Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady has played in a lot of football games in his career and this season he will be playing in one more regular season game than usual. That's because the NFL, for the first time ever, added a 17th game to the 2021 campaign.
Some are thrilled to see more football on the schedule, but the 44-year-old is not happy with the extra game. On a recent episode of "Let's Go!" podcast, Brady sounded off on the latest league changes. He does not think the extra regular season game is in the best interest of the game or its athletes.
Here's what the seven-time Super Bowl champion said:
"I think it's pointless. I thought it was a terrible decision. So I don't like the fact that we're playing a 17th game at all. I think sixteen is plenty. And, again, you're eight games into the year and you're not halfway through, so that's kind of a little frustrating aspect ... A lot of people know my feelings on some of these topics. I've been pretty vocal about NFL issues over the last couple of years and some of the things that are done that I don't necessarily think are in the best interests of the game."
Brady noted that players will have to prepare differently due to the schedule change.
"A lot of guys probably miss games over the course of the season anyway, so they probably don't play all sixteen, most guys," he said. "But, you know, if you're fortunate to be able to make it through a season and you got to play the 17th game, I think there's a lot of things that I would adjust to, you know, the offseason, you know, the regular-season schedule."
As far as the reason behind the move, Brady believes this is all because "the owners haven't had to listen to the players."
"Usually what the owners want the owners get. So, you know, that's just the way the business has gone," Brady said. "And we need strong union leadership from the player standpoint and a unified union in order to have the right amount of leverage to negotiate what we think is appropriate for an NFL player."
Brady then mentioned the numbers aspect of it, saying that getting 1,500 players to agree on a change is a lot harder than getting 32 owners to agree -- a reference to the CBA between the players' union and team owners.
The QB tends to make the playoffs, so he is almost always playing more than 17 games in an entire season anyway. But it seems the way the decision was made to add an extra one to the regular season does not sit weil with Brady.
