It presumably looked good when they drew it up. But they didn’t account, when configuring the Xs and Os, that the intended receiver is 45 and slow -- and that the field was going to essentially be a Slip-N-Slide.
The Buccaneers called it anyway. A running back pass from Wildcat formation, with Tom Brady the target of the throw.
On the latest episode of his Let’s Go! podcast, Brady discussed the play in which he reprised the weekly role of Chevy Chase from the cold opening of each episode of the first season of Saturday Night Live.
“I think the thing about it was when the ball was in the air, I obviously knew I wasn’t gonna catch it, but I tried to go up to at least tackle and try to keep the ball, and then I fell on my face,” Brady said. “So in a lot of ways, you know, [I felt] embarrassment and shame at the same time on the same play. I won’t forget that play. And I haven’t had many receptions in my career, so I thought it would be pretty cool to get one in Germany. But it only seems right that the country with no speed limit on the Autobahn got to see me run routes as a wide receiver, which was very, very slow.”
It was. And it wasn’t some garbage-time gadget play. The result -- an interception plus 15 yards of field position after Brady tripped Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen -- could have provided Seattle with the spark needed to win a game that Tampa Bay led at the time, 14-3.
The fact that the disastrous play didn’t alter the outcome makes it less problematic. Still, it’s fair to ask what in the hell the Buccaneers were thinking? Even if Brady hadn’t bitten the dust like Kramer on a broken bottle of booze, why expose the GOAT to contact down the field with the ball in his hands? The most important player on the team is also the oldest and most fragile, relative to his teammates.
It never should have been in the game plan. It never should have been called. And it hopefully (for Brady’s sake) never will be called again.
After all, we’d seen it before. In Super Bowl LII. That time, he didn’t fall. But he dropped it. It was a weird time to give him a shot at redemption, nearly five years later, five years older, and five years slower.