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Friday Patriots Notebook 2/27: Brady Was A Bigger Running Threat in 2014, Prospect Talks About Meeting Belichick, More

Ian Logue
Ian Logue on Twitter
Feb 27, 2015 at 6:00am ET







Brady made a few more plays with his legs in 2014. (USA TODAY Images)

Tom Brady may not be Colin Kaepernick or Cam Newton, but looking back at some of the changes he made to his game in 2014 it was hard not to appreciate some of the improvement he made with his mobility.

He was much more successful when it came to using his legs last season, picking up 57 yards rushing the football during the regular season, and that yardage total would have also been a little higher had it not been for his 15 kneel-downs where he lost some yardage.  Oddly enough Brady didn't have a negative carry at all last year after having two in 2013, which is a credit to the push he got from his offensive line, which took a lot of heat during the early part of the season when the team was struggling.

Looking at the numbers, there was quite a jump both in yardage and first down conversions compared to 2013 and here's a quick breakdown of his totals:

TOTALS:
2013: 32 carries, 18 yards, 5 First Downs
2014: 36 carries, 57 yards, 11 First Downs

Kneeldowns:
2013: 17
2014: 15

Negative Carries:
2013: 2
2014: 0

No Gain:
2013: 4
2014: 5

1-5 Yards:
2013: 7
2014: 12

6-10 Yards:
2013: 1
2014: 2

Over 10-20 Yards:
2013: 1
2014: 2

One of the bigger things that stands out is the fact he had 11 rushing first downs last season, compared to just 5 in 2013.

Brady running with the football isn't exactly something Patriots fans want him to make a habit of, but it had some enjoyable moments.  One of the more memorable ones in 2014 was the 1st down he picked up after a 17-yard run on third-and-11 against Miami in December which helped spark a 41-13 rout of the Dolphins.

That got the crowd fired up when Brady took a shot after lowering his shoulder on his way out of bounds.  He's not exactly fleet of foot, with teammate Julian Edelman giving the veteran quarterback a hard time after the game was over.

“It was the slowest 17 yards I’ve ever seen in my life," said Edelman.

It was Brady's third longest career run and his longest since 2007 after he rushed for 19 against the Colts that season.  His longest ever was a 22-yarder against the Bengals back in 2006.

He took the ribbing from Edelman in stride, even poking fun at himself later on his Facebook page while comparing himself to a cheetah.

Brady's a guy who's always focused on getting better, but as much as it's nice that he's been taking off a little more with the football, hopefully this is a weapon he'll try and limit since taking an injury would certainly hurt them.  After all, the Patriots need his arm more than his legs in order to come back and try to do it all again in 2015.

DEON SIMON TALKS ABOUT MEETING BILL BELICHICK:

Northwestern Tackle Deon Simon was apparently caught off guard at the combine, and offered his thoughts on meeting Patriots head coach Bill Belichick last weekend.

The 6'4", 332-pound defensive tackle was surprised to meet the Patriots' head coach, and in his "Around the NFL's draft diary" explained the experience.

"I didn't exactly think Bill Belichick was going to be there," said Simon via NFL.com.  "But when I walked in the door, he was sitting right behind the door and he stood up and he shook my hand.

"It felt unreal, I mean, you always see him on television and I mean -- that's Bill Belichick! To have the opportunity to be in the same room with him and in the same presence, it was really exciting. I was just trying to hold my composure.

"It was on Saturday night. He was asking me about my background, personal stuff, but in the back of my mind, all I'm thinking is, man, that's Bill Belichick.

"There were a few people in there, Bill and six others from his staff. In most of my meetings, the technical questions were mostly the same. They would set up a base defense and ask me where to line up. They'd show me an under look, a 3-4 defense, a 4-3 defense, just trying to read the offense. They'd ask me to read the opposing offense -- 21 personnel, 10 personnel, the base fronts.

"It was just an amazing experience, something I'm never going to forget."

Great stuff.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Former sports agent Joel Corry had a piece on CBSSports.com on Darrelle Revis, and points out there's certainly urgency to get a deal done for the Patriots given the window they have to get a deal done, and Revis has the leverage.  "Retaining Revis is New England's top offseason priority. The Patriots have an exclusive negotiation window to rework his deal before the March 9 deadline for the option year and he becomes an unrestricted free agent on the following day. The problem for the Patriots is Revis has the leverage in the situation because of how he performed in 2014 and the team's limited ability to prevent him from hitting the open market." ... Jonas Gray gave an interesting interview to the Boston Globe's Nick A Zaino III and talked about his interest in stand up comedy, among other topics.  " I had a friend of mine who did a little stand-up himself. One day we were all hanging out, and I literally kept making everyone laugh, and so did he. So he gave me some advice, “You should think about doing stand-up.” And he said, “One thing you should do is, any time you say something funny and everyone laughs, you hear a joke, you think it’s funny, you write it down, you put in your notes, you put in a couple of keywords, you come back to it, and you try to turn it into a joke.” Next thing you know, I’m doing that, and next thing you know, I’ve got 200 jokes. I’ve got a ton of jokes. I was telling him some of the material; he thought it was great. And he gave me advice to just go ahead and do an open mike one night. I did the open mike, I videotaped it for him, sent it to him, he loved it."  You can read more of the interview here ... Mike Reiss took a look at a potential Devin McCourty contract and feels five years, $45 million along with a $10 million signing bonus would be a good number to get a deal done with the Patriots safety.  One would hope that locking him up for that long would be a possibility, especially if they get a similar deal done with Revis.  We'll have to see how it plays out ... If you've ever heard the "free money" that could be owed to you by listening to the commercials on sports radio recently in Boston, they emphasize that a lot of people have no idea they have unclaimed funds waiting for them.  According to MassLive.com, it appears State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg's staff has tracked down some stars who are owed money by the state, including Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.  Former Patriots TE Christian Fauria does a commercial for FindMassMoney.com on WEEI and brags about the fact he bought a "flat screen tv" and even "a couple of DVD's to go with it."  Although one would believe that those other two guys have made just a little more money in the NFL than he did and won't need to use whatever money they're owed to buy one. ... And finally there were reports about Shane Vereen seeking $5 million per season, but appearently that's not the case.  Vereen recently took to Twitter to shoot down those reports, laughing off the notion, saying, "Haha not true but who wouldn't be?!?!" ... Speaking of Twitter, we'll soon have an an announcement in the coming days about the fact we'll be doing something fun with a current Patriot next Wednesday afternoon.  If you're on there it should be a good time, so stay tuned.


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