Sunday night's win over Indianapolis wasn't his best performance, but credit Tom Brady for bouncing back with a second half that allowed the Patriots to pull away after their 42-20 rout over the Colts.
Brady didn't play well in the first half, completing 10-of-19 (53%) for 84 yards and two interceptions, including one before the half where he came off a play-action pass and made an ill-advised downfield throw to Rob Gronkowski that was badly underthrown and was picked off, giving the Colts the football at the Patriots' 23-yard line.
 Tom Brady bounced back after a rough first half against the Colts on Sunday night. (USA TODAY Images) |
Three plays later the Colts scored, taking away what had been a 14-3 lead as the Colts had pulled to within four at the half.
But in the second half Brady was razor sharp, completing 9-of-11 for 173-yards and two touchdowns as the team pulled away from Indianapolis and left him as a spectator by the time it was over. With just over four minutes to go and leading by 22 Brady watched Jimmy Garoppolo hand the football off five straight times while Jonas Gray finished up a stellar four touchdown, 199-yard night, before the rookie quarterback knelt down to kill the clock and close out the game.
After it was over, Brady admitted the turnover before the half was a "dumb" throw.
"It was just a bad play," said Brady. "It was a no-look throw, which those don't ever end up very good. I thought I had a good look pre-snap and (Rob) Gronkowski got through there but I just put too much air on the ball and ended up lobbing it right to Mike (Adams). Hopefully there is no more of those this year."
"You hate to let them back in there like that. It's kind of a momentum play, and it was just not a good one. That doesn't happen very often, so I'm not overly concerned about it. It was just a dumb play."
With the team running the football well, Brady credited the offensive line, which opened up holes for Gray all night and helped keep Indianapolis off balance. They did a good job moving the football offensively and kept themselves in manageable situations, having faced just two plays of beyond six yards on third down all night. As a result they finished 9-of-12 (75%), which was a big key to their success.
Brady admitted that was exactly what they needed, and that things are always easier when they're controlling what they want to do and he's pleased with how they performed as they improved to 8-2.
"We're playing well, playing on our terms," said Brady. "We did a much better job protecting the ball there in the second half. We made a lot of big time third downs, some big time run after catches. The defense stepped up. It was great to see the defense play like that especially when they kind of backed them up against the wall and kind of closed it out, finished strong. It was exactly what we needed."
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