Survival of fittest
As Brady stays alive, so do Pats
For years now we’ve all been sitting by the campfire as Tom Brady tells spooky, late-night stories about avocado ice cream, magical pajamas and the oldfashioned value of getting a good night’s sleep.
These are some of the reasons, Brady whispers while gathering everyone up close and pointing a flashlight up from under his chin for added effect, why he’s survived all these years of being clobbered by the various Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots on the other side of the line of scrimmage.
Tall tales? Or maybe it’s no more complicated than this: Brady is a highly conditioned athlete with off-the-charts reflexes who’s also been darned lucky to make it this far in his career without NFL Films having to edit out the part where he gets decapitated.
That’s for y’all to determine on your own. What we can all agree on is that Tom Brady, 39 years old, is the Timex wristwatch of NFL quarterbacks: He takes a licking and keeps on ticking. He’s had just one major injury in his storied career — Week 1, 2008, Bernard Pollard, knee, see ya next year — and at this very moment he appears to have aged about 17 minutes since that day in February 2002 when he led the Pats to victory in Super Bowl XXXVI.
But what happened Saturday night at Gillette Stadium was a reminder, as if we needed one, that Brady is one hit away from sitting at the dining room table with Gisele and sifting through a glittering array of job offers, product endorsements and, sure, why not, pleas from this or that party hack to accept the nomination.
Beyond the statistical reality that Brady didn’t have much of a game — 18-for-38 for 287 yards, two touchdowns, two sacks, two interceptions — he wound up with lots of fingerprints on his person. Overall Brady was hit eight times. If it wasn’t Whitney Mercilus, it was Brian Cushing. And if it wasn’t Brian Cushing, it was Jadeveon Clowney.
Clowney was the first overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft. Against the Patriots, he feasted on the 199th overall pick in the 2000 NFL draft.
The play that inspired the most buzz took place in the third quarter, when Clowney thundered through the middle and brought down New England’s hero QB. The ball already had been tossed as Brady Bridge was falling down, but that didn’t stop Clowney from completing his assignment, seemingly with great enthusiasm.
“He was rattled,” the 23-yearold defensive end said after the game.
Brady made a go of trying to push Clowney off of him (yeah, right), and then he bounced up and did that Brady thing of demonstrably complaining to the refs (again: yeah, right) before getting back to work.
There was predictable guffawing on Twitter from Fans Who Hate the Patriots and Tom Brady In Particular. A couple of examples: “Brady is upset at Clowney for treating him like a football player and actually tackling him to the ground,” tweeted @alexcrawford12 from McKinney, Texas. And . . . “And . . . this why people don’t like Brady. Whines to official after clean hit by Clowney. Come on Tommy, put the big boy pants on,” tweeted @carmanLastoria of Cleveland, Tenn.
But one play that didn’t get a lot of buzz, if only because it didn’t involve a jarring hit or a jawing Brady, took place in the last minutes of the first half with the Pats at first-and-goal on the Houston 3. Brady had plenty of time to find the open man, except that the open man never materialized and he decided to tote the straight ahead and into the end zone.
Uh-oh: Clowney suddenly appeared in front of Brady, who wisely took a dive. The rest of the drive fizzled, and the Pats had to settle for a 19-yard Stephen Gostkowski chip shot.
I’m guessing Pats coach Bill Belichick wasn’t thinking, “We could have had six on that.”
There’s a better chance he was thinking, “Six more inches and we woulda had to scrape up Brady with a spatula.”
But Brady had the quick reflexes to get out of the way of that runaway train. As we say in the old country, “Whew.”
This year’s AFC playoff tourney will be remembered for all the teams that tried to make a go of things after losing their starting quarterback. The Raiders were one and done after losing Derek Carr (broken fibula). The Dolphins, too, got the first-round boot after losing Ryan Tannehill (busted up left knee).
Even worse, the Texans had to play with an uninjured Brock Osweiler.
Brady survives. But rewatch Saturday night’s game and you’ll be reminded that, in the NFL, survival is a minute-to-minute proposition.
Pass the avocado ice cream.