Broncos DB Kareem Jackson breaks silence after four game suspension with viral Tom Brady clip
Broncos safety Kareem Jackson used a Tom Brady rant to respond to the NFL for suspending him for another stretch of games.
Jackson was just coming off a two-game suspension, which had been trimmed from four, for using an illegal and flagrant hit on Packers tight end Luke Musgrave. Then fresh off that discipline, Jackson used his helmet to hit quarterback Josh Dobbs in the Broncos-Vikings game Sunday night.
On Tuesday, Jackson turned to X to share the Brady clip from a Stephen A Smith podcast. And in the clip, Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl winner, declared there “was a lot of mediocrity in the NFL.”
The now-retired quarterback also said it was up to the offensive players to protect themselves.
Tom Brady said coaching ‘isn’t as good as it was’
Here’s some of what Brady said:
“I think there’s a lot of mediocrity in today’s NFL,” Brady told Smith in Monday’s podcast. “I don’t see the excellence that I saw in the past.”
Smith asked him to elaborate. And Brady had no problem doing so. This is probably what had Jackson and the rest of the Broncos defense cheering.
“I think the coaching isn’t as good as it was,” Brady said. “I don’t think the development of young players is as good as it was. (And) I don’t think the schemes are as good as they were. The rules have allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game. So, I just think the product, in my opinion, is less than what it’s been.”
QB said with new rules, old stars would draw penalties every play
Wait, there’s more:
“I look at a lot of players like Ray Lewis and Rodney Harrison and Ronnie Lott, and guys that impacted the game in a certain way, and every hit they would have made would have been a penalty.”
“You hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled and not necessarily, why don’t they talk to their player about how to protect themself: How to get rid of the ball, how to throw it, how to run out of bounds, how to get down, how to lower your pad level. We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time. Now they’re trying to be regulated all the time.”
And then Brady basically gave all the defensive players in the NFL a big kiss.
“It’s not up to the defensive player to protect the offensive player,” the former NFL star said. “The defensive player needs to protect themself. He shouldn’t ask the offensive player to protect him.”
Now, here’s the play that caught the attention of the NFL. As you can see, the Broncos safety used his helmet to hit Dobbs chest high to force a fumble.
With Broncos on winning streak, Jackson will appeal penalty
Jackson has asked to appear his suspension. He doesn’t want to miss a month’s worth of games as the Broncos are in the midst of what appears to be a turnaround season. Denver started the season by dropping their first three games. The Broncos now have won four straight to even their record at 5-5.
Derrick Brooks, the Hall of Fame linebacker, will hear Jackson’s appeal. He cut the first suspension from four games to two.