‘I think there’s a lot of mediocrity in today’s NFL,’ he said on the Stephen A. Smith Show. ‘I don’t see the excellence that I saw in the past.’

Asked by Smith why he thought that, Brady put the blame on the league’s coaching and rules.

Ex-quarterback Tom Brady believes there is a ‘lot of mediocrity’ in the NFL, he said this week

Brady lifted his seventh and final Super Bowl in 2021 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

‘I think the coaching isn’t as good as it was. I don’t think the development of young players is as good as it was. 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’s it’s been.

He added, ‘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 himself? We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time. Now they’re trying to be regulated all the time. Offensive players need to protect themselves. It’s not up to a defensive player to protect an offensive player. A defensive player needs to protect himself.

In 2018, the NFL made it illegal for players to initiate contact with an opponent by lowering their helmet into them.

There has also been controversy in recent seasons about what should be deemed a legal hit on a quarterback, and what should draw a rouging the passer call.

Since retiring, Brady has become a minority owner of Championship soccer club Birmingham City, and also agreed to buy a stake in the Raiders – though that deal has yet to be finalized.