Skip Bayless: Tom Brady 'Playing For His Job' Next Season
BOSTON (CBS) -- Tom Brady is still playing some of the best football of his career as he approaches age 40. If he keeps it up for the next season or two, Bill Belichick could be forced to make an incredibly difficult choice between Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo.
But if you ask notorious hot take maestro Skip Bayless, Brady's job is already on the line.
Bayless, who currently hosts Undisputed with Shannon Sharpe on Fox Sports 1, decided to randomly throw out a pair of typically provocative tweets about the Patriots' quarterback situation on Thursday. He believes that Brady is already "playing for his job" in 2017, and that if he begins to significantly falter, Belichick would have an "excuse to cut" the five-time Super Bowl champion quarterback and switch to Garoppolo.
He followed that up with a tweet about Belichick, whom he feels would get rid of Brady out of pure resentment - just to prove he can win with a different quarterback.
Belichick makes his football decisions for a wide variety of reasons, but improving his legacy probably isn't one of them - especially when you're talking about making a change at the most important position on the field.
Bayless' take on the situation is especially ignorant when considering the fact that Brady is currently signed through the 2019 season. So Belichick would have literally no reason to cut Brady a year from now, when the QB would likely still carry considerable value in a trade - which in itself still feels inconceivable.
The only way Bayless' take on Brady would become remotely salient is if Brady's play takes a steep drop-off during the 2017 season. It's not entirely implausible; 40-year-old quarterbacks historically don't play well and their abilities tend to drop off practically overnight (see: Peyton Manning in 2014). They typically fall off the proverbial "cliff" that ESPN's Max Kellerman referred to before last season, in which Brady led the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history and won his fourth Super Bowl MVP.
Brady still doesn't appear close to the edge of said cliff, but once he hits 40, all bets are off.
CSNNE's Tom E. Curran penned a column that acknowledged the coming decision for Belichick and the Patriots if Brady continues to play at an otherworldly level past age 40. It will be the hardest decision of Belichick's career - but if Brady actually drops off, perhaps the decision won't be as hard as it appears now.
But one thing is certain: Brady is not playing for his job in 2017, as long as he's playing like the G.O.A.T. that he is. This is just another case of Skip being Skip - but with Brady hitting the big 4-0, expect a lot more of these takes to come out.
