Another NFL season is nearing its halfway mark, ushering in a week or two of partially-feigned surprise that the New England Patriots, amidst another win streak, are overcoming issues that would doom most other teams. However the real astonishment should be reserved for Tom Brady, whose remarkable achievements this season have been understandably overshadowed by the emergence of young stars like Patrick Mahomes, Jared Goff and Baker Mayfield.
For the first four weeks of the season, Brady was without Julian Edelman – unarguably the Patriots wide receiver with which he has the most chemistry. Jeremy Hill rushed just four times in the first game of 2018 before tearing his ACL and landing on season-ending IR, and Rex Burkhead has been sidelined since Week 4 with a neck injury.
Sony Michel had seen almost no real game reps until he debuted in Week 2, didn’t hit his stride until Week 4 against Miami, and he left Sunday’s game with a knee injury in the second quarter and never returned. Brady’s most targeted receiver is running back James White, and sans Rob Gronkowski in Chicago against the Bears, Brady was forced to find a way to replicate the production of the team leader in receiving yards. He found that safety net in Josh Gordon, with whom he’s been teammates for just over a calendar month.
Regardless, Brady is still playing at an elite level. In spite of all the adversity the offense has faced through just seven games, he is as dynamic and productive and effective as he’s ever been.
The official record will tell you that his passer rating this season is a 99.7, and that’s very good, but it doesn’t account for the fact that three of his seven interceptions were catches that were fumbled or misplayed by the receiver. If we do a bit of revisionist stat work and adjust his interception total to four, his new passer rating through seven games is 104.7 — putting him within four points of his rating through the same number of games in 2017.
The analysts at Pro Football Focus noted the following about his approach on the road in Week 7 against an aggressive Bears defense:
Brady took what was given to him most of the game, as he rarely tested the Bears’ secondary deep, only attempting two passes over 20 yards and just five at the intermediate level. Outside of his one interception, Brady found his playmakers underneath the coverage of the defense, as he targeted James White 10 times and Julian Edelman eight times.
Again, he completed nearly 70 percent of his passes for 277 yards, 3 touchdowns and one interception* without Gronk and mostly without Michel to carry the load on the ground. It’s also worth noting that his 16 passing touchdowns are the fourth-most through seven games in his career, and he’s getting rid of the ball as fast as any QB in the league.
At 41 years old, Brady is still defying the odds – or as our friends at PFF so aptly put it: “Rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
