Less than a year removed from his legendary playing career, Tom Brady was evidently not impressed with the current level of play in the NFL.

Last week, the retired quarterback grievances with the decline in “quality” of the NFL’s on-field product during a recent appearance on The Stephen A. Smith Show. The seven-time Super Bowl champion also pointed the finger at “the rules” for having “allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game.”

A lot of people agreed with him, but Alex Smith wasn’t one of them.

Smith was on Sunday NFL Countdown when he stated his disagreement with Tom Brady’s words while stating that he won a Super Bowl not too long ago.

He also destroyed his own colleagues by mentioning that Brady played in the AFC East, which he called “the most uncompetitive division in NFL history.”

Aside from Smith — Aaron Rodgers was another quarterback who spoke on what Brady had to say. He agreed with Tom Brady that players do not develop as well now as they did in years past.

The New York Jets quarterback was asked about Brady’s comments Tuesday on the Pat McAfee Show and said rule changes have resulted in players having “bad habits.” Rodgers attributed the rule changes to a “softening of society.”

The NFL has increasingly worked to take big hits out of the game, particularly against defenseless receivers over the middle and quarterbacks in the pocket. Not only that, the league is likely set to take the ‘hip drop tackle’ away this offseason which will make tackling a player from behind that much harder.

Given the increased understanding surrounding head trauma caused by playing football, the NFL has understandably steered more toward the protection of players.

If the league did nothing, they would be blasted for that as well. Damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.