Friday, 3 a.m.
He is 43 years old now.
Old enough, you would think, to count to four.
For all the numbers he has amassed, the Super Bowls and the victories and the comebacks, that one eluded Tom Brady in Thursday night's 20-19 loss to the Chicago Bears. On the Bucs final drive, Brady seemed to lose track of how many downs the Bucs had.
Brady's final pass of the night was an over-the-middle incompletion to Cameron Brate. Had he realized it was fourth down instead of third (as he
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thought), he might have chosen a shorter, safer pass to keep the drive alive.
Did the greatest quarterback of them all lose track of downs? He lingered on the field, holding up four fingers to the officials. (Bucs' coach Bruce Arians said Brady knew it was fourth down. Brady didn't address the down, but said he tried to get to big a chunk of yardage on the play).
Penalties will haunt the Bucs after this one. That, and the offensive tackles being overwhelmed. So, too, will a poor performance in the red zone.
“Just pretty poor execution," said Bucs' coach Bruce Arians. "We got down and we had a sack, three penalties – you’re not going to beat anybody with [11] penalties or however many we had, especially when we were down there once and ended up punting because of about six or seven penalties on one drive. I didn’t have our team ready to play – it’s obvious.”
Asked about his team's penalties, Arians simply said: "“Just poor coaching. Poor coaching.”
The Bears' winning points came on a 38-yard field goal by former Buc Cairo Santos.
It was a difficult night overall for the Bucs, who fell to 3-2 with the loss. The Bucs were penalized 11 times for 109 yards and blew an early 13-0 lead.
The banged-up Bucs played without Chris Godwin, Leonard Fournette, Justin Watson and O.J. Howard. Brady still threw for 253 yards, and Ronald Jones II ran for 106, but the Bucs could score only one touchdown.
In the fourth quarter, the Bucs had a 16-second drive that contributed to their defeat.
“They had all their timeouts, so we had to make two first downs. We make a poor play on first down and we throw two incompletes. We obviously only made them use one of their timeouts. It was just poor football.”
“They had all their timeouts, so we had to make two first downs," Arians said. "We make a poor play on first down and we throw two incompletes. We obviously only made them use one of their timeouts. It was just poor football.”
Brady, too, addressed the penalties.
“Well, I think that penalties, they stop drives," Brady said. "We had so many third-and-longs and we just could never get into any rhythm, in the second half certainly, and just poor execution. So if you don't execute well on first and second down, you have third-and-forevers and those are tough to convert time after time after time. So we've got to tighten that up and just play a more consistent type of football. We obviously have a lot of work to do.”
On the final play, Brady said only this: “Yeah, I knew we needed a chunk and I was thinking about more yardage. It was just bad execution. We had a great opportunity there. Just didn't execute when we needed to.”
The Bucs do not play Sunday. They return to action Oct. 18 against Green Bay at Raymond James Stadium at 4:35 p.m.
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