Sports Radio Interviews

Tom Brady Is Human After All

I’m not sure if I can think of any person in the world (at least the world I live in) that has a more enviable life than Tom Brady.  He plays the highest profile position in all of sports and plays it almost flawlessly, he’s won three Super Bowl rings, he’s loved equally by the grunts on his offensive line as he is by the women that read Us Weekly, he’s filthy rich, good looking, and married to the world’s most famous model.  Not too shabby.  Plus, he seems like a genuinely solid guy. 

All that said, should any one person have such an embarrassment of riches!  Superman had kryptonite and Tom Brady has his ACL.  It typically takes two years to get a player back to the form he’s become accustomed to after suffering the dreaded ACL.  Brady and the Patriots are moving the ball fairly well, but they’re not converting them into enough points.  The offense sans former coordinator Josh McDaniels is pretty much the same as when the Patriots went undefeated in the 2007 regular season and Tom Brady threw for 50 touchdowns.  I know it’s only two weeks into the season, but it looks like Tom Brady is human after all.  I just don’t see this offense regaining the form of 2007.

When talking about the Patriots under Bill Belichick, you tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.  They’ve earned that.  But I think they will ride the roller coaster (that Tom talks about wanting to get off of in his weekly interview with WEEI in Boston) all season long.  Brady also discusses the 16-9 defeat at the hands of the trash talking Jets, if he was uncomfortable in the pocket yesterday, the four delay of game penalties, the confusion all day on offense, and if he’s actually still hurting.

Did the Jets’ trash-talk actually help them challenge themselves to raise their game?

“I think whatever is said during the week really … the game is decided by what happens when the ball is kicked off.  You could talk or not talk.  Ultimately it comes down to how well you execute the plays that are called, which obviously we didn’t do a very god job yesterday.  They could have not talked and beat us, they could have talked twice as much and beat us they way we performed.  We’re as frustrated as anybody the way the game went.  We’ve got to find ways to perform better as a team.  The veteran leaders have to do a better job of leading.  Ultimately, we just have to play better.  I think that’s what it comes down to.”

Were you uncomfortable for most of your 47 attempts yesterday?

“I wouldn’t say that.  There were no sacks.  Anytime you throw the ball 47 times, they’re going to hurry you from time to time. It’s not like you’re going to stand back there for 47 attempts untouched.  I think the offensive line performed well.  Those guys really stepped up in the face of…you’re right, tough communication out there, and a team that does challenge you with their blitz looks.  But we didn’t make the plays we were doing.  There were a lot of yards that we left on the field.  There were almost 200 yards offense in the first half.  We controlled the first half we just didn’t get the ball in the end zone when we had the opportunities.  At halftime it’s 9-3 or whatever it was.  If we get the ball in the end zone it’s a significantly different game.  That’s a couple of weeks in a row that we’re unable to get the ball in the end zone.  That’s an issue that we’re dealing with and something we’ve got to correct.”

Were guys [on offense], more than usual, unsure of exactly where they were supposed to be lined up yesterday?

“Our plan was to challenge [the Jets] to find where we were lining up, and we were adjusting some things throughout the course of the game.  There were times where we didn’t communicate like we should have from a quarterback standpoint and receiver standpoint and getting on the same page.  That’s something we’ve got to learn from.  We’re all learning each other, and we’re learning how to adjust things on the field.  We didn’t do a very good job of it yesterday, which is really evidenced by, obviously, the score and our lack of scoring points that we needed to. That’s something that we’ve got to look at and adjust to and try to find a solution to it this week.  It’s only going to get tougher, you know.  As these games go, the good teams get better and the bad teams get worse.  Our goal is to be one of the good teams that competes late in the year.  Early in the year we haven’t done a very good job of executing what we needed to do.  We need to, starting today, learn to go in there and get the corrections and move forward with a better awareness of what we need to do to improve as a team.”

[What caused] the four delay-of-game penalties?

“I’ve got to do a better job of being aware of the clock.  I think that’s what I take out of it. We were moving around, and you never want to take delay-of-game penalties.  That’s self-inflicted.  That’s the control of the quarterback.  That’s something that definitely hurts, and I’ve got to do a better job with it.”

Is that inaccuracy — which we rarely see from you — a result of the rust from having been off a year, the result of the pressure [the Jets] brought to bear, or, as Boomer Esiason speculated this morning, maybe your shoulder isn’t 100 percent and that might be contributing to the inaccuracy that we’re seeing here?

“No, I don’t think it has anything to do with my shoulder or the rust, I just think it has to do with poor technique.  Sometimes, my technique hasn’t been what I’ve hoped it to be the past two weeks, and I’ve got to improve on that.  I’m going to do everything I can to work on it.  I always feel being an accurate passer is really like a good golf swing.  If you do it right, it’s going to go where you want it.  I’ve got to be more accurate throwing the football.  The team counts on me to do that, when they’re open I’ve got to hit them.  We had plenty of guys open yesterday, like Julian there, and those are ones you can’t miss.  When games are decided like it was by a touchdown or less, you look back on those throws as ones that if we complete it, obviously it’s a different outcome.”

Listen to Tom Brady on WEEI in Boston with Dennis & Callahan

Tags: AFC East, New England Patriots, Patriots lose 16-9 to New York Jets, Tom Brady