Business as usual for Tom Brady, Homecoming King
COMMENTARY
The Carolina Panthers are terrible, while the Buffalo Bills might be muscling their way into the elite teams of the 2016 National Football League.
Even considering the annual parity of the NFL, watching the defending NFC champions fall to 1-5 with a 41-38 loss against the New Orleans Saints Sunday, while perennial basement shoppers like the Bills improved to 4-2 with a 45-16 blowout win over the San Francisco 49ers, can be deemed a bit topsy-turvy. The season is all but over for Cam Newton through six weeks of the schedule, while Rex Ryan has the Bills chirping oh, so close to the top spot in the AFC East, with a chance to topple the norm in two weeks.
On the other hand, it sure doesn’t seem like that constant is going anywhere.
Tom Brady made his much-anticipated return to Gillette Stadium following his four-game suspension for not subscribing to the official cellular network of the NFL, shook off a rusty first half, and led a second-half demolition of the Cincinnati Bengals as the Patriots secured a 35-17 win.
Brady (376 yards, three touchdowns) was Homecoming King. Rob Gronkowski (a career-high 162 yards receiving, one touchdown), and Dont’a Hightower (1 1/2 sacks, safety dance) split the votes for Queen.
“We made some adjustments, changed up some things in the second half coverage wise which definitely helped us,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said after watching his team run off 25 points in the second half after managing only 10 in the first. “It’s good to get by Cincinnati with a win.”
The Patriots are now 5-1, getting ready for a two-week stretch that will see the Pittsburgh Steelers (30-15 losers to the 2-4 Miami Dolphins on Sunday) and the Bills, perhaps fighting for a share of the AFC East lead, thanks to their 16-0 shutout against the Brady-less Patriots earlier this month.
Don’t count on it.
If last week’s win over the Cleveland Browns seemed like a mirage, if only because beating the Browns is akin to wiping up spilled milk, then consider Sunday’s win over the Bengals to be a clear sign that the Patriots are back running on all cylinders now that Brady is back in the quarterbacking fold. Gronkowski certainly appears healthy, James White can quickly make everyone forget Dion Lewis with more afternoons like his latest (47 yards receiving, two touchdowns), and the quarterback looks as if the game has slowed down for him, even at the age of 39.
“It’s good to be 5-1,” Brady said after a performance similar to the one that earned him AFC Player of the Week honors only a few days prior. “I think we’re at a decent place, so we’ve just got to keep stringing these games together. There’s a ton of football left. It’s a good defense we played today. They made it challenging on us, but we’re trying to figure out what we’re made of, and it was good to get going there in the second half.”
Brady played in front of a Gillette Stadium crowd that was filled with early-arrivals. Patriot fans were intent upon watching Brady emerge from the tunnel prior to his first home game of the season, and showered the quarterback with chants of “Bra-dy, Bra-dy” upon emerging onto the field. It was the final, burning ember of Deflategate, forever extinguished now with only the aftershocks to come.
“Today it was, once I got out there running around, it felt like football,” Brady said. “Again, you’ve just got to lock in and figure out what your job is, try to figure out what you’re going to do versus the different looks, and that’s what it becomes. You’re not going to win because you’re emotional, but I think having your attitude right mentally and physically right, ready to play, that allows you to be at your best for your teammates.”
The Bengals are now 2-4, but they’re not terrible. They’ll probably finish somewhere around 9-7, maybe 10-6, sneak into the wild card, and end up losing another playoff game, which is a prognosis about as solid as predicting that Monday comes before Tuesday this week. It might be horrible being a Browns (0-6) fan, but imagine rooting for the Bengals, a team good enough to be considered in the upper echelon of the NFL, yet with zero chance of ever putting it all together.
Two forms of hopelessness, no ending in sight for either.
Meanwhile, it’s business as usual in New England. Now at full Voltron, the Patriots have scored 68 points the last two weeks, while the defense has surrendered only 30. In fact, the defense has only allowed 91 points in all over the first six weeks, best in the AFC.
They’ve also got their quarterback back too. Did you notice?
The Denver Broncos are in limbo. The Steelers may not be as good as everybody feared.
The Patriots? Just about as normal as can be.
Tom Brady is back. Sorry if you missed the party.
“Bra-dy. Bra-dy.”
“Since I got here in 2000, you feel that with all the teams,” Brady said. “You feel that with the Red Sox. It’s heartbreaking when they lose like they did on Monday night. Then with the Celtics and the Bruins, and then certainly for us, we feel it every time we take the field. This is my home now; this is where my family lives. It’s a great place. I love being here and I love being quarterback of this team. Hopefully I can do it for a long time.”
Only 10 weeks remain for most teams. Around here, we understand that’s when things are just beginning.
It’s an emotional shift in places like Carolina and Buffalo.
In New England, everything is back just like it used to be.
And it looks good.
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