Getty Tom Brady is walking away from the NFL.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the NFC South champions which brings with it a new set of questions on how the team will handle their two remaining games. After the Bucs clinched the division title, head coach Bruce Arians revealed that the team plans to continue playing the starters, which means Tom Brady is likely to remain behind center for the regular season. Arians did leave the door open to resting the starters in Week 18 against the Panthers if their seeding cannot be improved.
“Yeah, now the last game, maybe, if nothing would change then we’d have to make a decision and see,” Arians noted during his December 26 postgame press conference. “But I’ve always felt like if you rest, you lose something.”
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Arians on Winning the NFC South: ‘We Wanted to Hang 3 Banners This Year’
Winning the NFC South may be lower on Brady’s list of accomplishments, but the team admitted that being atop the division was a preseason goal. Arians emphasized that the Bucs were aiming to “hang three banners this year,” something the team was unable to do even during their Super Bowl run as the Saints won the NFC South in 2020.
“Yeah, we wanted to hang three banners this year, and we don’t have one of those division banners up there for a long time and it feels great,” Arians explained. “I mean, this is what we focused on, to win our division and our guys did it today and can’t be more prouder of the group that played today.”
Brady: ‘Winning the Division’s Hard to Do’
Brady is unlikely to be spotted around Tampa wearing his NFC South champs gear, but the quarterback conceded that it was still significant for the Buccaneers to secure the division title. The star quarterback did not sound like a player planning to rest up during the remainder of the regular season.
“Well, I’m not taking anything for granted, winning the division’s hard to do, and we’ve earned it,” Brady said during his postgame media session. “We’re 11-4 so it’s not the greatest record in the world, but it’s certainly not the worst either. So, 11-4 I’ll take it. We’ve lost some tough games. I think we’ve learned from each of those tough losses, but everything’s ahead of us.
“We gotta again get to another win next week. That’d be huge for us, and then we gotta finish these next two games really strong and then we’ll see where things stack up after that.”
The Bucs face the Jets in Week 17 on January 2 then conclude the regular season with a matchup once again against the Panthers on January 9. Tampa Bay may have clinched the division, but the Bucs are still fighting to have the best possible playoff seed.
The Buccaneers are battling the Packers, Cowboys and Rams for the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Since the expanded playoff, only the top team in each conference gets a first-round bye. The top seed also has the advantage of having home-field advantage throughout the postseason.