Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady struggled in last night’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens, and his recently-announced divorce suggests that he hasn’t been completely focused on the NFL this season.
So Bucs head coach Todd Bowles was asked on Friday if he thinks Brady’s divorce has impacted his play this season. Bowles quickly made it clear that he has no such belief.
Speaking to the media, Bowles said that people go through “hard times” all the time. He said that it falls on everyone to navigate their hard times “as best you can and keep moving.”
“This is not a new or a different type of deal for a lot of people in the world. It’s life. You’re going to have this, whether you’re a billionaire or whether you’re broke. You’re going to have ups and downs, deaths in the family, hard times…” Bowles said. “That’s just part of life. You have to navigate as best you can and keep moving.”
That doesn’t really answer the question though. We already know that everyone goes through tough times.
The issue is whether Brady’s current problems are impacting him on the football field.
Unless Brady himself answers that question, we’ll probably never get anything approaching a satisfactory answer.
The Bucs’ playoff hopes are still alive thanks to a weak division, but with the team losing the way they have lately, that’s still no guarantee.