Lacklustre offence needs help
Brady shoulders the load to turn things around against Cowboys Sunday
FOXBOROUGH, MASS.— Antonio Brown is working out in Florida and apologizing to Patriots owner Robert Kraft on social media. Josh Gordon is practising with Seattle, and Demaryius Thomas is suiting up for the New York Jets.
Meanwhile, in Foxboro, the Patriots started the week without veteran receivers Mohamed Sanu (ankle injury) and Phillip Dorsett (concussion), while Julian Edelman was limited with a shoulder injury.
If the lacklustre Patriots offence is going to turn things around, Tom Brady will have to shoulder the load and lean on whomever is on the field come Sunday against the 6-4 Dallas Cowboys.
Amidst a laundry list of veterans who’ve been in and out of Gillette Stadium this season, the Patriots quarterback has seemingly grown frustrated with his offence’s inability to get in the end zone.
Receivers such as Brown, Gordon and Thomas won’t be coming back to Foxborough. Neither will tight end Rob Gronkowski, who’s focused on throwing a Super Bowl party in Miami rather than making a return to the field.
In the end, Brady knows the only thing his offence can do is try to improve each week. That, he said Wednesday, is the immediate goal.
“It’s great to be 9-1, but we just have high expectations for what we’re doing as an offence,” Brady said. “We’re just trying to figure out how we can do things consistently with dependability. Guys are working hard at it. Sometimes it comes together early, middle of the season, late in the season. The only thing that matters is this week and trying to beat a really good football team. I don’t know what shape it’s going to take this particular week …
“The goal is the same: as an offence, go out there and score points and not go out there and run a bunch of plays and be ineffective. We’re working hard to try to be as effective as we can.”
Brady looked dejected after the Patriots’ 17-10 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
The quarterback threw for 216 yards and completed just 55.3 per cent of his passes. Both marks were the lowest since Week 4 in Buffalo. That game also marked the third time this season that Brady failed to pass for a touchdown.
In that game, it didn’t help that Sanu was limited with the ankle injury he suffered in the second quarter. It certainly didn’t help when Dorsett left with a concussion. However, New England’s inability to get in the end zone has been a constant problem.
In 2019, Brady has seven passing touchdowns in the red zone. That puts him 23rd in the NFL behind such quarterbacks as Miami’s Ryan Fitzpatrick, Denver’s Kyle Allen, Indy’s Jacoby Brissett and Jacksonville’s Gardner Minshew. The Patriots are scoring touchdowns on 48.84 per cent to their trips in the red zone, which ranks 25th in the NFL.
“I feel like the quarterback’s job is to do whatever you have to do to help the team win the game and score some points,” Brady said, “however you end up doing it: Running the ball, throwing it 50 times, throwing to receivers, tight ends, backs, whatever we’ve got to do to win. I think over 20 years we’ve done a lot of different things, and tried to find some different things this year.”
The hope in New England is that this offence will gel over the last six games. In recent weeks, the Pats traded for Sanu and got back first-round pick N’Keal Harry from injury. This week, the team activated starting left tackle Isaiah Wynn on the 53-man roster. Add in veteran tight end Ben Watson, who’s been with the team for five weeks, and there is some optimism that things will get better as the newcomers get more comfortable.
Of course, the Patriots also need to get healthy. Life won’t get easier if Sanu and/or Dorsett don’t play this weekend against the Cowboys. On Wednesday, the only healthy receivers at practice were rookies Harry and Jakobi Meyers.
“There’s definitely a lot of things we can improve on that we’re working to improve on and that guys are committed to,” Brady said. “The guys who are in there this week … I don’t know who it will be yet, but we’ll try to do it to the best of our ability.”