Tom Brady: Why One Bad Game Does Not Equal a Career Collapse

Tom Brady has lost three playoff games in a row.

Let that sink in for a second. The man who has won three Super Bowls and was 12-2 in the playoffs under Bill Belichick before 2007 is 2-3 in the postseason and has lost three straight.

It’s even more damning when you look at Brady’s stats in those three losses.

Brady went 81-for-135 in losses to the Giants, the Ravens and the Jets. He threw five touchdowns while throwing four picks and fumbling once. Despite these struggles in recent big games, people have still looked at Brady the same way, and they should.

The quarterback has struggled, but it’s not because he’s on the downside of his career. You need to look at these Patriot teams and the squads they faced. The Giants, Ravens and Jets all had great defenses at the time of their matchups.

The Giants were fifth in total defense when they met in the Super Bowl and had a great defensive line that could get after the quarterback. Throw in a Patriot offense that was based strictly around the pass and had no real running threat—it was a recipe for disaster.

Brady was sacked five times and was knocked around all game long as the Patriots lost their chance at an undefeated season.

The next year, the Patriots drew the Baltimore Ravens, who were third in the league in total defense. Baltimore jumped out to 14-0 lead in less than five minutes and the Pats were down 24-0 by the end of the first quarter.

New England had to pass to get back into the game and it led to Brady making a ton of mistakes. It didn’t help that Wes Welker was out with a knee injury, leaving Randy Moss to deal with double teams.

Brady’s struggles yesterday were obvious and a lot of it had to do with the fact that there was no one stretching the field for the guys underneath. While Randy Moss wasn’t the answer, there wasn’t anyone to draw the defense’s attention and the Jets have a ton of tape on Brady and the Patriots.

Not only that, but the defense was gashed by the run all day long and the game plan was terrible. Brady struggled, but he was in no position to be successful and a lot of that has to do with what the Jets were doing defensively, and you expect that from the third-best defense in football.

While Brady has been nothing short of ordinary in the postseason, his teams have also been fatally flawed and weren’t on the same level as the squads that won three Super Bowls as New England established itself as a dynasty.

Brady didn’t shy away from blame after the game and that’s why he’s the leader of the team. He’ll be back next year and the Patriots will be a little bit more experienced on defense and we’ll see what the offseason will bring.

The Patriots and Brady aren’t done. They just had a misstep in a year where no one expected a 14-2 season out of New England.