Falcons Coach Arthur Smith On Tom Brady: 'I Never Thought He Retired'

Falcons' head coach Arthur Smith wanted to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play without Tom Brady to believe he was truly done.

If there were any teams impact by the initial decision by Tom Brady to retire, aside from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it was the teams that play him twice a year.

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In the case of Arthur Smith and the Atlanta Falcons, they wanted to see it to believe it.

“I never thought he retired,” Smith said, reported by The Athletic. “I think I said that. He was playing at a high level. Until we played Tampa and he wasn’t going to run out there, I was not going to believe it. He’s playing as good as anybody in the league.”

Since Brady came to the NFC South, he has met the Falcons four times in the regular season. Atlanta is 0-4 in those games. Of course, the two are also linked dating back to Super Bowl LI when Brady led the New England Patriots to a historic 28-3 comeback against Atlanta.

It seems as though Atlanta will have more battles with Brady and it may go beyond 2022.

Just as Smith said, Brady is playing some of the best football of his career. He is coming off a season where he led the NFL with 5,316 passing yards and 43 touchdowns. This was the most passing yards of any season in his career. In 2020, Brady threw for 4,633 yards and 40 touchdowns.

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Before coming to Tampa Bay, Brady had thrown 40 or more touchdowns in a season just once. This came in 2007 with the help of Randy Moss. It is clear that he fits into Bruce Arians’ offense and has taken advantage of Chris Godwin and Mike Evans on the outside.

With Brady back, this keeps the Bucs in contention in the NFC moving forward. As for the Falcons, they will need to continue to focus on their own situation under center while game planning to slow down the best to ever do it.