The Buccaneers haven't gotten off to a great start this season and it seems that Tom Brady has pinpointed why his team has struggled through the first nine weeks.
During the latest episode of Brady's "Let's Go" podcast on SiriusXM, the quarterback revealed what he believes is the team's most embarrassing issue right now.
"There's definitely some things we do well, there's a lot of things we don't do well and I think too much of good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, leaves you average and no one's trying to be average," Brady said. "If you want to be a great team, you've got to be way better than average. So correcting our mistakes, improving our effort, which, that's probably the most embarrassing part of our team is our effort level on game day, and that's something we better fix."
Brady pointing to the team's effort level on game day as something that's embarrassing right now is interesting, if only because Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles definitely doesn't agree with that assessment.
During an interview with the Buccaneers Radio Network, Bowles said that team's struggles had nothing to do with the lack of effort. Instead, the coach pointed to something else.
"It was huge [to beat the Rams] after losing three weeks in a row, you get very sour and you have a very sour taste in your mouth for a long time, not from lack of effort, but lack of execution, lack of doing things right," Bowles said, via Joe Bucs Fan.
You could look at this in one of two ways, either Brady and Bowles aren't on the same page about why the team is struggling or they're on the same page, but they're describing the problem differently. Brady might actually agree that there's a lack of execution, but to him, that lack of execution could have to do with the team's effort level.
The good news for Brady and Bowles is that it doesn't matter who's right because they still have plenty of time to get things turned around. Despite their 4-5 record at the midpoint of the season, the Buccaneers are in first place in the NFC South.
Brady doesn't seem too worried about the early season struggles and that's because he believes that the NFL's best teams don't usually start playing their best football until late November, so the Bucs still have some time to figure out their identity.
"The best teams start playing well around Thanksgiving," Brady said. "That's because you basically figured out what you are and what you need to do."
Brady and the Buccaneers will be in Munich this week to face the Seahawks in what will be the NFL's first regular-season game in Germany. After that, they have a bye on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, which might be for the best, because Brady clearly wants them playing their best football after Turkey Day.
