You can call Tom Brady many things.
Shannon Sharpe would probably call him a hypocrite.
This comes after the former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback turned NFL on Fox broadcaster sided with Azeez Al-Shaair. The Houston Texans linebacker, whose knockout hit gave Trevor Lawrence a concussion, has since been suspended three games by the NFL.
Brady argued that quarterbacks need to take care of themselves.
“The quarterbacks need to take better care of themselves,” Brady said. “When you run, you put yourself in a lot of danger. And when you do that, I don’t think the onus of protecting an offensive quarterback who’s running should be on an offensive player. I don’t think that’s really fair to the defense.”
That led to Sharpe insinuating that Brady is a hypocrite on his Nightcap show with Chad Johnson, a former teammate of Brady’s.
“Tom Brady is the wrong messenger because they had a rule changed,” Sharpe began. “Does he not know ‘The Brady Rule’ was instituted to protect him? I get it; I get what he’s saying, Ocho, but he’s the wrong messenger. Because a lot of these rules that they put in place to protect the quarterback, he benefitted from.
“It’s kind of like what we see with a lot of Hispanics when they talk about ‘Yeah, deport, deport, deport.’ When they got over here, we see it. We know how they got over here. See, it’s easy to say ex post facto. ‘Well, I’m here now. I don’t give a damn. Close it — don’t let nobody else over.’ Tom Brady said, ‘Well, hell, I ain’t got to take no more hits; punish the quarterback.’ Really, bro? Really? Really?
“And I get everything that they said, Ocho. The late slide — Patrick Mahomes is notorious for that. Seeming like he’s gonna slide, and then he wiggles and finagles. No that’s wrong; punish it… Tom is the wrong messenger when he benefitted when he was one of the most beneficiaries of the rule change to protect the quarterback, so how is he going to say this now?”
Sharpe’s critique isn’t just about Brady’s words. To him, it’s about the irony of a player who built a legacy under the league’s protective umbrella now calling for quarterbacks to fend for themselves.
[Nightcap]
