Tom Brady on Packers’ rivalry dominance, Bears’ new Caleb Williams approach

Tom Brady knows plenty about dominating a division rival. Brady had a 90-22 record against AFC East teams in his 23-year NFL career, 20 years of which were spent with the New England Patriots — which he led to 17 AFC East division titles during his time there. In other words, Brady spent 20 years terrorizing fans of the Buffalo Bills (33-3 career record against them), Miami Dolphins (24-12 record) and New York Jets (31-8). 

But the GOAT is still impressed when he sees a similar display of dominance by a team against a division rival, like how the Green Bay Packers extended their 11-game winning streak against the Chicago Bears thanks to a blocked field goal as time expired Sunday with Brady on the call for FOX Sports.

Brady was especially impressed with how the Packers still pulled out the win despite a performance that was far from their best, he told the “FOX NFL Sunday” crew after the game.

“It’s tough to do, against a division opponent, to have that type of success, but they just found a way to win,” Brady said. “It looked so ugly in so many ways for the Packers. There were so many things struggling there, with the interception on the goal line, and then not getting it on the fourth down [and goal], and then finding a way in the fourth quarter to kind of churn out a win. 

“And ultimately, as we know, that’s what the good teams do. You find a way when you need it most. It comes down to the fourth quarter. You need your playmakers to step up. Jordan Love stepped up, threw that ball to Christian Watson, they punch it in, and then they leave it to the defense.”

But Brady still had positive takeaways for Chicago, too, even after another crushing loss dropped its record to 4-6.

“Really impressed by the way the Bears overcame some of these things, and at the same time that blocked field goal — it’s just crushing for the Bears to lose, really, two games — one on the [Week 8] Hail Mary [against the Washington Commanders], one on a blocked field goal,” Brady said. “They should be and could very easily be 6-4 right now.”

The Bears can also take solace that their offense and especially quarterback Caleb Williams improved after a dismal two-game stretch. In that span, they did not score an offensive touchdown, contributing to the firing of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and promotion of passing game coordinator Thomas Brown to take over for Waldron.

The Bears actually outgained the Packers on offense, with 391 net yards to Green Bay’s 366. They also got two rushing touchdowns, while Williams put together one of his best performances of the season with a 74.2% completion rate and 231 pass yards for no touchdowns and no interceptions.

Brady is an avowed critic of playing young quarterbacks early in their careers, preferring to have them sit and learn initially like he did on the Patriots behind veteran Drew Bledsoe. However, he does appreciate that the Bears seem to be making an effort to add more familiar concepts to the offense for Williams, a former college football superstar who won the 2022 Heisman Trophy at USC.

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“It’s interesting with these young quarterbacks now and again,” Brady said. “This wasn’t always a time where the young quarterbacks played. You always thought, ‘We’re going to draft the quarterback, we’re going to teach him our system, and then he’s going to get better at it.’ The difference now is, you’re asking these kids to come in at 22, 23 [years old] and you’re basically adapting your system to the strength of the quarterback. You’re going, ‘Hey, what do you do well at quarterback, and in this case, Caleb Williams, how can we do more of those things to make our offense more productive?’

“So it’s a little bit of a flip in the mind of what the coordinator needs to think about if you’re using a young player, because you can’t bring them in and say, ‘you’re going to run all these new plays that you’ve never run before against a good NFL defense and be very consistent.’ So I like the way they adapted today to some of the strength of what Caleb’s showing that he can do consistently.”

While the Bears hope to build off Williams’ promising offensive performance and get back in the win column against the Minnesota Vikings next weekend, the Packers will head back to Lambeau Field for another massive NFC clash against the San Francisco 49ers — with Brady again on the broadcast for FOX Sports.

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