It isn’t very often that legends like Tom Brady are connected to mediocrity. This one time, that differed, Alex Smith became one of the naysayers as he denied Brady the praise he rightly deserves. Recently, Smith stirred the pot by claiming that Brady played in the ‘most uncompetitive division’ which did not sit right with many including Julian Edelman.
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Julian Edelman is Brady’s former teammate and confidant, who remained by his side in the Patriots for as long as seven years. On getting a whiff of Smith’s criticism for his quarterback, Edelman jumped to the latter’s defense on the ‘Games with Names’ Podcast.
Both Reggie Bush and Julian Edelman took an unforgiving tone as they reacted to Smith’s criticism of Tom Brady. Additionally, Edelman mentioned that the teams crafted their rosters with one goal in mind- beating ‘his guy’ Tom Brady.
“Literally, Tom had to have teams that were designed to try to beat for 20 years… and everyone wants to say the AFC was dog sh*t, this-that, but it wasn’t.”
In line with what Edelman remarked, TB12 stayed with the Patriots from 2000-2019. During this time, they won the Conference Championship nine times. But, what stands tall is that they also won six Super Bowls, beating toppers from other conferences. This caused most NFL fans to adore Brady, despite some criticism of the AFC East even in the past.
In such a scenario, the criticism from Alex Smith had a pushback from not only Edelman but also from Reggie. Interestingly, besides Edelman, Reggie Bush has an experience of witnessing the AFC East dynamics from the inside. He was a part of the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills for brief periods, both AFC East teams. Then again, for Brady, who shone in the NFC South- Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Smith’s criticism needs more substantiation to work.
Julian Edelman and Reggie Bush Present Arguments in Support of Tom Brady
Tom Brady’s greatness was reiterated as Bush and Edelamn noted that Smith surely overlooked some critical opponents in his analysis. They named Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown who stood as the hardest challenge within the conference. Moreover, they took a moment to mention the dynamic Dolphins team or more aptly- Ryan Tannehill-led squad.
It’s true that the AFC East had one of the highest win totals from 2002-2013. However, with the Patriots out of the scene, they ranked the lowest in all divisions and conferences. This might have benefitted the Patriots to some extent, but the overall win percentage paints a more vivid picture. The overall win percentage from 2002-2013 remained 12.3 wins in a season in their division. However, they also had 12 wins per season average in overall non-division wins percentage, per some compiled databases.
Apart from adding evidence, both Bush and Reggie emphasized the fundamental truth of the NFL- there’s no such thing as ‘easy’ in the league. They suggested that the former Commanders quarterback needed to understand that every game was a battle in itself. Moreover, even today, two out of four teams in AFC East have ten or more wins in the season, regardless of the opponents’ division or conference.
