The biggest talking point coming out of Week 13 in the NFL was the huge hit Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair laid on Jacksonville Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence as he was looking to slide and give himself up. The majority of the discourse has centered around the LB being in the wrong. Many prominent voices, including Tom Brady, have taken a different tack, instead making the argument that the onus shouldn’t be on the defender to protect his opponent, and that QBs need to slide earlier.
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On his show Nightcap with Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson, Shannon Sharpe communicated some strong feelings, not necessarily on the hit itself, but on Brady’s comments on the hit. While Sharpe didn’t necessarily disagree with Brady’s perspective—that the NFL should penalize QBs for late or fake slides—he thought that Brady was the “wrong messenger.” Especially considering his track record.
“Tom Brady said… they’re putting the onus on the defense. Tom Brady is the wrong messenger. Because they (the NFL) had a rule changed (because of him). Does he not (remember) that the Brady Rule was instituted to protect HIM!? I get what he’s saying, Ocho, but he’s the wrong messenger.”
“A lot of these rules that they put in place to protect the quarterback, he benefitted from… Tom Brady said, ‘Well, hell, I ain’t gotta take no more hits, punish the quarterbacks’. Really bro? REALLY!?” the former tight end continued.
When Sharpe also pointed out that because Lawrence is 6’6″, it’s tougher for him to get down into a slide quickly, Ochocinco countered that if it takes him longer to slide, he should start sliding earlier, which makes a lot of sense. Diving head-first could also be an option to help QBs avoid those types of hits as well.
What really seemed to grind Sharpe’s gears, though, was Brady’s past in these situations. In 2008, a defender rolled up on Brady’s leg while he was in the pocket, tearing his ACL and ending his season in Week 1. Shortly thereafter, the league created a rule, often called the “Brady Rule”, that penalized defenders for hitting QBs in the pocket below the knees.
TB12 was also known for influencing refs and complaining about calls about as much as anyone during his playing days. That surely added to Sharpe’s outrage over Brady’s recent switch in stance.
Brady has changed his stance on these topics in recent years
Tom Brady wasn’t the only one looking at the situation from the defender’s perspective, either. Hall of Fame offensive tackle Joe Thomas went so far as to say that the “NFL needs to ban weaponized quarterback slides.”
Quarterback slides are a pickle. That’s largely because QBs have really pushed the envelope and taken a mile when the NFL gave them an inch. Kenny Pickett fake slid in college, which led the NCAA to penalize those plays.
Patrick Mahomes is known to fake slide quite often, and Caleb Williams is also getting a rep for it too. Even Josh Allen—who could put his shoulder down and flatten a defender, which makes the whole slide situation that much more complicated, because defenders do need to protect themselves too—fake slid in a playoff game last year en route to a 52-yard touchdown.
It’s not like Brady just changed his tune yesterday, however. The GOAT made comments in the same vein last year. That time, it was regarding hits on “defenseless” receivers. This is also a situation where the offensive player can essentially do whatever they want, and the defender must ensure that he’s not hurting his opponent when they come together.
Brady was adamant that these kinds of rules not only create unfair disadvantages for defenses. But has also led to lower-quality football and football players. The seven-time Super Bowl champ said that because of rules like this, there’s a lot of “mediocrity” in the game, which has resulted from poorer coaching and development due to these rule changes.
“You hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled and not necessarily, why don’t they talk to their player about how to protect himself? We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time. Now they’re trying to be regulated all the time,” Brady said on the Stephen A. Smith Show.
“Offensive players need to protect themselves. It’s not up to the defensive player to protect the offensive player. The defensive player needs to protect himself. I didn’t throw the ball to certain areas because I was afraid players were going to get knocked out. That’s the reality,” he further added.
The proliferation of rules designed to protect offensive players has been picking up steam, with QBs and WRs receiving the lion’s share of that protection. We’re just sitting here wondering, when will it end? Will the violence and physicality be legislated out of the game altogether?
