Tom Brady No. 9 – JoeBucsFan.com – Tampa Bay Bucs Blog, Buccaneers News

Still valuable.

The free agency dinner bell rings next month. Yes, next month! Time flies, man.

So with the Super Bowl a week from Sunday, it’s not too early to start monitoring free agency. Thus, Matt Bowen of BSPN ranked his Top-50 free agents.

At No. 9 is a familiar face. That would be quarterback Tom Brady. Bowen, an X’s and O’s guy who works with Greg Cosell of NFL Films on “NFL Matchup,” believes Brady can still be a much better quarterback at age 46 than he was last year with the Bucs.

Improve the weapons around Brady and perhaps use what he excels at, and Brady can still be dangerous, Bowen wrote.

Age and future plans come into play when assessing Brady’s value on the market. If he wants to play, he will need a strong run game foundation and much more team speed than he had in Tampa this season. Even in his age-45 season, though, Brady’s 4,694 passing yards ranked third behind Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert. He is still a master of pre- and post-snap field vision, with refined pocket movement and an ultra-quick release.

Yes, the Bucs need speed. So why let Scotty Miller walk, you ask? When is the last time he made a big play in the passing game since he caught that bomb from Brady in the NFC Championship game? Joe thinks that may be the third-biggest play in Bucs history. Seriously.

Since, Miller has been invisible. If you want to argue that failed former Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich didn’t know how to use him, Joe will listen. It seems more than that.

Joe will once again bang the drum for a No. 3 receiver. No, Joe is not banking on Russell Gage. Why would Joe bank on Gage? No matter how you spin it, he woefully underachieved his $10 million-a-year salary.

A running game would be nice. Something tells Joe whoever the Bucs hire as offensive coordinator will have a clue to how to build a running game better than Leftwich.