I’ve always been a Steve Young fan for multiple reasons, two of them being that he’s loquacious and opinionated. Never has this side of Young been more evident than in his commentary role on Monday Night Football’s pre and post game shows, and Monday night’s comments on the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady are a perfect example.

If you missed it, Young and fellow commentator Trent Dilfer made remarks Monday essentially saying that the Patriots’ have left the 37 year old Brady out to dry, not giving him quality receivers and letting him work behind a woeful line. They claimed that the Patriots’ regime refuses to spend the cash needed to make upgrades that could propel the late QB model Brady to one more Super Bowl run.

The Boston media was as crazed as a teenage girl over an Instagram post by a One Directioner by the comments, and then arrived at a whole new level of obsession when one source claimed to have video of Brady chatting with Dilfer before Monday’s game. “Dilfer and Young must be speaking for Brady,” the media claimed. “The Patriot Way of business will never allow Brady to speak his mind, so he’s having Young and Dilfer speak for him!”

Add to this that Brady and his team looked atrocious in Monday night’s loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, and you have a media base that has wound itself into a (rightful) tizzy.

I’ve read about 16 columns and listened to five different radio segments about it (including the one I’m listening to as I type.) The Boston media is missing a ton of context and back story, not only about Young, but about how Monday Night Football works, that would put Young and Dilfer’s comments in their proper place.

First off, if you have arrived a few hours before kickoff of a Monday Night Football game, you will see Young, Dilfer and the ESPN crew running around on the field like kids playing backyard ball. In the process, they do literally and figuratively run into some of the players as they warm up in sweats and such, and start chatting. Brady chatting with Dilfer pre-game would not be out of the ordinary for a Monday Night game, so the media needs to stop giving that “evidence” the level of importance it is.

Secondly, I don’t know Brady’s exact relationship with Young, but those media claiming that Brady “idolized” Young as a kid show their lack of research. Growing up in the Bay Area in the 1980s, Brady idolized San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana. Brady says as such on a regular basis. He would have been a teenager by the time Young achieved success, and probably did not idolize Young as much. In fact, one rarely, if ever, hears Brady point to Young as a quarterback he idolized. This may be a semantics argument more than anything, but please, stop saying Brady “idolizes” Young. There is absolutely no evidence to that point.

Third, and most importantly, if one looks at how Young’s career ended, you will understand how he could have jumped to conclusions about Brady’s situation on his own and why he could be so impassioned about it.

In September 1999, a 37 (almost 38) year old Young was aging and hurting. Concussions were beginning to take a toll on the 49ers quarterback, and he went into a Week 3 Monday Night match-up against the Arizona Cardinals having already suffered one concussion that season because his very young and not-at-all talented offensive line was leaving him vulnerable. The 49ers were having ownership issues, as Eddie DeBartolo was in the midst of a corruption case, leaving the management of the team hurting. They were unable to keep up the talent level that had kept them extremely competitive through all of the 1990s.

Are you sensing a theme yet?

That Monday night, Young dropped back into the pocket and his line broke down. Right tackle Jeremy Newberry, a second year player who was only starting in his fourth NFL game because of an ACL injury the year prior, missed his coverage, and recent Hall of Fame inductee Aeneas Williams dashed up the right side and leveled Young into the turf. The hit renders Young unconscious, ending his playing career.

In Brady’s current circumstances, behind a lackluster line with little veteran presence and with a pocket that keeps collapsing on him, Young could be seeing a lot of himself as a NFL quarterback at age 37. Especially in an early season Monday Night match-up.