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Sequels and Supergroup Reunion Tours Always SEEM Like Good Ideas

Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are now reunited as Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They're happy at the reunion, which apparently was all Brady's idea. Assuming there is a 2020 NFL season, will they be happy in December? Or will they learn the hard lesson of show business that for every Godfather II, there's a dozen Fantastic Fours: Rise of the Silver Surfer?

It's all guesswork. My own guess is that if Gronk has anything left in the tank, which is unknowable, and can avoid further injury, a less than 50-50 bet, he and Brady are likely to be if not joyful, at least satisfied. And far, far happier than anyone who goes to work at Gillette Stadium.

Bill Belichick thinks otherwise. He felt Gronk was hit out back in 2018, when he tried to trade him to the Lions. He felt it was well past time for the Pats to move on from Brady when that finally happened in March. As far as New England's future goes, the coach might well be right. But even if the departure of two Hall of Famers was necessary for improvement down the line, the fact remains Hall of Famers are very hard to replace. New England tight ends were a nullity in 2019. To expect whoever replaces Brady to be as good as Tom was in 2019, when he was merely a slightly above average NFL quarterback, is asking for more than can reasonably be expected.

The conventional wisdom in these parts is that Bill will find a way. Maybe he will, too. If anyone can, he can. But I can't help remembering the Celtics of the '80s. As Bird, Parish and McHale got old, injured and retired, they took the better part of two decades to replace. Greatness is rare. There is no comparison between the replacement of pretty good starter Drew Bledsoe and historic great Brady. Don't throw poor Jarrett Stidham down that well.

Those who believe Brady and Gronk won't do very much for the Bucs, a minority but a large one in NFL I feel are ignoring the basic setup of the Buccaneers. To be blunt, neither is going to be asked to do all that much. They aren't there to be first team All-Pros. They won't be judged failures if Tampa Bay doesn't make the Super Bowl, which it won't. The two incomparable if now faded superstars are part of a plan to eliminate or at least mitigate the weakness that made the Bucs 7-9 last season and make them a playoff team instead.

That weakness was Jameis Winston's stat line. No team of this century could have a winning record with 30 interceptions and seven pick-sixes. That's four losses that might've been wins otherwise right there. As this blog has noted before, the one statistic where Brady remained among the top quarterbacks in 2019 was interception percentage. He had only eight while throwing more passes than most other QBs. Whatever else Brady does for Tampa, if he throws 20 fewer interceptions and five less pick-sixes, he's made them better, much better.

And if Tom thinks he'll do better with his former all-time favorite receiver, and said receiver is available for a fourth round draft choice, why the hell not? Tampa made its play when it signed Brady. Acquiring Gronk is lily-gilding. We may note that there has no gild on the Tampa Bay lily for over a decade. They've gone through some lilies, too. Theirs tend to die each November.

Brady could deteriorate more rapidly in 2020. Gronk could get hurt running wind sprints, and part of me is sadly sure he'll get hurt severely once live action begins. As we learned on Behind the Music, reunion tours often have suboptimal endings for all concerned.

And then again, perhaps not. The only things we know for sure about the Brady-Gronk reunion is that the Buccaneers have made a high stakes short-term bet. Of necessity, Bill Belichick's side of the bet is a long-term gamble on the Patriots' future.

The only sure thing in gambling is that short-term bets, win or lose, end more quickly than long-term ones.

posted by Michael Gee @ 10:53 AM