Blink this week and you might miss an earth-shaking move in the NFL. Since the legal tampering window began on Monday, several massive changes have taken place around the league, including a couple of former MVP quarterbacks preparing to leave their teams.
Nowhere have the shockwaves been felt more than in the NFC South, which is seeing two new starters come in. Let’s review the major moves around the division since the start of free agency.
Buccaneers get a big QB upgrade
Obviously, the biggest story of the week/month/year/decade is that Tom Brady is leaving the Patriots after 20 years and signing with the Buccaneers. While it’s not been announced yet, the move has pretty much been agreed to and is already having a trickle-down effect. This morning, Adam Schefter reported that a number of players have reached out to Tampa indicating they’d like a chance to join Brady.
Not only are the Bucs getting a Lebron James-like lure for top talent, they’re getting a pretty decent QB. While Brady is clearly on the decline physically, he’s still one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the game and his production in 2019 was somewhat hampered by a lack of weapons. That won’t be a problem here, as Mike Evans and Chris Godwin might be the most potent receiver combo in football right now.
Brady can’t compete with Jameis Winston’s arm strength, but he’s going to make far fewer mistakes. Winston has thrown 88 interceptions since he came into the league five years ago. During the same time period, Brady has thrown just 36. Bruce Arians knows how to engineer his offense to his QB’s strengths as well as anyone, so any concerns about that match are silly. Bottom line, this makes Tampa Bay a much tougher team and they’re not even close to finished yet.
The Bucs have also re-signed Jason Pierre-Paul and franchise tagged Shaquil Barrett, who combined for 28 sacks last year.