The final third of 2019 Brady was dealing with two injuries, one to his foot and then to his throwing elbow against the Chiefs. We didn't find out until after the season the true extent of the injuries, but they existed.
www.si.com/nfl/patriots/news/brady-suffered-foot-injury-december?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=sportsillustrated&xid=socialflow_facebook_si&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0fxut1FMUzqAB36DxpXNLLccwL0aesUdR54inmRuxR9RxdSxbs9vk4-Mc
This seems to be a convenient lapse in memory for the
"weapon's suck" crowd, but look at his stats from the Chiefs game on. I think these injuries combined with inexperienced young WR's who hadn't practiced with him all season was another downfall. He missed practices with that elbow, so he was basically going out and playing with rookie WR's on game day having barely practiced with them at all. Outside of old man Ben Watson the TE play was terrible. Early in the year it was an entirely different WR room, and the two rookies were relegated to the third team with Harry missing most of the year.
As far as last year, a bunch of vets they retained and signed made that team much better than it would have been had they borrowed more cap space to extend Brady. The QB play would have been markedly better if they had, but the remainder of the team would be empty or total newbes. More importantly Brady didn't want to play on that team nor should he, he has a finite amount of gas left in the tank. The team did the right thing by the player in granting him release and they did the right thing for themselves in resetting. It couldn't last forever, and emotional fans need a scapegoat.