There’s nothing more for Tom Brady to do now than go home to the wife and baby. He couldn’t possibly be thinking about playing in that stupid Pro Bowl.
Nope, he can go home, relax, and tend to what ails him, which, if reports are correct, is plenty.
He will, of course, admit to none of it. The Patriots quarterback may have been playing with a broken finger, cracked ribs, and a hurting shoulder, but he’s going to be true to the code.
“I think injuries are a bunch of b.s.,’’ he said. “When you can play, you play. When you can’t play, you can’t play. I think we all deal with injuries, I really do. There’s not a guy in the locker room who’s not banged up. We all fight through it, and that’s part of playing football.
“I was able to play 16 games,’’ he said. “That’s the only way a quarterback can display toughness is to be out there. We don’t hit anybody, we don’t block, we don’t do that stuff, and I want the team to be able to rely on me and count on me, whether it’s practice or the game.’’
He’s being predictably noble. That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it. Injuries had nothing to do with his abysmal performance in yesterday’s 33-14 season-ending thrashing at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens.
Fine. He’s entitled to have it his way. He will have to accept full responsibility for his three interceptions, a strip sack and lost fumble (he should have unloaded the ball well before Terrell Suggs got around Matt Light), and the truly shocking total of 3.7 yards per pass attempt.
Brady has ridden the heights. He won three Super Bowls in his first four years as a starter and he came within seconds of winning a fourth. He was 1-2 with Peyton Manning as the best quarterback in the league. But first came the knee injury in the first game of the 2008 season and then a very uneven comeback season, which, with one strangely aberrational big day (vs. Jacksonville) ended with Brady being very pedestrian in four of his final five games, bottoming out with yesterday’s terrible performance.
And it was terrible. OK, he didn’t have Wes Welker, but there were plays to be made and Brady couldn’t make them, or, at least, not enough of them. The strip sack and the interceptions provided short fields for Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco, whose only apparent responsibility was to hand the ball to Ray Rice, Willis McGahee, and Le’Ron McClain and step nimbly aside. Flacco only threw the ball 10 times, completing four.
Brady put it up 42 times, completing 23 for a paltry 154 yards. That kinda speaks for itself.
He did not lose the game by himself. This was a very well-crafted team disaster. But when someone is as acclaimed and respected as Tom Brady, more is expected.
