Tom Brady: If your family’s anything like
mine
http://www.authenticsnewenglandpatriots.com/cheap-rex-burkhead-jersey ,
it’s one of the questions you get almost as often as “So are you dating anyone?”
at Thanksgiving and Christmas:“Have you thought about grad school?”Yeah, I’m
pretty sure that grad school’s not quite the same as undergrad when you could
show up in basketball shorts and a band t-shirt, pay attention for 10 minutes,
pass out mid-lecture, update my fantasy football lineup, and shotgun 38 Rockstar
Energy Drinks before finals, so, even if a few Patriots players think an MBA is
“fun” and a “welcome change from football”...it really seems like it’d cut into
my 20 hours of watching football on weekends, and Mondays, and even Thursdays,
among other things.The list of Patriots receivers (and running backs and
offensive linemen, for that matter) that’ve attempted to learn the New England
offensive playbook and struck out is almost as long as the list of “who?”-type
dudes that Bill Belichick has turned into local legends, household names, and
occasionally, even All-Pro superstars. And isn’t it a bit weird that even though
we hear a lot about how innovative and LOST-level-complicated the Patriots
offensive playbook is, we don’t really ever hear many details about WHY it’s so
tough and separates the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, and the
awkwardly feminine from the possibly Canadian?Leave it to Tom Brady himself to
explain, and - let’s just get this straight for the self-aggrandizing meatheads
that are somehow paid six figures to talk about this stuff - see, if you ask him
about
football
http://www.authenticsnewenglandpatriots.com/cheap-marcus-cannon-jersey ,
Tom loves to talk about football! Wild, right?From NESN:Gonna have to call BS on
that last assessment of your skillz there, Tom, but please go on.Want more on
how complicated this offense is to learn? Of course you do. Check this out,
courtesy of Chris Brown of Smart Football, writing for Grantland in
2013......hold on, I need a minute.R.I.P. in Peace, Grantland, and damn you,
ESPN, for axing the only good thing you ever got your hands on besides the OG
Sportscenter anchors.ANYWAY.Since this was written right after the 2012 season,
when the Patriots had replaced their ‘07-’10 shotgun spread offense with a
two-tight-end offense that was bamboozling defenses all over the league all over
again, keep that glorious offense in mind.(I’m going to cherry-pick a few quotes
here to make my point, but definitely read the whole thing and I guarantee it’ll
put an evil smirk on your face the next time Brady runs no-huddle and goes from
a 2-back set with the tight end in line and 2 receivers playing wide to a 5-wide
look the next play with the same personnel.)So, starting with that, it’s the
exact opposite of your flag football team where your QB just points to you and
goes “9”, and you go deep.Why is that important, three-time Super Bowl champion
Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis?For a specific example:That, in a
nutshell, is what they mean when they say if you’re a receiver in New
England
http://www.authenticsnewenglandpatriots.com/cheap-elandon-roberts-jersey ,
you don’t just learn your routes, you learn EVERY route on the play. Throw in
Brady’s love of audibles based on the defensive look, the option routes that can
make the difference between a guy like Julian Edelman sprinting right into
coverage or into nothing but green grass, and, oh, sometimes you’re going to
need to do all that while you’re going no-huddle and sprinting back to the line
to line up in a different formation than you did last time.THAT’S
graduate-level.Remember that next time you want Dez Bryant or someone like that
to come in and learn the playbook by kickoff. Through the first five games of
the 2018 NFL season, it was nothing but smooth sailing for Patrick Mahomes, the
first-year starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs.Mahomes had taken the
league by storm, making incredible passes and dashing for incredible runs,
throwing touchdown after touchdown, and leading the Chiefs to a 5-0 start. He’s
the most exciting young quarterback we’ve seen in years, and Kansas City has
proven that it made the best decision of any team in the 2017 NFL Draft by
selecting him.But on Sunday night at Gillette Stadium, Mahomes finally got
welcomed to the NFL the hard way — by getting handed his first ever defeat,
43-40, at the hands of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots in
what might be the most wildly entertaining Sunday Night Football game of the
year. There couldn’t be a better way for a young player to get broken into the
league.Let’s be fair though; Mahomes still played an incredible game. He threw a
pair of interceptions, but other than that, he continued to display the same
abilities that have made him so captivating this season. He did everything he
could to put the Chiefs in position to win the game, completing 23 of 36 passes
for 352 yards and four touchdowns as Kansas City put up 40 points. You can’t get
much better than that.But the Patriots were just a little bit better. Tom Brady,
at age
41
White
Ja'Whaun Bentley Jersey , even scored one of his rare and special rushing
touchdowns. He also threw for 340 yards and a touchdown. New England’s rookie
sensation Sony Michel picked up 106 yards on the ground, and Rob Gronkowski
hauled in 97 receiving yards.The Patriots looked like the Patriots, and they
looked like the same team that always makes a run deep into January. Even after
Mahomes connected with Tyreek Hill for a 75-yard touchdown pass, tying the game
up 40-40 in just 12 seconds with just over three minutes to go, Brady did his
thing that we’ve seen so many times over the years. It was almost reminiscent of
Super Bowl 36, back in January 2002, when Brady moved the Patriots down the
field in the final minute to put them in position for a game-winning field
goal.As expected, Stephen Gostkowski drilled the football directly through the
uprights as time expired, and that was it. The Patriots are now 4-2, while the
Chiefs no longer have that goose egg in the loss column.The 23-year-old Mahomes
was officially welcomed into the NFL on Sunday night. He still played a great
game, but for the first time in his NFL career, he experienced what it feels
like to take a loss. Even more so, he experienced what it feels like to take a
loss in Foxboro, Massachusetts.There’s no need for Chiefs fans to worry. Mahomes
and his team will be just fine. They might even go to the Super Bowl come
February. But on Sunday night, despite yet another incredible offensive
performance from this Kansas City team, the Patriots were just a little bit
better.Welcome to the league, kid.
