Shockingly, an ESPN writer who admits to being wrong.
The day we buried Brady
Bits and pieces:
Three hundred and sixty five days ago, a lot of people who write or talk about sports for a living thought it was prudent to declare Tom Brady's football career, at least as an elite player, essentially finished.
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Rodney Harrison stated that Brady looked "scared to death" in the pocket. Colin Cowherd
cracked that Brady was "softer than a down comforter." Pro Football Focus declared: "we've seen the best of Brady, and the only question remaining is how steep the drop off will be." Donovan McNabb
suggested Jimmy Garoppolo might be more effective, and that Brady might have played his final year in New England. The Sporting News
hinted that it was time for the Patriots to mull an exit strategy.
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"The sports media landscape has become such a cacophony of strong opinions that, in order for your thoughts to stand out, you cannot come lightly to the microphone or keyboard. In a rush to sound definitive, we often lose the ability to listen to nuance."
In the 15 regular-season games Brady has played since that ugly Kansas City loss, he has arguably been the best quarterback on planet Earth not named Aaron Rodgers. (You can make a decent case that he has been even better than Rodgers, but this column has been designated #HotTakeFreeZone, so we won't attempt one.) All Brady has done since we stuck a fork in his shoulder pads is complete 67 percent of his passes, throw for 4,430 yards and toss 38 touchdowns with only seven interceptions. That run even includes a meaningless 2014 regular-season finale against Buffalo where Brady was pulled at halftime because New England had already clinched the AFC's top seed in the playoffs. (It doesn't include, by the way, three terrific postseason games, including a Super Bowl where he set a record with 37 completions, but you get the point.) Regardless of where you stand (or who you blame) for the drawn-out offseason circus that was Deflategate (an opinion we're confident you'll be eager to share in the comments section of this column!), 2015 is shaping up to be one of the great, defiant revenge tours in the history of sports.
Brady might throw for 60 TDs, 6,000 yards, win a fifth Super Bowl just up the road from where he grew up and put an exclamation point on this season by snapping a selfie with Roger Goodell during the awkward presentation of the Lombardi Trophy, then hand the commissioner his iPhone.
Mr. Goodell, I'd love for you to have this phone as a reminder of our time together.
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Brady still throws a beautiful football. He can still carve up a defense like he's slicing a turkey, and when we wrote him off a year ago, it turned out the turkey was us.
