Ignore Jimmy G noise
Brady the man for run at title
Tom Brady lives his life on the wrong side of a microscope.
Therefore, any relative lull in performance always draws a tilted eye, as the peerless quarterback’s longtime standard of unprecedented excellence has yielded such critique. And sometimes, criticism crosses the boundary into hysteria, much like the notion the Patriots might have traded the wrong guy on the eve of Halloween.
Brady has thrown an interception in five consecutive games for the first time in 15 years. Because that stretch has coincided with Jimmy Garoppolo’s four-game winning streak, including Sunday’s exclamation point against the Jaguars, it’s brought up some zany talk that the Patriots squandered an opportunity as their quarterback quandary came to a head.
And hey, there’s a likelihood the strength of that argument could be reinforced in several years if Garoppolo is in fact the real deal while Brady is off to parts unknown. And it remains possible the Patriots could have better timed the trade to recoup more value. But this isn’t about that.
This is about two quarterbacks who are at opposite points in their careers. Garoppolo has completed 69 percent of his passes for 1,268 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions while leading the 49ers to a 4-0 record, and he became the first San Francisco quarterback to win four games in a single season since 2014. Before he was promoted to the starting job, the Niners were 1-10 and contending for the No. 1 pick in the draft.
There is no denying Garoppolo has revived a franchise that was in disarray and raised his teammates’ collective performance. Two weeks ago, the 49ers won at the buzzer to sabotage the Tennessee Titans’ playoff hopes. And Sunday, the Niners shocked the Jaguars to help the Patriots clinch a first-round bye. Garoppolo hung 44 points on a Jags defense that was the most feared group in the league.
In the same span, the Patriots are 3-1 and Brady has completed 64.7 percent of his passes for 1,013 yards, four touchdowns and five interceptions. Some of the picks have been his fault, like the one to Vince Williams in traffic against the Steelers. Others have not been his fault, as it appeared Brady expected Kenny Britt to flatten his route Sunday against the Bills before Jordan Poyer took the pass back for a touchdown.
And when Brady becomes uncharacteristically mistake-prone, the rest of his incompletions come under enhanced scrutiny. For instance, he overshot Jacob Hollister Sunday on his first throw of the game and misfired behind Rob Gronkowski in the second quarter.
The truth of the matter is Brady always misses a few throws per game, and that has been the case throughout his career. The mistakes have been forgotten because of his otherwisemarked brilliance.
So what’s the difference now? His numbers weren’t Brady-esque this month against the Bills, but a pair of victories could keep Buffalo’s playoff drought intact. And after the Bills took a 16-13 lead in the third quarter at Gillette Stadium, Brady was 9-of-9 for 105 yards and a touchdown during the Patriots’ 24-0 scoring run. The 40-yearold might not have helped many people win a fantasy league, but he kept the Pats atop the AFC at 12-3.
A week earlier, Brady was 4-of-7 for 75 yards and added a two-point conversion to Gronkowski as the Patriots scored 11 consecutive fourth-quarter points to beat the Steelers. The most important game of the season was on the line, and Brady pulled a Brady to give the Pats the inside track for home-field advantage until the Super Bowl.
Brady has said countless times he plans to play another five or six seasons, which means the Patriots will be legitimate contenders each year, including this one. That’s a given because of Brady’s pedigree.
Garoppolo would be a complete unknown in the playoffs, though to be fair, the same was true for Brady in 2001. But the Patriots are chasing history as much as the future. They’re the only team in the salary cap era to win three Super Bowls in four years, and they’re a few wins shy of doing it again. The Pats also are a duck boat parade shy of matching the Steelers for the most Super Bowl victories in history, and Brady’s presence in the next halfdozen seasons will give them the means to set a new bar.
Garoppolo might have his own brilliant career as well, but the Patriots were wary of his ability to stay healthy after a sprained shoulder in his second start in 2016 and an eyerolling calf injury that disrupted his organized team activities last spring. Again, to be fair, the sample size just wasn’t great enough to know for sure how durable Garoppolo will be, and he might ultimately be capable of leading a long, healthy career.
Finally, trading Brady never was a consideration for Bill Belichick, and suggestions to the contrary are bogus. For a guy who focuses so much energy on the present week, be assured Belichick didn’t waste time projecting the quarterback depth chart for 2025 before pulling the trigger on the Garoppolo transaction.
Save the future for another time. Brady is the main reason why the Patriots are built to win another Super Bowl now, and a few bad throws during the past month shouldn’t cloud that perspective or overshadow the reason why they’re a victory shy of another No. 1 seed.