New England Patriots Must Fight to Keep Tom Brady Upright

The hits keep coming for the New England Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady.

After a 10-0 start, the Patriots have dropped their past two games and currently stand at third in the conference behind the Denver Broncos and Cincinnati Bengals. 

That's all transpired over the course of two weeks in which Brady has been under as much or more pressure than any other quarterback in the NFL. According to Pro Football Focus, Brady has been under pressure on 69 out of 147 dropbacks (46.9 percent), which is the second-highest pressure percentage for any NFL quarterback in Weeks 11-13. 

Brady has absorbed 32 hits over the past three games, which is a beating on par with Suplex City by NFL quarterback standards. One could understand if he was licking his wounds, but he says that's not the case.

"I feel good," Brady said Wednesday, "fresh as lettuce."

Part of the problem has been attributed to the Patriots' injuries. Without wide receiver Julian Edelman and tight end Rob Gronkowski as security blankets over the middle of the field, Brady hasn't had the opportunity to get rid of the ball as quickly as he had been earlier this season, when he was finding a target and throwing a pass within two seconds of the snap almost every single time he threw the ball.

The Patriots are dealing with injuries all over the offensive side of the ball. A combination of factors, from injuries to inexperience to instability, have contributed to the Patriots' problems on the offensive line. But while Nate Solder is out for the season, the other injured linemen have started to trickle back into the lineup. Tre' Jackson is recovering from a knee injury, Marcus Cannon from a foot injury and Sebastian Vollmer from a concussion. 

That being said, they are relatively healthy on the offensive line—as healthy as they will be at any point for the remainder of the season, at least. The only solution, at this point, is for the players to simply elevate their level of play and execute on a more consistent basis.  The Patriots have rotated linemen all season long—sometimes out of necessity, sometimes by choice—but it doesn't appear to be coming to an end anytime soon.

"I think there are a number of things in play here," head coach Bill Belichick said when asked about finding an offensive line combination. "First of all, for the majority of the year we've dealt with some kind of ... We haven't had everybody available for one reason or another. You know what the deal is on all those, so some of what we've done has been a little bit by necessity.

"Earlier in the year when we had three healthy tackles in Marcus, Sebastian and Nate, that was really kind of a luxury there to have three players of that quality, but we ended up with none of those guys playing at one point," Belichick explained. "The center position has been somewhat in transition, same thing with the guards, so we really haven't had an opportunity to do that, to just have the same people in there, because guys just haven't always been available. If that could happen and it could all come together and everybody was available, maybe we'd be able to get to that point and it would probably be a good thing, but we'll just have to see how all that goes. I'm not against it, that's for sure."

It seems, then, that a large part of the problem is the injuries and the amount of changes the Patriots offensive line has gone through over the past few months as those injuries have piled up. Now that the pieces are settling back in, it's taking some time to get everything back up to speed because those players still aren't 100 percent comfortable playing alongside their counterparts.

Whether it's a rotation or a consistent group of the same linemen, the Patriots need to find a way to keep Brady from taking the number of hits he's taken on a consistent basis over the past few weeks. The rotating has had mixed effects on the line this season, but in order for it to end, the players simply need to step up and prove that they belong on the field on an every-snap basis. 

"I think once a player is established at any positon—this isn't just a line discussion—at any position once a player has established that he's the best player of that group then he's going to play," Belichick said. "If that's not the case then maybe more than one guy deserves to play until it somehow or other works itself out or becomes clear what the roles should be."

The only player who's come close to that status is guard Josh Kline, who has played 91.8 percent of the team's snaps, according to Pro Football Focus. Sebastian Vollmer and Bryan Stork are both in that category as well, having played 85 percent of the snaps in games when they've been healthy.  

It's crazy that we're headed into Week 14 and the Patriots still have such glaring question marks on the offensive line, but the only way for those questions to turn into answers is for inconsistent players to turn into consistent ones.