FOXBOROUGH - It was the football version of "It's a Wonderful Life" for Tom Brady last night. He got to see what the Patriots would look like without him, and it was less than wonderful for him and everybody else at Gillette Stadium to watch.
Coldplay was the band Brady went to see in concert recently, and it was also an accurate description of the team's quarterback play without No. 12 last night in its exhibition opener against the Baltimore Ravens.
Let's get to the obvious. If Brady, the reigning NFL Most Valuable Player, goes down, the season is all but over for New England. No Brady, and Broadway Brett Favre and the New York Jets are the new AFC East favorites. But there will come a day when Brady, who turned 31 last Sunday, is no longer the franchise's Super Bowl-winning, supermodel-dating, magazine-cover-gracing quarterback.
Based on last night's 16-15 loss, the Patriots aren't ready for that day yet.
Coach Bill Belichick held Brady out of the game so he could get a look at understudies Matt Cassel, Matt Gutierrez, and rookie Kevin O'Connell. The three combined to complete 17 of 33 passes for 144 yards with three interceptions.
"We got out there and we couldn't really get anything going," said Cassel, who was 1 for 4 for 11 yards and an interception. "We had some penalties and some miscommunication between me and Chad [Jackson]. It's one of those things where you try to go out in the first game and execute, and we weren't really able to do that tonight. So, as we move forward, we've just got to get better and tighten up the screws."
The most promising of Brady's backups was O'Connell, who entered the game late in the third quarter and generated some excitement with his legs - he rushed twice for 22 yards, including a 15-yard scramble for a first down on a drive that ended in a field goal - and led the Patriots to their lone touchdown, a 1-yard run by LaMont Jordan (19 rushes, 76 yards) with 6:07 left that pulled them within 16-15.
"Coach [Josh] McDaniels let me know if things break down you can use your legs a little bit and try to make some plays there," said O'Connell, who was 6 for 13 for 57 yards and an interception. "I just wanted to do anything I could to get the ball rolling there and get some points. LaMont ran the ball well down in the red zone, and the offensive line got real physical and we punched it in on that one drive."
O'Connell's 2-point conversion pass was knocked down. Trailing by a point, O'Connell got the ball at the Patriots' 9 with 2:45 to go, a chance for Brady-like heroics, but after he scrambled in his end zone to buy time, C.J. Jones juggled the pass and turned it into an interception.
