WHAT WE LEARNED: NFL CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND — The End of the Tom Brady Era

BY ADAM GREENE

We didn’t even get a kick off on our conference championships before Tom Brady ruined everything. This time, he wasn’t even playing. And I’m not entirely sure it was his fault. Either way…

TOM BRADY IS FINALLY RETIRING FROM FOOTBALL

There was a question after the news originally broke. Specifically, how angry would Brady be that the news came out before he was ready? After Adam Schefter and Tom Pelissaro got the scoop ahead of time and decided to go ahead and let it rip, Brady, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and his crew went into damage control to try to slow down the train, but it was too late. There was no stopping it and, Tuesday morning, Brady officially released the Ashera kitten from his Louis Vuitton bag.

Brady has been in the NFL for 22 years, leads all league history in pretty much every significant quarterback stat and has played in 10 of the last 22 Super Bowls. He won seven of them. If these are marks that can be reached by any other QB in the league, the guys playing now (outside of Joe Burrow) are already behind the pace required.

No one in any sport has played as long as Brady has and been this dominant. He was a fixture in the postseason. He didn’t even go out without a fight in this one. Trailing the Los Angeles Rams at one point 27-3, he pulled his team back to tie it in the final minutes, only to see the Rams snatch victory right before time expired with a couple of Brady like throws from Matthew Stafford.

It’s going to be weird for all the US gambling sites to cover a league without Brady. There are guys coming into the NFL right now that have not been alive on an Earth where Brady has not played professional quarterback.

We already have the first Super Bowl in nearly two decades that won’t contain Brady, a Manning, Ben Roethlisberger or the San Francisco 49ers.

And that’s what it’s going to be from here on out. This season was like the Wild West. Everyone had a legit shot and the playoffs, from the Divisional Round on, have proven that out. Every game has been a one-score victory. Five of the last six playoff games were won in walk off fashion. Only one of the last six was won by a touchdown.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE BUCS?

With Brady hitting the bricks, the Buccaneers currently have two quarterbacks on the roster — former Jacksonville Jaguars first round pick Blaine Gabbert and 2021 second rounder Kyle Trask.

Gabbert appeared in five games last season to mop up in blowout victories. Trask never put on his helmet, but if there is a guy that could take over, it’s him.

Trask was picked at No. 64 overall out of Florida. He completed 68.9 percent of his passes his senior year for 4,282 yards, 43 touchdowns and eight interceptions. This was in the SEC against competition that’s all in or heading to the NFL.

Head coach Bruce Arians hasn’t really helped develop a quarterback since he was Andrew Luck’s offensive coordinator with the Indianapolis Colts. In his two head coaching stints, he’s relied on older QBs acquired in free agency. With the Arizona Cardinals it was Carson Palmer. When Palmer retired after the 2017 season, Arians joined him on the golf course.

While that doesn’t seem to be the case this time, there are still plenty of quality veteran options available if Arians doesn’t feel like Trask can handle it. Both Marcus Mariota and Mitchell Trubisky will be free agents and Jimmy Garoppolo, a former Brady understudy who’s played in a Super Bowl, could be had for a second rounder. They could also mortgage everything in a Deshaun Watson trade (like the Los Angeles Rams do). I don’t think the Green Bay Packers, if they do trade Aaron Rodgers, will send him to a fellow NFC team.

SUPER BOWL IS SET

Speaking of the Rams, their plan to go “All In” has worked to this point, landing them in Super Bowl LVI against the upstart Cincinnati Bengals.

As of this writing, the Bengals are a -4.5 underdog, but only one team would have covered a spread like that in the last six NFL games played and it took an overtime drive to do it.

Both quarterbacks are making their first Super Bowl start and Joe Burrow, just in his second NFL season, joins some elite company. Dan Marino (1984), Kurt Warner (1999), Tom Brady (2001), Ben Roethlisberger (2005), Colin Kaepernick (2012) and Russell Wilson (2013) are the only other QBs to make it to the Super Bowl in their second season. Warner and Marino are already in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Brady, Roethlisberger and Wilson are all heading there.

Second year QBs are 4-2 in the Super Bowl.

The last time the Rams played in the Super Bowl, likely Offensive Player of the Year Cooper Kupp was sidelined with a knee injury and his partner Odell Beckham Jr. was a member of the New York Giants.

This is Rams edge rusher Von Miller’s second Super Bowl (third if you count the one where he was injured and didn’t play). He was named Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl 50, a 24-10 win for the Denver Broncos over the Carolina Panthers. Miller finished with 2.5 sacks, six tackles, two QB hits, a pass defense and two forced fumbles.

The last time Los Angeles was in the Super Bowl, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor was with them. He served as Jared Goff’s quarterback coach in 2018-19.

It’s an intriguing match up, one that I think will be close and come down to the wire because every game over the last couple of weeks has done exactly that. And, it also happens to be the exact same Super Bowl I picked for the 1990-91 season as a 16 year old high school kid just beginning his football prognostication.

It only took three decades to come true.

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

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