect on those players on the roster that he had worked with, nurtured and basically mentored when we talk about the younger players on the team like Tristan Wirfs and Antoine Winfield Jr.

The same is true for more experienced players who had gone through tough times, they also found new confidence and new levels, and that will again be heavily leaned on during the battles that lie ahead.