Andy Benoit: "On film, Tom Brady is just as good as he's ever been"

[BradyFTW!]

Viper doubling down on his impressively stupid takes from week one, and Babe signing on as his white knight, in the valiant quest to defeat Kontra, the (somehow bigoted for tossing out some mild wise cracks) black knight


Interesting thread derailment. I'm amused. Cookies for everyone (except that Kenny guy)!

7 days between games is a long time. Gotta stay entertained somehow, this is as good as any.

 

[BradyFTW!]

While a few holdouts continue to complain about Brady's performance week 1, let's take a moment to get the full perspective. Gotta consider the following factors:

1. The Pats were going against one of the best defenses in the league.
2. The Pats finished the game with three healthy WRs: 2 were playing their first game as Patriots, and the other one was being shut down by one of the 2-3 best corners in the league (Peters is #1 IMO, but I assume that's an unpopular opinion. He's better than Sherman).
3. Because of the latest CBA, every team enters the season half-formed at best. According to people who've worked with him, Belichick himself calls the first month "September preseason" because nobody's ready yet. Uneven performances are to be expected.
4. Doubly so for a QB who lost his WR1 and WR4 in the week and a half leading up to opening kickoff.
5. Despite that, the Patriots still dropped 27 on one of the best defenses in the league, Brady only failed to notch a TD because the three times he got them to the goal line Gillislee got to punch it in, and Brady never turned the ball over.

The fact that this is a bad game for him is a real testament to how spoiled we are as fans. There are 25 fanbases in the NFL who would consider that a perfectly fine start, and we have people digging Brady's grave over it.

 

[ViperGTS]

Lots of us said Brady played a bad game week 1, and none of us had anyone jump down our throats. The reason why is because we called it what it was: a bad game. Where you went off the rails, and got called out extensively, is in that you went way beyond just calling it a bad game. You were ready to bury the team in general and Brady specifically and declare them irrelevant based on that one performance. That is what every reasonable poster here objected to. It was way, way too hysterical of an overreaction based on one game. As many of us pointed out at the time, all you had to do was wait a week for the doomsday prognostications to look utterly foolish.



NFL writers are some of the dumbest mother****ers on the planet earth. No case is made stronger by citing the fact that the Sal Paolantonios and John Claytons and Chris Mortensens agree with you.



And therein lies the complete pointlessness of making broad, sweeping declarations based on one game. Every year, the patriots play at least 2 games where, if you took them in a vacuum, you'd conclude that the team sucks and is going nowhere. That's the nature of the game, and it's why everyone who's been around the block a couple times knows not to do it. Again, nobody criticized you for acknowledging that the Pats played a ****ty game. The problem was when you started making sweeping declarations about the trajectory of the team and the GOAT QB's career arc based on that one game.



To be blunt, I'll take his understanding of football and of the team--strengths, weaknesses, broad perspective, all of it--over damn near anyone else here's, and certainly over yours. If your argument requires you to conclude that 98% of this forum is pink hats, it's likely that you're the one who isn't coming from a place of reason.

It's really kind of a bummer, I was genuinely hoping you'd take the week 2 performance as an opportunity to reconsider whether you'd overreacted and try to approach the forum and the game itself in a more measured and reasonable way. Based on this post, it sure looks like you decided to double down on a load of bs instead.

I said, even in a part you quoted, that this team after week 2 seems to be headed in the opposite direction of the ‘09 squad and that it was a good thing, and that it still remains to be seen how it plays out fully.

So I’d say that’s a good thing, no?

This is the problem with forums. There is a lot of missed statements that’s don’t allow a full picture to be seen. I miss plenty myself to be sure. And no, 90 percent of the forum is not a pink hat. It’s a select few, and especially those who gets their backs up whenever someone dares to question or factually describe an event occurring real time. The only reason I even posted in this thread is is got pinged in someone’s response.

 

[Biffins]

Well the neck injuries probably did Forehead Manning in.

Yeah well, that's the point. Some kind of injuries eventually do you in. Tom has managed to avoid those kind of injuries.

 

[primetime]

Reads like Andy Benoit ripped off Tony Romo's comments during the game.

Was amazing to hear the respect dripping from Romo, a guy criminally underrated by spoiled fans of a successful team (watch out, Jimmy G) who would have been in the Hall of Fame if not for injuries. He still sounded like a starry-eyed high school kid watching a professional when talking about Brady. It's amazing how far Brady is above even the guys at the top ecehlon of the position.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

And how much of that is because Packers pay to get Rodgers weapons like Cobb and Jordy Nelson.

While Brady puts up a career year and Super Bowl win with Edelman and Chris Hogan.

This is exactly why people don’t really understand the salary cap. You have Aaron Rodgers refusing to take a hometown discount and recently making some comment about needing to be the highest paid again. Then you have Nelson, Cobb, and Bennett all getting paid top dollar. Combined, those four players account for roughly $40M.

For the Patriots, Brady takes a hometown deal and they never pay $10M+ for skill position players. In fact, I don’t know if anyone even gets $5M a year at WR. They count on Brady to make the offense better.

And Packers fans grumble about the defense while pledging their undying love for Rodgers, all while cheering at the prospect of upping his salary to $30M and putting every possible weapon at his disposal.

The Aaron Rodgers Packers have become the Peyton Manning Colts.

 

[SammyBlueCat]

I will admit that I am a homer even though I have not lived at home for many years. I am also the unofficial conditioning coach er eh mascot. Let's go Brady and let's go Patriots!!!

 

[neali]

This is always a tough call, the 2008 season was the most incredible coaching job, maybe ever by a head coach. To go 11-5 with Matt Cassel was amazing. That team also didn't have a 1st round pick (Spygate) and tons of veterans either left or were in decline.

But I've never seen anything like Brady. Since Deflategate he's just been unstoppable. Probably better than he's ever played except during the 2007 season. Greatest of all time, even at 40.

Randy Moss put the 2008 team on his back and earned Cassel franchise money.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

For the Patriots, Brady takes a hometown deal and they never pay $10M+ for skill position players. In fact, I don’t know if anyone even gets $5M a year at WR. They count on Brady to make the offense better.

Ignoring Brady's first two years in the league (before NE redid his contract) Brady has earned an average of $12,285,196/yr of actual cash payments. (Source: Tom Brady)

Peyton Manning over his entire career (not leaving off his rookie deal because he got big $$ right from the start) earned an average of $13,818,444/yr of actual cash payments. (Source: Peyton Manning)

If you want to ignore Manning's first two years (to match up with ignoring Brady's first two years) then he averaged $14,659,875/yr of actual cash.

And if you don't want to ignore Brady's first two years (to match up with looking at Goober's entire career) then Brady averaged $10,953,711.

But I do think the best comparison is Manning's entire career vs. Brady minus his first two seasons. That way you're comparing each when they were viewed as -- and paid as -- The Man. So again, that's $12,285,196 for Brady and $13,818,444 for Manning. That puts Brady's average annual cash earnings at 88.9% of Manning's.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

....You don’t refute any of my claims other than a blanket “your stupid blah blah blah”.

OK...

"Brady can't throw better than 45 percent"

There's one of your stupid claims that needs no refuting. REALITY itself refutes it.

Plus the phrase you are looking for is "you're stupid"

 

[mosslost]

Ahhh, much of those early SB winners were not BB's decisions, he inherited them.

Brady, Seymour, Warren, Light, Pfieffer, Wilfork, Vrabel, Branch, Givens, Dillon, Watson, Harrison, Asante, Antoine Smith.. much longer too

 

[mosslost]

sorry, rodgers couldn’t produce like brady even if he played with belichick’s defenses.

I was talking about Belichick not Rodgers.

 

[mosslost]

Agreed but the 2011 Pats were by no means a great or even good defense. Vince Young even threw for 400ish on them.

Brady got them to the SB and it didn’t hurt that the AFC was lousy that year...

True. I think it might have been the 5 wins were top 10. Plus I think I got that stat off some other teams message board so it could be bull ****, plus I was just bored. My point is that Belichick has no equal in my opinion and it is by a wide wide margin. Same with Brady too though.

 

[TennisBallHead]

Sorry, but he has slowed a bit. He's throwing more ducks.

 

[TBR]

I love Brady, but the Patriots have had a top 10 D in all 7 SB years, and 2 of them were number 1 scoring D. Over all Belichick has built incredibly well rounded TEAMS over the entirety of his tenure. He has like 13 top 10 Defenses. As a comparison the Packers have only had ONE top 10 D during all of Rodgers years, and that is the year Rodgers won the SB.

Brady is easily the GOAT QB, but Belichick is in charge of all of it. Those Defenses are a key part of all the success.

Part of what helps make those defenses so great is actually Brady himself. The Pats rarely need to spend a bunch of high draft picks on WRs, for example. Brady can work with other teams' castoffs or turn late round, undrafted guys into major contributors. Not to take away some credit from those very players, but we've seen it going back to Givens, Patten.. Caldwell... Edelman, Hogan, Amendola. Throw LaFell in there as well, who was a JAG for Carolina until Brady got 74 receptions out of him as the #3 option on offense. Brady's ability to do more with less has afforded the Pats to be better on defense.

Rodgers, on the other hand, has been surrounded with [almost exclusively] top 100 draft picks at the skill positions throughout his career. Jennings, Jones, Nelson, Cobb, Finley, R Rodgers, Lacy, Adams, Montgomery. All top 100 picks. Donald Driver is the lone exception, who was more of a leftover from the Favre-era.

 

[Jangles]

Sorry, but he has slowed a bit. He's throwing more ducks.

Finally

I've been waiting for NFL guru TennisBallHead to weigh in here and give me the insight I know I can trust

 

[TennisBallHead]

This is also Brady's last year, Jangles.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Sorry, but he has slowed a bit. He's throwing more ducks.

Everyone take note. This right here, this is how it's done. TBH bides his time, waits it out while someone else crashes and burns, and then slides in pages deep with a perfectly concise missive; no filler--and no misspellings or exclamation points to serve as tells--just a well crafted, high level troll job. Well done you master, you black belt, you are a magnificent troll.

 

[BabeParilli]

Brady, Seymour, Warren, Light, Pfieffer, Wilfork, Vrabel, Branch, Givens, Dillon, Watson, Harrison, Asante, Antoine Smith.. much longer too

I refer you back to the term "much of" that I used. A half dozen inherited players reside in the Pats HOF along with other similar very good players.

As far as Brady: luckiest pick in NFL history.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Ron Borges avatar = obvious troll. Don't feed trolls.