Over the final days of the year, WEEI.com has been counting down the top 14 stories of 2014 in Boston sports. This is No. 1: Tom Brady overcomes early struggles, leads Patriots to AFC’s top seed. To read other stories in this series, click here.
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Tom Brady overcame a sluggish start to lead the Patriots to the No. 1 seed in the AFC. (Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)
Tom Brady finished the 2013 season with more than 4,000 passing yards for the sixth time in his career and looked to repeat this performance in 2014. But the Patriots quarterback had his doubters before the season began.
In a column for ESPN and during an interview with Dennis & Callahan, Sam Monson argued that Brady wasn’t among the elite NFL quarterbacks anymore. He said Brady was in a decline and no longer in the prime of his career.
About two months later, offensive lineman Logan Mankins was traded to the Buccaneers, leaving a void on the offensive line. Whether or not the trade played a factor, Brady struggled and appeared to fuel Monson’s claim from the get-go against the Dolphins in Week 1.
Brady completed 51.8 percent of his passes and was kept off of the scoreboard for the entire second half. He didn’t throw an interception, but he was strip-sacked twice by Cameron Wake and had trouble connecting with receivers when the Dolphins rushed him into quick decisions.
“Truthfully, I don’t think we were really jelling anywhere,” Brady said. “There wasn’t much positive from the quarterback position, the receiver position, the tight end position and the running back position. None of us can play like that and expect to win. All of us have to go out and do a much better job than we did today. We’ve got to take the coaching, understand what we need to do better and then go out and execute next week.”
Added Brady the following day on Dennis & Callahan: “When we’re open down the field I’ve got to hit them. I think that’s how I look at it. We’ve got to make more plays down the field to get more chunks, to shorten the field a little bit. It certainly wasn’t our best day passing the ball yesterday.”
Brady and the Patriots did recover somewhat for two straight wins against the Vikings and Raiders, although the quarterback threw for a combined 383 yards and two touchdowns. NFL analysts noted Brady’s play was unimpressive in the first three weeks. One of Brady’s former teammates, Tedy Bruschi, said he worried that New England’s mostly inexperienced offensive line would be a hindrance to Brady going forward.
“There’s been only limited improvement over the first few weeks, so that’s somewhat discouraging,” Bruschi said. “Is there still plenty of time? Yes. But I really worry. I really worry about the health of Tom Brady and the interior offensive line and what they’re doing there. To me, inside-out, it starts at the center position, which is a very valuable position now in the National Football League. It’s getting to be just as valuable as the left tackle, how you have to solidify the center of that pocket and the running game because that’s where all the pressure is going to come from. Especially when you have a pocket passer, which is what Tom is.”
In Week 4 against the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium, almost everything unraveled for the Patriots and Brady. He threw for just 159 yards and was picked off twice. By game’s end, Jimmy Garappolo was under center taking the snaps and stories started to emerge speculating what the Pats could get in a trade for Brady.
NBC analyst Rodney Harrison said he was in shock about how poorly the quarterback performed in Kansas City that week.
“I’m trying to be mellow, but it really hurt me,” Harrison said during an appearance on Middays with MFB. “I’m not used to seeing a team go out that was so unprepared, a team that was flat-out embarrassed. You expect your best players to step up and be able to make plays, and you put on that tape and you just see quarterbacks not afraid to go at [Darrelle] Revis, Vince Wilfork, he missed a tackle that could have stopped that touchdown, [Jerod] Mayo gets burned on a touchdown, Brady just looks like he’s scared to death back there.”
The poor effort and eventual benching of Brady made Bruschi echo Monson’s pre-year sentiment about the 37-year-old QB.
“Right now, he’s not one of the elite quarterbacks, just based on performance. I can’t say that,” Bruschi said. “Based on numbers, wins and losses, accuracy, throws down the field — no. He’s not. He’s not playing like it.”
It appeared Brady got targeted for just about everything wrong with the team. Some said he was not effectively spreading the balls to all his receivers and did not have a good relationship with the coaching staff, especially offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
But after throwing for six touchdowns in two weeks against the Bengals and the Bills, the experts sang a different tune. ESPN’s Adam Schefter said Brady’s talent level never changed, and people lost sight of this fact when the team struggled through the first few weeks.
“The fact of the matter is he’s still an elite quarterback in this league, he’s still one of the greatest players — players, not just quarterbacks — who’s ever played the game,” Schefter said. “Yeah, he’s a little older, and maybe his skills are semi-diminished. But even semi-diminished he’s still one of the best quarterbacks in the game.”
Even Monson backed off the statements he made before the preseason. The Patriots and Brady improved, and Monson said some of the credit deserved to go Brady’s way.
“I don’t think it’s true to say it had nothing to do with Brady,” Monson said. “There hasn’t been that much of a change between the supporting cast around Brady in September and the supporting cast around him in October. The bottom line is he is just playing an awful lot better.”
Despite all of the talk that Brady’s relationship with the coaching staff was strained, coach Bill Belichick refuted these accusations. To him, Brady is a determined worker that gets along well with his superiors.
“I love coaching Tom,” Belichick said. “[I’ve] been fortunate to have him [his] whole career since he’s been here. We meet at least twice a week, sometimes more. [We] spend a considerable amount of time together. I think that’s important to have that relationship between the head coach and the quarterback so at least we’re on the same page [with] what we’re trying to do.”
After throwing just four touchdowns through the first four games, Brady threw 20 during the six weeks that followed, including a five-score, no-interception game against the Bears at home. As Brady found a groove, so did the team. A seven-game winning streak and eight wins in nine games propelled the Patriots into sole possession of first place in the AFC East.
ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer said part of the problem with the opinions surrounding Brady was the fact people just didn’t remember that it takes time to improve over the course of a season. That’s exactly what happened with Brady.
“What I forgot, and what others forgot, is that this is a developmental league and early in the season, there’s so much hype in the offseason on who’s going to be good, who the stars are, what teams are going to do, that early in the year you knee-jerk react when you don’t see it come to fruition,” Dilfer said. “And you forget these guys don’t get a ton of time together in the offseason like they used to.”