Fin Thirteen
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- Mar 22, 2010
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Last year, the Pats really struggled for offensive weapons and Brady took the offense on his back and made successful receivers out of a bunch of nobodies. When you ask him to stand up and be counted in that respect, he delivers.
But Tom Brady, esp at 37, DOES NOT like to get hit. He was very outspoken about Mankins leaving and you could tell that he wasn't happy about what that might mean for him and his body. SO, even if the o-line had held up OK, I think Brady was always going to be more jittery than usual. When the o-line began to really struggle, you could see Brady get increasingly irate and nervous, his accuracy went out the window and he stopped being able to convert even relatively simple throws in single coverage. He cracked, my friends. He properly and pretty spectacularly cracked. He was awful in the second half.
Mentally, I wonder if the unspoken contract between Brady and Belichick is showing some cracks. "Look Bill, I can put up with your ****ty drafting, losing Welker, losing Hernandez, Gronk always injured, losing Blount when I need the tough yards, never drafting a decent receiver... But I'll be screwed if I'm going to stand behind a makeshift line at this stage in my career and have Jared Odrick knock the meat out of my pretty-boy Cali fake tanned skin for everybody's amusement."
For that reason, I think we got the Pats at exactly the right time and we were exactly the right team to exploit the weakness there. I also noticed and commented in preseason that their run D didn't look great and thanks to Moreno we had the tools to exploit that weakness also.
There are other weaknesses over the years that Brady has been happy to mask by taking the team on his shoulders, but pass protection isn't one of them. The O-line better get a lot tighter if we aren't about to finally witness the decline of Tommy Brady.
But Tom Brady, esp at 37, DOES NOT like to get hit. He was very outspoken about Mankins leaving and you could tell that he wasn't happy about what that might mean for him and his body. SO, even if the o-line had held up OK, I think Brady was always going to be more jittery than usual. When the o-line began to really struggle, you could see Brady get increasingly irate and nervous, his accuracy went out the window and he stopped being able to convert even relatively simple throws in single coverage. He cracked, my friends. He properly and pretty spectacularly cracked. He was awful in the second half.
Mentally, I wonder if the unspoken contract between Brady and Belichick is showing some cracks. "Look Bill, I can put up with your ****ty drafting, losing Welker, losing Hernandez, Gronk always injured, losing Blount when I need the tough yards, never drafting a decent receiver... But I'll be screwed if I'm going to stand behind a makeshift line at this stage in my career and have Jared Odrick knock the meat out of my pretty-boy Cali fake tanned skin for everybody's amusement."
For that reason, I think we got the Pats at exactly the right time and we were exactly the right team to exploit the weakness there. I also noticed and commented in preseason that their run D didn't look great and thanks to Moreno we had the tools to exploit that weakness also.
There are other weaknesses over the years that Brady has been happy to mask by taking the team on his shoulders, but pass protection isn't one of them. The O-line better get a lot tighter if we aren't about to finally witness the decline of Tommy Brady.