The Tampa Bay Buccaneers kick off at 8:15 p.m. ET on Monday. It’s about 15 minutes before Tom Brady usually goes to bed.
There’s been a lot of talk about Brady’s struggles in prime time this season, along with jokes about his age. The jokes were loud when Brady forgot he was fourth in a loss to the Chicago Bears.
Brady and the Buccaneers try again in prime time when they host the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night, a game that can be streamed live on the Yahoo Sports app. The Buccaneers are 1-2 in prime time, and the win almost slipped away from a poor New York Giants team. Tampa Bay is 6-1 on kickoff of the day.
The idea that there is something behind Brady’s age, sleep patterns, and tank game at night has garnered admiration. Would that be possible?
Tom Brady was not the same last night
Brady’s sleep patterns of going to bed at 8:30 p.m. and getting up early have been common knowledge for years.
The Patriots have played Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights throughout Brady’s career, and they’ve won most of those games. Brady has always done well under the lights. There’s probably nothing to his prime-time issues this season beyond random variance. However, the Patriots also lost their last three nightly games last season, including a loss to the Tennessee Titans in the wildcard round. Between Brady’s last 20 starts, his teams are 11-3 by day and 1-5 by night.
Wins and losses aren’t limited to a single quarterback, but Brady hasn’t been at his best in prime time this season.
Normal Sunday kick-off (seven games): 179 of 266, 1,998 yards, 20 touchdowns, 4 INTs, 108.3
Night kick-offs (three matches): 75 of 119, 741 yards, 3 TDs, 3 INTs, 78.5 rating
This is all probably silly and uses small samples to connect the dots of a humorous tale about a 43-year-old quarterback. But maybe there is a Small something to ask someone to compete at the highest athletic level after they are usually in bed.
Buccaneers change their training schedule
Whatever there is behind the Buccaneers who look like a different team in prime time, Tampa coach Bruce Arians has noticed. He said the prime-time Bucs were a combination of “Bad football. [and] not be ready to play.
To turn things around, Arians said he would change the schedule and have the team train at night.
“We have to try something because we had some really, really bad starts in the night games,” Arians said. “We will try to practice at that time. [on] friday and saturday evening [and] doing more stuff, in fact, Monday morning than we did. We have to try something, so luckily we have an indoor facility and we can work at night. We’re going to do it and hopefully get a better result to start a night football game. “
Brady is one of the NFL’s greatest clutch performers, usually doing his best job when the spotlight is on the brightest. This has not been the case this season. Brady and the Bucs better figure that out, as the NFL won’t be changing kickoff times to accommodate Brady’s bedtime.
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