Tom Brady Dislikes NFL’s New Number Rule

Although many skill position players have expressed their excitement about the NFL’s new rule that will allow them to wear a new range of numbers moving forward, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is not a fan.

The seven-time Super Bowl champion took to Instagram on Thursday to share his thoughts on the change, noting how it could make it harder for him and his offensive teammates to identify potential blitzers.

“Good luck trying to block the right people now,” Brady said in his story, which included a chart with the new acceptable ranges of jersey numbers. “Going to make for a lot of bad football.”

Brady followed that up with another story with a screenshot of the rule change and tagged the NFL and NFL Players Association’s verified accounts.

“Why not let the linemen wear whatever they want, too?” Brady asked. “Why have numbers? Just have colored jerseys. Why not wear the same number? Dumb.”

Under the new rule – which was adopted on Wednesday alongside a number of other proposals – running backs, wide receivers and tight ends can wear 1-49 or 80-89, defensive backs can wear 1-49 and linebackers can wear 1-59 or 90-99. Brady’s gripe is specifically with the defensive backs, who were previously restricted to 20-49, and linebackers, who could previously only wear 40-59 and 90-99.

That said, Brady’s comments seem a bit extreme given offensive linemen can presumably block anyone in a different colored jersey who comes at their quarterback, no matter what number they are wearing. It doesn’t seem to be an issue for the college game, either, where number restrictions only apply to offensive linemen.

Photos courtesy of @Buccaneers on Twitter and @tombrady on Instagram.