If you haven’t heard, New England Patriots QB Tom Brady is back from his suspension and he’s ready to roll. He won’t be meeting with the media this week- TE Rob Gronkowski is stepping up in his place this week- but offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels thinks Brady won’t miss a beat.
“I didn't notice any difference,” McDaniels said about seeing a difference in Brady’s conditioning before and after the suspension. “It was four weeks and it felt like it went fast and Tommy is ready to go and looks ready to go. Like I said, we'll see how everything goes tomorrow at practice and kind of just build one day at a time as we go through the week.”
The big concern on everyone’s mind is how much rust Brady will have in his first game back and whether there will be an adjustment period. I’m sure there will be since Brady’s getting thrown back into a quarterbacks room that has been in a rhythm for the past month. Hopefully Brady’s experience will make the transition as easy as possible.
“[The transition is] going to be as normal as it could be,” McDaniels said. “The biggest thing is to go through our preparation as we normally do to prepare for the opponent and to prepare for what our game plan is and how we want to execute it, and go out there and use our opportunities on the field to execute and to get back into playing football. And being around his teammates and running our offense and doing the things that we ask the quarterback to do here.”
“I think experience helps any player,” McDaniels added. “If they're injured or what have you, they come back, or if they miss some time for whatever reason. But I also think there's an acclimation period in the game of football that's hard to simulate unless you're playing football.”
Brady will have one week to acclimate to the offense and hopefully he’ll be back in the swing of things after a drive or two on Sunday. Regardless of his comfort, even an out-of-sync Brady will more valuable to the offense than an injured Jacoby Brissett.