Tom Brady on Aaron Rodgers passing the football: ‘He makes it look so easy’

TAMPA — There probably isn’t much that would make Tom Brady want to trade careers with Aaron Rodgers.

Both are great NFL quarterbacks. Brady has six Super Bowl rings. Rodgers won Super Bowl 45.

But if there is one thing that Brady admires most about Rodgers, it’s the ease with which he throws the football.

“I think there’s a lot to like about his play and his ability to pass a football,” Brady said Thursday. “I think everybody is pretty much in awe of how he makes it look so easy. Just the throwing motion, the velocity on the ball. The placement of the ball. How quickly the ball gets from his hand to the receivers’ hands. And it’s just been unbelievable to watch over the years, and he’s really kept it going. He’s a great passer. He’s very efficient. His touchdown-to-interception ratio — he basically doesn’t throw interceptions and throws a lot of touchdowns.

“His decision-making is just phenomenal,” Brady continued. “When you do that as a quarterback, you put your team in a position to win. So you’ve got to keep from making mistakes and, obviously, to throw as many touchdowns as he has, scramble for touchdowns, his ability as a mobile quarterback to buy more time for his receivers is pretty unbelievable, too. There’s a lot of great things to say about his game. He’s one of the great quarterbacks to ever play the game.”

Sunday will mark only the third time that Brady and Rodgers have shared the same football field during a regular-season game.

That’s remarkable, even if Brady played 20 seasons in another conference. Brady and Rodgers have played a combined 37 NFL seasons and 375 regular-season games.

Brady will be opposing the Packers defense Sunday, but he knows with Rodgers on the other sideline, he has to play well in order to protect the football and keep Green Bay’s offense off the field.

“When you play against another great quarterback, you know that team is going to be … those are the tough teams to beat, because they’re prepared,” Brady said. “They’re going to play well on offense. They’ve got a very talented defense. It just means you can’t make a lot of mistakes.

“Again, I’m not defending Aaron. We’ve got a whole defense that’s doing that. But from my standpoint, what does that mean? That means I can play a role in that by doing our job on offense so a guy like that doesn’t have his offense on the field trying to score points. You just can’t give guys like that an extra opportunity because they make you pay.

“They’ve had some games that weren’t close this year,” Brady continued. “They get turnovers in the game. They possess the ball. They’ve got a great running game. He’s completed 70 percent of his passes. All of those things play into team football. We know what we’re up against. We’re up against one of the best teams in the league, and we’ve got to go out there and play a great game if we’re going to beat them.”

In 2013, Brady invited Rodgers to his home in suburban Los Angeles and the two ate meals cooked by his chef, watched football and played nine holes of golf at Riviera Country Club.

“Well, he beat me on the golf course,” Brady said. “We played nine holes of golf and he made a putt at the end to win, so I was a little pissed about that.”