This will be a less painful divorce for Brady

Tampa Bay should be in his rear-view mirror after this loss to Dallas.

Tom Brady tipped his cap as he ran off the field. He stopped to kiss his mom and dad, but he barely broke stride. Later, he told the assembled media that he appreciated the “tough job” that they do, and thanked them and the whole Tampa-St. Petersburg area for treating him with “respect” for these three seasons.

As we’ve seen, Brady hasn’t mastered the GOAT — Goodbye Of All Time — when it comes to leaving the stage. He was gone for 40 days in the spring and then thought he heard a call for an encore nobody else did, and that’s why he was back with the Buccaneers this year, at least in body. He missed much of training camp for “personal reasons,” and returned to a team that was the Rock Ridge of the NFL. It looked legitimate on the surface, until somebody pushed real hard.

If this was Brady’s final game, he proved his rotator cuff is fine. He threw 66 footballs in this 31-14 spanking by the Dallas Cowboys, who never had beaten him before. He got minimal help from any of his pass-dropping, coverage-blowing, blitz-missing teammates, all of whom proved that teams with losing records (8-9) shouldn’t be permitted into the playoffs no matter how many division titles they win. But Brady threw some very nice passes, and his 23 NFL seasons haven’t laid a discernible glove on him, at least not physically. He can still be the sky pilot of a good team, which Tampa Bay isn’t anymore.

There is a lot of two-plus-two speculation about Las Vegas, because former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is the head coach, and the Raiders have Davante Adams, Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow to catch. But there doesn’t seem to be another club which is on the verge of winning and needs a quarterback. You could stretch the imagination to include the Jets, perhaps. Anywhere else, Brady would have to tolerate another intolerable season.

Unless you were a Cowboys employee or fan, it was a bleak night at Raymond James Stadium, made bleaker by the sight of Tampa Bay receiver Russell Gage being carted away near the end as players from both teams kneeled.

Dallas was clicking the way it did against Minnesota (40-3) and Indianapolis (54-19). Dak Prescott threw four touchdown passes, two to tight end Dalton Schultz, and ran for another. The score was cushioned by Brett Maher’s 1-for-4 performance on extra points, an issue that will command the Dallas radio waves Tuesday and maybe all the way up to Sunday’s Divisional Playoff game at San Francisco.

Brady immunized himself locally by quarterbacking the Bucs to a Super Bowl win two seasons ago. Nominally, the current Tampa Bay lineup looks a lot like that one, when healthy. But there are no small details in a league in which the average margin of victory (9.3 points) was the lowest since 1932.

The Bucs have badly missed Rob Gronkowski, who caught seven TD passes the year he joined Brady in Tampa Bay. They missed Antonio Brown, or what he used to be. They missed Ali Marpet, the guard who left football with a ring and his sensibilities at age 28, and Alex Cappa, another guard who signed with Cincinnati.

They missed running back Ronald Jones, who was a nice Plan B for Leonard Fournette at runnng back and gained 978 yards in 2020. Jones is now in Kansas City. Fournette ran for 127 yards in the season-opening win over Dallas, but that was his only 100-yard game, and Tampa Bay as a team broke 100 four times and was 32nd, or dead last, in average yards per run.

Tampa Bay wouldn’t have won its tepid NFC South division if Brady hadn’t shepherded late comebacks against New Orleans, the Rams and Arizona. It ranked 25th in points, 30th in average yards per pass, 26th in touchdowns, 22nd in red zone production and 20th in turnover margin.

And in 2020, Bruce Arians swaggered up and down the sideline. Todd Bowles was his defensive coordinator. Arians took his gruff confidence upstairs after last season’s Divisional Playoff loss to the Rams, and Bowles inherited the big whistle, as he should have. But early returns aren’t encouraging.

With all that, a 45-year-old quarterback threw 733 passes in the regular season, 34 more than anyone else in the NFL. The fact that he even got through 17 games was reason for enshrinement. In 2020 he threw 610 times in 16 games, and his passer rating was 102.2, 12 points higher than in 2022.

Brady reportedly has told people he won’t make a quick decision on his 2023 intentions, and won’t “make the same mistake again,” referring to his false stop. It would behoove the Bucs to begin developing the next quarterback, but Brady stands in the way of that process, just as Tampa Bay’s deficiencies cast a cloud on his return.

Exit strategies are tricky for legendary QBs. John Elway handled it best, walking away after his second conecutive Super Bowl victory. Roger Staubach’s final completion went to guard Herbert Scott, on a deflection, as Dallas lost a playoff game to the Rams.

Joe Montana, Brady’s hero, threw for 314 yards and two TDs in his swansong, a wild-card loss to Miami when he was with Kansas City. Dan Marino certainly didn’t plan to leave on a 62-7 Divisional Playoff loss to Jacksonville, in which he went 11 for 25 for Miami with four turnovers, but it happened.

Brady has nothing to prove, to state the obvious, but maybe he’s not into proving. Maybe he looks at his own game, looks around the league, looks at the wildly successful diet and fitness regimen that he observes, and sees no reason to stop doing something he can still do. Maybe his divorce plays a part, maybe not. Maybe he’s shooting for a 25th season. That might seem superficial, but not if you’re on the doorstep.

There are innumerable ways to amaze your friends when discussing Brady’s career. Someone mentioned that Brady’s Michigan team beat Ohio State in November of 1999 and then played in the Orange Bowl, where Brady threw four TD passes, wiped out two 14--point deficits, and beat Alabama. In between those events, Brock Purdy was born.

Purdy is the seventh-round rookie who was given the microphone when San Francisco lost quarterbacks Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, just as Tom Who was enttrusted with the Patriots, as a sixth-round pick and an obscure second-year man, when Drew Bledsoe went down in 2001. Purdy has won his first six NFL starts. Tampa Bay’s loss prevented a Brady-Purdy matchup in the Divisional round.

Purdy’s breakthrough might stir the QB pot, league-wide, and it’s possible Garoppolo could end up in Tampa Bay. If so, Garoppolo might want to call an old teammate first. Or at least a former one.