Tom Brady makes surprising admission about first season with Bucs

Tom Brady looked like he had very little trouble adjusting to a new system last year, as his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was one of the best of his career. According to Brady, however, it wasn’t nearly as easy as the results indicate.

Brady made an appearance on the “HODINKEE Radio” podcast recently to discuss watches, and the 43-year-old also mixed in some football talk. He made a somewhat surprising revelation when he said he was still learning head coach Bruce Arians’ playbook halfway through last season. Brady said he relied a lot on his wristband.

“Midway through the year, I was still trying to figure out how to call the plays,” Brady said, as transcribed by JoeBucsFan.com. “I just read [the plays] off my wristband and tried to visualize what was going to happen.

“It’s like learning a completely new language. You’ve spoken English for 20 years and someone goes, ‘Hey man, let’s speak some Spanish.’ And you are like, ‘Huh? That makes no sense to my brain.’”

Brady threw four interceptions in the first four games last season. Tampa Bay’s offense appeared out of sync quite often during the early portion of the year, but they began torching teams down the stretch. That happened as Brady got more comfortable with the offense, but the seven-time Super Bowl champion also said it “took a long time for people to get to know one another” because of the pandemic protocols that were in place.

Brady’s struggles early in the year led to some criticism from Arians that became popular talk show fodder. The two then capped off their first season together with a Super Bowl win. Based on what Brady said about learning Arians’ offense, it would stand to reason that the Bucs could be even better in 2021.