If Tom Brady Needs a New Coach, Then That's Tom Brady's Fault

Rob Ninkovich made the call sheet for the post-Thanksgiving episode of Get Up this morning and successfully said something worthy of aggregation. Tom Brady's former teammate thinks that the All-Everything quarterback would benefit from a new head coach.

"Bruce Arians, at this point right, he's not cutting it," Ninkovich said.

Ninkovich may have a point. Arians' willingness to throw Brady under the bus like the quarterback is just one of the guys may be truly egalitarian, but it's both striking and concerning, a giant break from what became the norm over two decades in New England with Bill Belichick.

Who could have possibly seen this coming?

Well, a few people actually.

Ed Werder chimed in after the Ninkovich hit and revealed there were multiple people in the Patriots organization who saw the Brady-Arians marriage as a bad fit. One of them was clearly not Brady, who opted to sign up for his last swings at a Super Bowl swan song.

Which leads us to this point. Arians is not some young, unknowable entity. His cake has long been baked. Thousands of players through the years have played for him. His scheme personality has been fairly steady. So Brady knew exactly what he was getting into. Or at the very least, he has no defense for not knowing what he was getting into.

Brady picked his coach. If he needs a new one, that's his own damn fault. No one blindfolded Brady and took him to Tampa without his permission. It's not like his buddies kidnapped him and dropped him into a New York Yankees fantasy camp at the spring training facility.

No, everyone involved in this experiment has gone in with eyes wide open. And Brady in particular has been given great leverage to build around himself. See Brown, Antonio. We're not even into the data/analysis phase with much of the regular season left to play and a wide-open playoff picture desperate for a master to splatter with visionary grandeur.

When the final whistle blows, the Buccaneers' foray will either be a success or a failure. There seems to be little ground in the middle. And Brady should be praised if it works and blamed if it doesn't. Because he is not a cog in the machine. He is the machine. An all-knowing one who did the calculations and decided a partnership with Arians was worth the risk.