NFL great Tom Brady knows what excellence is, and he's not seeing a lot of it these days.

The NFL legend appeared on ‘The Stephen A. Smith Show' to talk about retirement, Bill Belichick, and more – and Brady shared that he thinks the league is mediocre right now:

Said Brady on the league, “I think there's a lot of mediocrity in today's NFL. I don't see the excellence that I saw in the past.”

When Smith asked him why that is, Brady responded, “I don't think the coaching is as good as it was. I don't think the development of young players is as good as it was. The rules have allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game. So I just think the product, in my opinion, is less than what it's been.”

Brady then called back to the NFL's past as an example – “I look at a lot of players, like Ray Lewis, and Rodney Harrison, and Ronnie Lott, and guys that impacted the game in a certain way. And every hit they would have made would have been a penalty. You hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled and…not necessarily…why don't they talk to their player about how to protect himself?

We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time. Now they're trying to be regulated all the time. Offensive players need to protect themselves. It's not up to a defensive player to protect an offensive player.”

In the long-form interview, Brady also shared why he think Bill Belichick is the greatest coach in NFL history.

Brady has plenty of time on his hands as he waits for approval to become a partial owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.