Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers each have 10 games remaining to help turn their teams’ seasons around, but one or both future Hall of Famers could decide to hang it up at the end of the year.
SportsBetting.ag set odds last week for each player to retire — Brady at -300 and Rodgers at -200. However, those odds shortened to -500 and -300, respectively, after both quarterbacks struggled mightily in ugly losses Sunday.
Brady is still in a familiar spot atop his division, but that’s highly deceiving in the woeful NFC South. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 3-4 after an embarrassing 21-3 loss to Carolina and third-string quarterback P.J. Walker on Sunday.
Brady, 45, briefly retired over the offseason and then missed significant time during training camp for personal reasons. Amid rumors of a potential split from wife Gisele Bundchen, Brady steered the Bucs to a 2-1 start but Tampa Bay has since lost four of its past five games.
His offense is scuffling in large part due to an injury-riddled offensive line. Minus a strong ground game, Brady rarely threatened Carolina’s end zone on Sunday. The Bucs were 2-of-12 on third down against Carolina despite Brady passing for 290 yards.
“We’re plenty capable of making plays,” said Brady, who has a losing record through seven games of a season for the first time since 2002. “We’re just not consistently making them enough to score points.”
Green Bay is also 3-4 after Rodgers and company dropped their third straight game — a 23-21 setback to Washington and second-string quarterback Taylor Heinicke. The Packers are now 2 1/2 games behind Minnesota in the NFC North.
However, Green Bay also remains in the thick of the playoff race with only five teams in the NFC currently sporting a winning record.
Rodgers, 38, said there is time for the Packers to turn their season around, but players must be accountable for improving their performance — especially on the mental side.
“We’re just having way too many detailed mistakes,” he said Sunday. “It’s just not winning football. It could be the total wrong route. It could be the wrong stem, it could be the release.
“We’re just not good enough to overcome some of those things right now. We have talent on our team for sure, but it has to consistently show up.”
The Packers need it to show up sooner than later with games against Buffalo and Dallas book-ending a trip to Detroit.
The sportsbook has dropped Green Bay’s odds of winning the NFC North to +500 and of reaching the playoffs at all to +160. The Packers are now +3300 to win the Super Bowl, their highest mark since the 2018 season, according to SportsBetting.ag.
The Bucs are currently +1800, the highest their Super Bowl odds have been since Brady arrived in 2020. Tampa Bay is still -230 to reach the postseason, but only because of the division they play in.
“Make a big play. Make a bad play. Make a big play. Make a bad play,” Brady said. “In football, it’s just not good enough. You can’t play like that. You’ve got to string enough good plays together to get the ball into the red area and score points.
“Just haven’t done that.”
–Field Level Media
