Alex Smith Credit: ESPN
By Sam Neumann on

Tom Brady caused quite a stir this week, as he lamented the current state of the NFL in a conversation with Stephen A. Smith.

“There’s a lot of mediocrity in today’s NFL,” Brady said, as he commented on the state of the current product the shield is putting out on the field. Specifically, Brady lamented the current state of coaching, fundamentals, and rules from the league that have hurt the entertainment factor.

While Brady’s remarks were endorsed by both Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson, they were not well-received by everyone. Week 12’s version of  ESPN’s Sunday Countdown, saw Brady’s comments be rebuked by another former NFL quarterback in Alex Smith, who vehemently disagreed with the future Hall of Famer’s central premise.

Not far removed from the game himself, Smith believes the NFL has never been better.

“First off, he hasn’t been retired that long,” said Smith. “He was just playing. Like he just won a Super Bowl in the current game. Is he discounting that one? And then, my biggest complaint with this, and no offense to you guys (Randy Moss and Tedy Bruschi), he played in the most uncompetitive division, I think, in NFL history.”

In 2007 — when New England went 16-0 in the regular season — Brady faced a gauntlet of quarterbacks in the AFC East that included Kellen Clemens, J.P. Losman and Cleo Lemon. But Smith was largely exaggerating, even though the Patriots did win 17 division titles from 2001-19. As pointed out by Robert Harding on X, in eight of those years, the AFC East had at least one other playoff team.

In the interest of being fair, NFL on CBS analyst Jay Feely pointed out Brady’s record vs. non-AFCE opponents, 195-73.

“I mean, you come out of training camp in the biggest cupcake division, you got a ticket to the playoffs right away,” said Smith. “Like, talk about mediocre.”

“I completely disagree with this,” he added. “I know he’s referencing the rule changes, over the middle to the receiver, but in my opinion, I think the game’s gotten better. There’s more parity across the league, quarterback play is at an all-time high… You got the best athletes playing the position. We didn’t have this 30-40 years ago. Listen, he’s also referring that offense is down, right? Like the numbers this year. For me, I kind of think we’re in a golden age of d-linemen…”

While Brady using his pulpit to make the argument might get the most attention, it also opened the floodgates for those like Smith to respond. And it’s ultimately not terribly surprising that someone took the contrarian viewpoint, especially with a quarterback who may have a different vantage point than Brady, who was used to dominating the league time and time again.

Only time will tell whether Brady’s or Smith’s assessment of the NFL is correct.

[Awful Announcing on X]

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann