Tom Brady and the Patriots are in last place, for now

We have arrived at a fascinating time and place in Tom Brady’s career, or at least the perception of the brilliant but slightly aging quarterback’s career. Before the start of the NFL season Brady offered the definitive statement of the future of his career, “When I suck, I’ll retire. But I don’t plan on sucking for a long time.” Last Sunday, the Patriots first game of the season against the Miami Dolphins, in what was expected to be coach Bill Belichick’s 300^th win, the Patriots lost 33-20 in a heartbreaking fashion. Brady may not have sucked, but he certainly did not look like the Tom Brady we all know and love.

Brady completed only 29-of-56 passes, getting sacked four times and averaging just 4.4 yards per attempt, a third less than his career average. In a twist no one in the NFL could have predicted, Brady’s Patriots now sit alone in last place, however briefly, for the first time in his career.

Yes, the Patriots hardcore fans where shouting out the party lines throughout the week. “It’s just one game” and “it was the defense’s fault”. There’s no way Brady is done. For starters, his next two games are against the Vikings and Raiders. He has got a decent receiving corps, a game-changing tight end, and the relentless mad genius of Bill Belichick still on his side. There is no reason to expect he will not be battling Peyton Manning come January in yet another Roman-numeral-tagged matchup.

Last season, in a way was one of the most impressive of his career. Brady was sixth in the NFL in passing yards last year despite a receiving corps that was constantly unstable and collectively inexperienced in the Patriots’ system. He helped turn Julian Edelman, an unconventional player who was presumed to be on the roster bubble last preseason, into a cornerstone basically out of mutual hard work and necessity. Brady deserves a larger cut from the four-year, $17 million deal Edelman signed in the offseason.

It is hard to imagine any other quarterback in the league, Peyton Manning included, who could have done so much with so little, particularly after Rob Gronkowski’s season ended at the top of T.J. Ward’s helmet.

Brady has been so consistently excellent since grasping the quarterback position in September 2001 that his production and performance has almost become routine.

However, after last Sunday’s performance, it is now becoming harder to pretend that Brady is the same player at 37 that he was at 27. Quite obviously, he is not. We were reminded of that during the Patriots’ 33-20 loss to the Dolphins in which he was 10 of 27 for 62 yards in the second half.

For whatever reason, his instincts under pass-rush pressure are clearly not as sharp as they were before his 2008 knee injury. It could be that he is not as carelessly courageous, which is understandable. Brady has not thrown the deep ball effectively for several seasons now, and an important fact, his accuracy down the field early in his career was one of the main reasons he stood out as Drew Bledsoe’s superior, despite not having the same velocity on his fastball.

He was 2-for-18 on balls that traveled more than 15 yards in the air. Brady’s completion percentage has dropped for three straight years, and his 60.5 last year was his lowest since 2003 (60.2). But his lack of precision throughout the game was so apparent, even at times during the Patriots’ 20-point first half that you had to figure something was off in the calibration. Given Brady’s perfectionism when it comes to every aspect of his throwing mechanics, it’s easy to conclude that the calf injury that landed him on the injury report late in the week did have an adverse effect on his entire performance.

Of course to be fair, Brady was not given a whole lot of time or assistance on Sunday. When things began to go uneven for the Patriots offense, Josh McDaniels’s inevitable first reaction was to forget the existence of the running game.

Not to worry, the Patriots will be fine so long as Tom Brady’s calf is fine, assuming the offensive line does not cause the quarterback any more injuries before this one can heal.

However this is how it happens, the beginning of the end. You do not notice the little things until they become big things, and then you realize that the little things have been a problem for a long time now.

If the Patriots are able to win even with Brady at his worst, that is good news for the fans. But if New England cannot stay above the surface on days when all the little things are dragging them down, the Patriots faithful are going to need to start facing the inevitable cold hard truth, that Brady’s quarterback seasons are unfortunately numbered.