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All the talk this offseason was about the return of Tom Brady. His return would automatically make the Patriots the favorites not only in the AFC East, but as the favorites to make it back and win the Super Bowl.Hold on, what?
A quarterback that just had major knee reconstructive surgery would come back and take a team that missed the playoffs entirely to a world championship with seemingly no opposition? Sorry folks, but the NFL just does not work that way.
Anyone who was actually in the know could identify the fact that it would most likely take Brady an entire year to recover and go back to being the same quarterback that he was in 2007, and even then there was a chance that he might never be the same.
What we're seeing this year is a quarterback who is affected by an injury, which is okay. The man is human, after all.
Donovan McNabb and Carson Palmer both went through this kind of injury, though Brady's may have been a bit more serious. It took those two, who without question are elite quarterbacks in this league, at least a year to make a recovery. They've had that time, and now they're both playing at the top of their games.
The difficult truth for Patriots fans and the people who just have a man-crush on Brady is that it is going to take some time. Will he be able to produce this year? Sure he will, but it will be nothing like we've seen out of him before.
Already we're seeing him sail the ball when targeting wide open receivers. He's not stepping into his throws in the same way he did before the injury, and it's throwing off the entire mechanics of his throwing motion.
Not only that, but it appears as though the injury may have him a bit distracted when reading the defenses. That's really the only logical explanation for his loss of chemistry with the receivers. Randy Moss and Wes Welker are seeing the field completely different than how Brady is seeing it.
If the Patriots want to have any chance of competing with the Jets, or even making the playoffs as a wildcard team, they need to find a running game very quickly. They have to take the pressure off of Brady and find some other source of offense. At this point, they may even want to copy a division rival and see if they have anyone who can run the Wildcat.
Off the top of my head I'm thinking either wide receiver, Moss or Welker, could do it. Or, an even better idea would be Isiah Stanback.
He was brought in as a backup to Brady because he was a quarterback in college, but was then converted to wide receiver in the NFL by the Dallas Cowboys. Sounds to me like he's perfect for a wildcat package.
No matter how they do it, it needs to be done. Brady will not, I repeat, will not be able to carry this team the way he has in year's past.
The team will fail, he will fail, and even worse, it could get him hurt again.
