We Patriots fans are fiercely homeristic about our man, Tom Brady. After all, he's meant so much to this franchise. Super Bowl rings, championships, game after exciting game going down to the wire - he's made this one heck of a team to root for. But I will admit to a little concern.
Now, I'm not talking Peyton Manning concern. We've all heard the stories. Allegedly, the Colts organization was hiding how bad Manning's knee really was, that he was at training camp, laying in his room watching film. I don't think Tom Brady is in the same situation. First, he's had a significant amount of time to recover after the surgery, like a gazillion months or something. Second, he looked pretty good during OTA's. Running the drills, throwing passes, it all looked - right. Let's not forget all the statements from himself and his teammates, particularly Randy Moss:
The New England receiver told ESPN the Patriots could exceed the output of their 16-0 regular season with Tom Brady back under center this season.
"The sky's the limit for this offense," Moss told ESPN. "I think that we could be a little bit better than two years ago."
If I was pessimistic, I'd say it was all very orchestrated. Or maybe he actually DOES look that good, who knows. But running around in T-shirts and sweat pants is different than DL's bearing down on you at full speed and WITH contact. Sure, they most likely won't go after Wonderboy (isn't that what the red shirt is for?), but they will certainly be around him. Why am I worried? It has nothing to do with his abilities as a field general nor his skill at launching a perfect spiral to Moss or Wes Welker. No, I'm more concerned with the mental aspect of that full speed activity. Will he hesitate? Will he subconsciously favor the knee? Or, under the weight of full pads and uniform, will two-a-days be too much?
That's what worries me. Maybe it'll be moot after I watch a few training camps and get to see him in a preseason game. Maybe that's all I'll need. Or maybe I should be like Tommy from Quinzee and be the ultimate homer. Everything's fine. Nothing to worry about. Brady will be back to his old 2007 self and spank 2009 into the history books. Yeah, that's the ticket.