Tom Brady offered an interesting take last week when he said there's a lot of ‘mediocrity' in the current NFL. Brady criticized not just the lack of greatness, but the coaching and amount of penalties right now. The take received lots of buzz including support from Aaron Rodgers and some criticism from Alex Smith.

Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons joined in the support of Brady, with criticism of the amount of penalties, especially toward defensive players.

“Tom Brady says there's a lot of mediocrity in the NFL today,” Parsons said. “Without a doubt, 100% agree. The league has went more into an offensive league. And I just don't think it's the same love and protection towards defensive players at that. There's players and there's teams that take advantage of these rules.”

“A quarterback can run at you full speed one play and give himself up and the next time act like he's sliding,” Parsons said. “Or you make think he's about to slide and he could juke out and you go with the same energy and you hit him with the same energy because you don't know if he's fake sliding or he is sliding. And you might get a penalty, and you might get a letter in the mail because you late hit this quarterback. I just think it's outright ridiculous. Like, you can either hit the guy or you can't. You're playing football at full speed, you're not playing football at 50%. I 100% agree with what Tom Brady said,” via Bleacher Report on Youtube.

Micah Parsons is definitely right about the ridiculous nature of some of the fouls and fines toward defenders. While improving the safety of the game is of the upmost important, there are times defenders get called for clean hits or when they don't have any time to slow down/change direction on bang-bang plays. With some of the league's best current and formers like Brady and Parsons speaking up, it's important the NFL listens.