Fencer

Brady has always been an outstanding leader for the offense. But until recently, the defense has always had its own leaders. Now the defense has only one excellent leader in Wilfork, and even he is probably not on the Harrison/Vrabel/McGinest level. I don't mean to completely denigrate the leadership of, say, Meriweather (Spikes' go-to guy on his video flap), Sanders, or TBC. But I don't think they're the sage, respected-by-all, articulate veterans the defense has had in years past.

With a number of the ST leaders cut, and the kicker and punter young, STs are probably a bit light on leadership too.

The challenge in leading the offense is probably a bit above average, with the OL in a little more flux than usual and some new/young receivers and TEs sprinkled in.

For the team to be well-led by its players, Brady is going to have to be an outstanding leader for the entire team. Nobody should be the slightest bit surprised if he pulls it off with flying colors -- but it is quite a bit more than he's accomplished on that front in the past.

By the way, I think in retrospect much of this was true last season as well, and Brady did NOT step up effectively. However, he has an impressive set of excuses, such as his own injury recovery and the whole marriage/fatherhood thing, and I'm very optimistic about how he'll do in his second try. Besides, I think the biggest reason he didn't step up was that he just whiffed on recognizing he needed to, and he's clearly not making that particular mistake again.

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swheeler23

I am 100% certain marriage or fatherhood had no bad affect on Brady ,he was coming back from a major injury that included a infecction. The best Brady can do for the defense is score 30 points a game. He will need a running game to do that.A 10-6 record will be a good season for this team.

WhiZa

Exactly. Brady can only do what a QB can do which is put up big numbers. It's up to the other 52 players to take a leadership role in their position. Wilfork is one of them, but he was on the team last year too and the defense still didn't perform at crucial times. You really need a leader at every position like we've had in years past. DL (Seymour), LB (Bruschi), DB (Harrison). Someone who is willing to take accountability when the entire group has a bad game.

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Tunescribe

I don't know where people come up with stuff like this. Brady is a quarterback and leader of the offense and did a superb job last season LEADING the offense and the rest of the team, both verbally and by example. On more than one occasion he made reference to players needing to do a better job of listening to BB, which included defensive players. You don't know what else was said/done behind closed doors. Short of calling guys out by name in the media, Brady has been an excellent team leader his whole career.

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AndyJohnson

I have never understood why people feel the need to attach 'leader' to good veteran players. Leaders come in every size, shape and form. Talent doesn't really have anything to do with leadership, other than you have to be talented enough to have a role on the team. Romanticizing that every good player we ever had was a leader is just incorrect, just as thinking years of service and level of ability are the requirements to being a leader. Leaders are leaders, regardless of age. Any all veteran good players are not naturally leaders. Many of the previous Pats being called leaders here, were followers, and that is not a bad thing.

TomPatriot

I disagree. He had an offense without the best possesson WR in the NFL and with, at best, a league average TE. That offense had the third most total yards in the NFL and was sixth in he NFL in scoring. They were also 23d in the NFL in sacks allowed, which was really not Brady's fault.

patriotscpfc

He had his possession WR for all bar 2 matches and 2 quarters in Houston...

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AndyJohnson

The Patriots were 3rd best in sacks allowed, 2nd if you base it on % of attempts.
Where are you getting 23rd from????????

TomPatriot

My bad. You are right I stand corrected.

Synovia

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what position this team is worse at than last years team, where everyone thinks they're going to suck.

While there still are a ton of questions, it looks like a better team across the board (excepting LG)