What is up, it's the rant, my name is Jeff Rackliffe, and it is Sunday! July 18th, enjoy the Sundays without football. I mean, hey, I love Sundays with football, but, uh, we only got a couple of these left!

Pretty wild, man. I'm excited for this season. It's a rebirth. It's a rebirth. We're coming out of the crap of 2020 and 2021, not so bad. So far, so good. Can't complain. I tell you what, though, 2020 wasn't too bad, though, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who, of course, the champ is here. We will be covering on today's podcast. Uh, before I get into that, though, just a friendly reminder to head on over to ftnfantasy.com where you can check out rankings,

some of the best tools in the industry, all of the goods over there. And if you want a taste of what we have for free, well, I can, uh, I can hook you up there. I have my tears articles right now live for free July tears. I won't update these really until about midway through training camp essentially now. I mean, nothing's going to change between now and then. So you can get those for free over at ftnfantasy.com. Just click on my author page, and you'll be able to find them really easily right there.

So let's dive into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tom Brady did the improbable. And I mean, almost impossible. He left the patriots. He won the Super Bowl, right?

He, he tossed 40 touchdowns, you know, 4,600 plus passing yards at 43 years old. Oh, and wait. There's more with a torn MCL.

Partially or fully torn. I don't care. You know, there's there's conflicting reports out there. Who cares? That's crazy enough as it is. So Brady, an unbelievable year. Now it didn't start particularly well in the first six weeks. He had three finishes at 20 or worse weekly fantasy finishes 20th and week six, five and he was 30th in week two.

But from there on out, things did start to click. Now you did hear a lot of I think overblown kind of BS hot take. I don't watch the games. I don't have any clue of what I'm talking about takes that his deep ball was gone. And go back. Hey, I can prove it. I have audio. That's a one nice thing about me. Hey, if I have a bad take, the audio is there. But if I have a reasonably okay take the audio is there. I said, Hey, Tom Brady's arm wasn't shut. Who the heck was he throwing you to?

In New England over the last couple of years downfield. Nobody nobody. And so this year this past year that is he steps in and yes, he was inaccurate. I think that's a good way of putting it.

But at the same time, remember that it was a COVID year. He didn't have his typical off season and unlike what we saw in Denver. So when Peyton Manning went into Denver, there were essentially going to run the offense and it didn't work. And then they ran the Peyton Manning offense.

Well, here Tom Brady ran this Bruce Arians Byron left, which offense throughout the course of the year. And it took him half the season to essentially get on the same page with his receivers. Once he got on the same page, we saw the explosive potential.

Now, of course Brady, he ran for six yards, not a game for the season. Now he had three Russian touchdowns, whatever he's always good for a couple sneaks, right.

Sneak touchdowns, but six, six. So 40 touchdowns through the air that helped into a top 10 season. But the problem with Brady as compared to some of the other guys that we like in this range.

You know, even somebody like Jalen Hertz, Jalen Hertz has that rushing ability that Brady just simply doesn't deliver Ryan Tannehill maybe is the better one because I have these guys back to back in my rankings. Tannehill 265 rushing yards.

Tannehill can run Brady can't. So in a week where you don't have you have a down week in the passing game, maybe you still chip in a rushing score.

40 or 50 rushing yards and it's not a disaster. But if Brady has Brady goes out and has like a 200 yard game, no touchdowns, he's not going to have any rushing yards. If he has any, it's like one.

That's a disaster for fantasy. So that's the one drawback with him other than the obvious he's 44 freaking years old. But I will say this, the dude has not shown any signs of decline.

Think about it. You know, we talked about this in the Pittsburgh podcast last week. Ben Rothisberger has shown signs of decline. Has Brady ever shown that? Did he look like he was on the decline this year? Okay, yes, the people complained about the inaccurate deep balls, but he was still pushing a ball down field.

I don't think there was any signs of decline. That's scary, man. That's scary. Maybe I should need tomatoes and peppers as well. I don't know, but because I'm definitely showing signs of decline. Anyway, Brady, he's fine as a back in quarterback one, not the highest ceiling, but a reasonably high floor. I don't mind it whatsoever. And the interesting thing here is you have a fleet of weapons.

You have Mike Evans. You have Chris Godwin. You have Antonio Brown. You even have Scotty Miller, Tyler Johnson and the rookie Jalen, Darden, who Brady actually helped hand pick. So there's that. Then you have three really capable past catching tight ends. Rob Gronkowski, late career, but still pretty darn good. Cameron Brate. He's a catch and fall down type of guy, but still pretty good. And then OJ Howard and I know OJ Howard. The one great by half. I tell you.

Yeah, this is really grides my gears. Now, but seriously, the one great by hat with the redraft crowd is they, they really don't give tight ends long enough, long enough runway.

Your one tight ends rarely are going to perform well. Your two tight ends rarely going to perform well. Year three, they start to make some improvements. Year four, that's when it should hit. Year four, your five. For most tight ends, that's the career arc because of the learning curve.

Kyle Pitts is very likely going to be an exception to that. Occasionally, we will see some guys who make a leap a little bit earlier, like a George Kittle, but obviously he's a special player.

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