For as long as Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are the quarterback and head coach of the Patriots, they will shoulder the load of the blame when things go wrong.
Things went horribly wrong at Ford Field in Detroit on Sunday night as the Pats were shellacked, 26-10, giving New England fans a sense of worry that this might finally be the beginning of the end of the 17-year dynasty. Not since the infamous blowout loss on Monday Night Football to the Chiefs four years ago have things looked so bleak.
“Ten points isn’t good enough to win in the NFL,” Brady said on WEEI’s Kirk and Callahan show Monday. “Three points at halftime is ridiculous. As many three-and-outs as we have had to start the games and lack of third down conversions – it’s all the way across the board.”
Brady’s passing total on Sunday – just 133 yards – was the lowest he’s had since Week 17 of the 2014 season when he played only the first half against Buffalo in a mostly meaningless contest.
There are plenty of reasons why Brady played so poorly. First – and perhaps most important – is that Lions head coach Matt Patricia knew what was coming. Patricia started his Patriots tenure as an “offensive assistant” in 2004 before jumping over to the defense in 2006. He watched Brady in practice for 13 years and his defenses went up against Brady on the daily for most of those years.
Add in the fact that Patricia had likely been scheming for this game since March – during a time when Brady was making short Facebook films and Belichick was fueling up his yacht for Nantucket – and you can sort of reason why things went the way they did on Sunday.
Throw in that Brady currently has his worst receiving corps since 2006 and you have even more justification for what happened. Things are not going to get better this coming Sunday against Miami either in terms of personnel as Brady will still likely have to force-feed Chris Hogan, Cordarrelle Patterson and Phillip Dorsett. Dorsett saw five targets in the Detroit game, but did not register a single catch.
The Patriots seem to be treating Josh Gordon as a longterm project at this point and he likely won’t get routine reps until later in the year. Fortunately for the Pats, Julian Edelman will be back in the fold for the Indianapolis game in Week 5 but who knows if he will be able to pick up where he left off in that one? The last non-exhibition game Edelman played in was Super Bowl LI against the Falcons, which occurred 597 days ago.
With this mediocre cast of receivers, Brady has been good but not great. He connected on 26-of-39 passes for 277 yards, three touchdowns and an interception against the Texans in Week 1. And he hit on 24-of-35 passes for 234 yards with two touchdowns and zero picks in Week 2.
In both of the first two games he had a passer rating over 100.00 but the bottom fell out against the Lions on Sunday as he had a gargoyle-ugly 65.1 passer rating.
In three of his first four starts last year Brady had passed for over 300 yards (including a 447-yard performance against New Orleans). Ditto for 2016.
But so far in 2018, he has been decidedly average. In terms of total passing yardage so far this season, Brady ranks 25th in the league – behind the likes of Sam Darnold and Ryan Tannehill.
Will it get better? Of course it will.
But going forward will Brady be able to consistently churn out 350-yard, three TD performances week-in and week-out like we’ve become accustomed to seeing? That one is a little more difficult to answer.
