Re: Patriots, Brady: Choking on leads since 2009
The Patriots have lost 3 times this season:
In 2 of those games, the Patriots had the lead, only to see the defense fail to hold it on the opponent's last "drive" of the game (Drive in quotes because of the kneel downs in Seattle).
In the 3rd loss, the Patriots scored what should have been the game winning TD, only to have it called back on a terrible holding call. They then got into position to attempt a field goal, which was missed by the kicker.
Last season, the Patriots lost 3 games:
In the Giants game, the offense got the team leads of 13-10 and 20-17 in the 4th quarter. The Patriots defense surrendered touchdowns on the last two Giants drives of the game.
The Steelers game was just a thorough whooping of a team that was not suited for their opponent that week.
The Buffalo game was legitimately a Brady issue with the pick-6 in the 4th but, even there the defense surrendered 10 additional points in the quarter and couldn't prevent the Bills from marching 70 yards down the field to set up the winning touchdown.
In 2010, the Patriots lost 2 regular season games:
One was the Jets game, where the Patriots struggled on offense for most of the day, Brady threw 2 INTs, and then Brady got strip sacked when the Patriots were on the move with about 4 minutes to go in the game.
The other was the Browns game, where the last 5 minutes were essentially meaningless.
So, not counting his year recovering from ACL surgery, Brady has had the Patriots in position to win 4 of the 8 games (leads late or TD scored and called back and FG missed), position to tie 1 more of the 8 games, position to narrow the gap of 1 more of the 8 games, and had 2 games where the team had no realistic shot by the time the late 4th quarter came along.
But, yeah, let's blame Brady because of, basically, 0-1 games where he's been the lynchpin for 4th quarter losses in the past 3 years.
Freaking brilliant. :bricks: