FanPost

Tom Brady was great, but he is not the Patriots

The Patriots just lost the Super Bowl against a team led by a backup quarterback. Tom Brady threw for 505 yards, 3 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. These facts feel incongruous. Don’t the Patriots win when Tom Brady plays well? What do we make of this?

Let’s drop back a few years. Week 1 of the 2011 season had just closed, and—surprise, surprise—reigning MVP Tom Brady was the talk of the league. He had just dumped 517 yards and 4 touchdowns on a hapless Miami defense. The New England offense looked unstoppable: Wes Welker collected 160 yards through the air—including his incredible 99 yard score—to go with two touchdowns. Deion Branch had 93 yards, Gronk grabbed 86 and a score, and one not-to-be-discussed, as-of-then incognito psychopath contributed 103 receiving yards and a touchdown. Chad still-Ochocinco and a younger, healthier Julian Edelman each snagged a catch. Even Matthew Slater grabbed a bomb in that game. Tom Brady became the 11th player in NFL history to throw for 500 yards in a single game, and the NFL was buzzing. But for many Patriots fans, that game—although delightful to watch—was disconcerting.

We had seen Tom Brady do some amazing things before. We had clips from the 2007 and 2010 seasons to satisfy our need for a Tom-Brady-sure-is-great fix, but the Patriots—the team—hadn’t won a championship in almost seven years. They hadn’t brought home the Lombardi Trophy since they had had a defense lead by rugged men—long since departed—like Ty Law, Teddy Bruschi, Richard Seymour, Willie McGinest, Mike Vrabel, Asante Samuel and Rodney Harrison. The 2011 team wasn’t shaping up to be that sort. Although it was exhilarating to watch Brady—once again—put up huge offensive numbers, it was also devastating to watch the defense surrender 416 yards passing to Chad Henne. We knew how football worked. We knew it was a team game. We knew that even the greatest quarterback on Earth doesn’t guarantee you a win, not in a game with 20-something starting players.

In the end, our fears proved to be entirely justified. Despite Tom Brady, we didn’t win the Super Bowl. 2011 was a fun ride: Tom Brady was an MVP candidate, we made it to the big game, we were in it until the last play of the season, but ultimately it ended in disappointment. Rightfully so. The truth is, the Patriots weren’t very good that year. The defense let up over 400 yards and 21 points a game. They only held one team (Tyler Palko’s! first start for the Chiefs) under 15 points all year. They held a measly total of four teams under 20 points—the Carson Palmer led Raiders, the Mark Sanchez led Jets, and Romo’s Cowboys to go along with Palko’s Chiefs. The pinnacle of their defensive achievements were to hold highly mediocre teams to highly mediocre scores. Discounting the aberrant Chiefs game, this team was letting up 22.6 points every week. In week 3, Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for 369 yards and his Bills team hung 34 on the Patriots in a comeback win for Buffalo. This team was beatable, and then they were beaten, by Buffalo and by Pittsburgh and by the New York Giants.

Somehow, TB12 magically conjured up another Super Bowl run that year. He dragged a historically bad defense—kicking and screaming—back to the big game. How apropos that the deciding play of that game (of that season!) ended up being yet another big play let up by the defense. Now, of course, the game of football is far more complicated than that: Tom Brady underwhelmed in both the AFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl, and the defense actually did make a few big plays—particularly in the AFC Championship Game. But lest we forget, they also relied on Billy Cundiff shanking his kick in the Title Game, and they couldn’t come up with a play when it was most needed in the Super Bowl. I will forever recall the dread of watching Sterling Moore and Antwaun Molden getting reps in the defensive backfield. The 2011 New England Patriots season always conjures up images of a ‘terrible, no good, very bad defense.’

The last few seasons have built up a belief among league-viewers that Tom Brady is his team. There’s this sense that his performance is the direct causality of any New England win or loss. His heroics in Super Bowls 49 and 51 have bolstered this inaccuracy. His performances were so superb, we often forget that the defense had to make big plays in those games. Not only am I speaking about Malcom’s goal-line interception or Hightower’s strip sack, but I am referring to a myriad of other little moments that we so easily forget. I’m talking about Hightower’s goal-line tackle before Malcolm picked it off. I’m also talking about Jamie Collins throwing off the wheel route on third-down on the Seahawks’ penultimate drive. I’m also talking about Trey Flowers’ sack of Matt Ryan with four minutes left in the game. I’m also talking about every third and fourth down stop in the first three quarters of the game.

Tom Brady was extraordinary against the Eagles. That doesn’t even say it; he was magnificent, marvelous, mind-blowingly astounding. He was at his best, once again, in one of the most difficult situations he’s ever faced. Unbelievably and yet—because it’s him—believably, he rose to the occasion. He recorded the NFL’s 22nd ever 500 yard passing game. He became the first player to do it in a playoff game, and he did it in the Super Bowl against one of the best defenses in the league. This is an Eagles defense that was allowing only 306 yards of offense per game. That’s better than the ’04 Pats! While some might point out that 500-yard passing games have become more common since 2011, let’s not pretend that they’re everyday occurrences. If there are 32 quarterbacks starting 16 NFL games each year—that’s 3,584 quarterback starts since 2011. Only 12 times in that span has a player passed for 500 yards. It happens three times in every 500 NFL games. In that same timeframe, not one single player has passed for 500 yards against a top-10 defense. Except Tom Brady…in the Super Bowl. Tom Brady threw for 505 yards and three touchdowns against a number four ranked Eagles defense; a defense who previously had allowed a total of 614 yards of offense to their combined postseason opponents.

If football were some other sport, the Patriots would have won. If LeBron brought that level of unprecedented, historical excellence to a Game 7, he’d be going home with a title. But Brady isn’t one player among five or ten or fifteen; he’s one out of 53. The Patriots let Brady down. The special teams unit gave a performance to forget, the coaching staff bumbled their way through much of the game, and the defense—oh, the defense!—looked like more of a speed bump than a wall. After Brady got going at the end of the first half, I spent the remainder of the game practically chanting "defense has to make a play, defense has to make a play, defense has to make a play…" I saw Tom Brady coming. I knew he just needed a shot. Unfortunately for the Patriots, neither Malcolm Butler nor Dont’a Hightower nor Jamie Collins were there to make that play. We had Jordan Richardson and Johnson Bademosi, and they weren’t up to the task. In the end, only one defender made a play, and he was wearing green and white.

Brady shouldn’t be held too much to account for the fumble. Certainly he could have done something else, but it’s hard to see what. The Eagles’ pass rushers knew what was coming: there was just over two minutes on the clock, the Patriots had one timeout, and they needed travel 67 yards and get a touchdown. It was either Tom Brady’s moment, or it was the Eagles’ moment. Brandon Graham made the call. He absolutely smoked Shaq Mason off the line, and he hit Brady less than two seconds after the snap. Sure, Brady should have secured the football. But the team shouldn’t have put him in a position where he was telegraphing every play. Graham didn’t have to worry about setting the edge or tracking down a pass into the flat—all he had to do was hit Tom Brady. He did his job.

The Patriots lost the Super Bowl. They lost because they fielded the inferior team. They lost because special teams couldn’t take advantage of the opportunities given them, and they lost because the coaching staff was overthinking the play-calling. But mostly, they lost because the defense couldn’t make a play. Let’s not pretend for even one second that the Patriots lost because of Tom Brady. The fact that he’s a sub-par wide receiver or that he should have thrown the ball away are irrelevant. If you want a perfect quarterback, go play Madden on Rookie mode. If you want to appreciate real-life quarterbacking excellence, then I suggest you rewatch this game. As painful as the outcome was—that was Tom Brady at his best. Once again, under the brightest of lights, Tom Brady worked magic. Cherish it, because it honestly can’t last forever.

If the Patriots had won this game, the chatter about Tom Brady’s greatness would have far surpassed that of any other team athlete in American sports history. I suggest, with the back-to-back performances he put together in Super Bowls 51 and 52, he deserves that recognition—with or without the win. Winning and losing is a team activity, and although the Patriots lost, Brady put together a performance every bit as great as anything he’s done before. This game exceeds his regular season opener in 2011 because of the stakes. Further, it even exceeds his performance in Super Bowl 51 in light of his opponent. I say all of this in spite of the loss, because the team loss in spite of Brady.

Sometimes it seems like Tom Brady can overcome anything. He inspires within me a genuine feeling of belief; 'with proper work ethic and preparation, one truly can tackle insurmountable odds.’ The reality is less magical. Even Tom Brady can’t make a bad team good. In Super Bowls he’s fielded a decent all-around team, he’s 5-1. When he’s marched out there with a lopsided team—offensively strong, defensively a patchwork of names not worthy of the bottom of most NFL rosters—he’s come out 0-2. To me, all that does is serve to underscore Tom Brady’s greatness. Where other quarterbacks’ seasons simply would have ended earlier, Brady manages to drag those wretches all the way to the finish line. Whether it’s covering up for Sterling Moore and Antwaun Molden, or Jordan Richardson and Johnson Bademosi, even Tom Brady can’t overcome anything. But he’s shown us more than a few times you can overcome almost anything, and that feels like more than enough.

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