Tom Brady makes bold statement about the current state of the NFL

Tom Brady, who funnily enough shied away from taking hits, made a pretty bold statement about the current state of the NFL on his podcast. Yes, I understand that Brady did avoid hits to keep himself healthy. I was mostly kidding there, but the seven-time Super Bowl champion, and perhaps the best athlete to ever walk this earth, made a pretty bold statement about the current state of the NFL.

And to be honest, is he wrong? Tom Brady has a podcast, if you didn't know, and now that he's done playing, he surely feels a bit more freedom to speak his mind about anything related to football. In today's NFL, officiating seems to carry a larger impact on the game that it has before, and the NFL has cracked down on quite a bit of plays, movements, etc that they now consider penalties in an effort to produce a safer and cleaner product.

However, sometimes that doesn't always work out the way the league hopes. Here's what Brady had to say about the state of the NFL on his podcast:

"It's definitely a penalty," he said (starts at 5:43). "There was obviously a holding, they just didn't call it

"Football is a physical sport, there's a physical element to all of this," he said (4:35). "You throw a 15-yard flag for something that, you know, 20 years ago maybe wouldn't have had a flag. That affects the game in a big way."

"There's so many people that want it less and less physical, it's more like flag football, which is going to be in the Olympics in 2028," Brady said (8:30). "Maybe football goes to flag football over a period of time.""

- Tom Brady

Here's the play that Brady was referencing when he said that it was definitely a penalty:

This was a no-call on Monday Night Football between the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills that surely had an impact on the game. Anyway, Brady makes some pretty bold statements, likening the NFL to turning into flag football at some point. Some, perhaps most may agree that the NFL has gotten a bit softer, and then you add the seemingly piling up "bad calls" each week that have a huge impact on the result of games.

Hopefully this changes soon.