Tom Brady is the greatest of all time, but please stop implying that everything he does is perfect.
We all know Brady isn't "perfect", it goes without saying.
Your post is impressively detailed but there's no season-crippling mistake in there. I mean you're pointing out incompletions which is gratuitous scrutiny. But since you put in the time I'll give it all consideration.
As for examples we can start with the SB 46: safety, incompletions resulting in red zone FG, two incompletions leading to a 3-and-out, another 3-and-out followed by a critical 4th quarter pick; it wasn't a good game.
On the safety throw he was about to get clobbered by Tuck in the end zone. The refs very easily could have let that go but technically the call was correct. Brady had a window to get it to Welker over the middle on the play but apparently didn't see him. Bad play but it's down on the list of plays that determined the outcome of the game.
The Patriots defense had a horrible sequence on the drive following the safety. They were late getting defenders on and off the field. They had a turnover wiped out by a 12-men on the field penalty... that's on Belichick and it cost the team 7 points.
You're riffling off incompletions, of which he only had 14, and 7 of them were the safety, the pick, the Welker drop, the Branch drop (on the final drive), the Hernandez drop (on the final drive), a spike (on the final drive), and the hail mary. Overall he completed 66% of his passes.
On the pick Brady made a great play to avoid a sack and was fortunate to even get the pass off. The pass was on target and Gronk, who was worthless in the game with the ankle injury, had the ball ripped away by a backup stiff linebacker. Had Gronk been healthy for this game they would have won it.
The Welker drop was a game-killer. He makes that catch and the game's probably over... at worst they're up 5 with NYG having little time to drive the field with no timeouts. As it was Belichick, as he's prone to do, held off on using his timeouts to conserve time for the Patriots offense and it cost them 40 seconds they could have used on the final drive.
Of all the things you're knocking Brady for in this game, I'll give him heat for safety play, but for something you didn't mention, which was missing Welker over the middle.
Brady wasn't bad in SB 46. He made some very good throws under duress and they were in position to win the game late in the 4th quarter but the defense gave up it's second Super Bowl game-winning drive to Eli Manning, who is not a good quarterback.
This coming on the heels of a 0 TD/2 Int game vs Baltimore in the Billy Cundiff game, the Pats winning despite Tom.
Brady wasn't good in the AFCCG but they won the game so your point is moot. I want season-crippling mistakes. Not poor play in a win.
That Jets game was the second year in a row of one-and-done for the Pats. The previous year Brady completed just 54% of his passes while throwing three interceptions against the Ravens. Go back one more year to the AFCCG vs San Diego, who were averaging 26 points per game. The Patriots won because the defense limited the Chargers to 12 points, bailing Brady out of a 209 yards, three-pick game. The next game was the loss to the Giants with Tom throwing 29 incompletions, losing a critical fumble just before the half, and basically doing almost nothing on seven of the nine drives.
There's a lot to unpack there. Again, discussing a victory is pointless so I'll stick with the losses. Chronologically...
Firstly, Brady did not have 29 incompletions in SB 42. But anyway, we all know the story of this SB... the Patriots OL got destroyed. NYG totally stuffed the running game and pressured Brady from start to finish. That Brady was able to drive the offense down the field for the lead late in the 4th quarter was miraculous. It should have been enough to win the game but the defense allowed Eli Manning to drive 83 yards for the loss. The TD pass to Burress was an abomination. No way the sideline should have let that play happen with 5'8" Hobbs in isolation on 6'5" Burress... a timeout has got to be called there by Belichick.
I hope we're not putting the '09 wild card loss on Brady, right? Baltimore did one thing all day long on offense, hand the ball off, and the Patriots were clueless to stop it. Belichick should lose his defensive genius credentials for this game alone.
The '10 divisional game was the asinine Welker benching which had Brady throwing screen passes to the law firm on the opening drive. The Jets got a FG off the pick and thereafter Brady played well in this game... 250, 2 TD's, 0 INT's and a QBR over 100. The most costly gaff of this game was the ill-advised fake punt that gave the Jets a short field with a minute left in the half. WTF! was that?
In the 2006 AFCCG the Pats defense scored on a pick six, and the offense started on the 40 or better five times - but that great field position resulted in only one TD and two FGs. Tom's 4th quarter drives consisted of a three-and-out; starting on the Colts 43 and having 1st down at the 13 but two incompletions resulting in settling for a FG; starting on the 46 but two more incompletions leading to another FG; an incomplete pass to Troy Brown resulting in a critical three-and-out; and the game ending on an interception.
2006 was the first of three seasons (including 2013 and 2019) when Belichick completely f*cked over Brady with a half-assed roster. It showed up in this game starting with Caldwell dropping a walk-in TD. Sure, Brady wasn't good in this game, but he was surrounded by trash all season. Also, I've yet to hear a good explanation for why Belichick started Eric Alexander, a career special teamer, and then just sat back while he got torched by TE's all night.
2012 post-season: only 53% passes completed (29-54), 1 TD, 2 Int in 28-13 loss to Ravens. 2013 post-season: Pats fall behind 23-3 to Denver, with Tom going 13-22, 133 yards, 0 TD over the first three quarters while the outcome was still in doubt. 2015 post-season: Ton completes just 48% of his passes, with 1 TD and 2 Int in the 20-18 loss to Denver. Of the 60 times Brady dropped back to pass, 33 times the result was no gain and 16 were for a gain of less than ten yards. One of the pick led directly to a Broncos touchdown, and the only TD came after a turnover gave the Pats possession deep in Denver territory. 2019 post-season: 54% completions, 0 TD, 1 Int (pick-six). Zero points in the second half; last six drives consisted of a turnover on downs, four straight punts and an interception.
2012 postseason... they got beat by a better team and totally outplayed on both sides of the ball in the second half.
2013 postseason... they had very little chance in Denver who was a much better team that season. The Patriots skill position players were a joke that season.
2015 postseason... are we seriously getting on Brady for this game? He converted two 4th-down plays just to give them a chance for the tie. Denver's defense was all-time great that season, even still, the Patriots should have represented the AFC in the Super Bowl... Belichick completely butchered the end of the regular season (weeks 13, 16 &17) which knocked the Patriots out of the 1 seed.
2019 postseason... fitting end to a hopeless season. From week 9 on through the postseason the team wasn't any good on either side of the ball. Belichick's clock management and (lack of) use of timeouts was awful in the final regular season game and the wild card game. Brady, Belichick, the entire team... not good by the end of the season.
If we want to flip this around then I can point to a bunch of clutch postseason games, plays and game-winning moments by Brady. More than any other NFL player by a longshot. And now he's doing it with another franchise, which is unprecedented, and has him being discussed as the greatest player ever across all professional sports. But yes, you've proved
everything he does is not perfect.
