There will be plenty of familiar feelings for Tom Brady when he returns to Gillette Stadium on Sunday night for the first time since leaving the Patriots for the Buccaneers as a free agent in 2020 and Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said Wednesday that there’s familiarity with the offense Brady is leading into New England.
Belichick was asked at his press conference if the offense Bruce Arians is running with the Bucs is different from the ones he ran before Brady came to Tampa. Belichick said “totally” and went on to say that the offense looks more like the one that Brady ran during their time together in New England.
“It’s the offense he’s run his whole career,” Belichick said. “Well, I mean, as it evolved here, but you know. The running game is the running game. The running game is different, but passing game’s the passing game. That’s pretty similar. I mean, you could call almost every play from the flare control to the protection, you know, similar to the way we do it.”
That should help Belichick prepare the team’s defense for Sunday night’s game, but any scheme is only as good as the players operating it. He called Brady “as tough as any quarterback there is or ever has been” and he’ll have to try to stop him for the first time this weekend.
