No Distractions Here: Tom Brady Nearly Perfect In Patriots Victory
FOXBORO (CBS) -- There's really no way around it. Win or lose, good or bad, Thursday night was always going to be all about Tom Brady.
After an eight-month serial drama centered on previously unknown inflation levels of footballs, all eyes in America zeroed in on No. 12 of New England for the NFL's season opener at Gillette Stadium.
How will Tom play with properly inflated footballs?
Did the distraction of spending the summer fighting Roger Goodell in court take away from his preparation?
Will his preseason rust carry over into the games that matter?
In a matter of one half of football, Brady answered definitively: No, no and no.
Though Brady's first drive of the night ended with two straight incompletions, those would be the last Brady passes to hit the turf until the fourth quarter.
Brady completed 19 straight passes before missing Julian Edelman on a deep ball up the left seam roughly four minutes into the final quarter. The quarterback then hit on his next two passes, the first for a gain of 19 yards, the next a touchdown to Rob Gronkowski.
By the end of the night, Brady's stat line looked like this: 25-for-32, 288 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, 143.8 rating. And that was behind an offensive line that included three rookies on the interior throughout the evening.
Same as ever, steady for 15 years, Tom Brady is still Tom Brady.
"It was a pretty special night," Brady said after the win. "I was excited. The whole team's excited. We haven't had one of these games in a long time, so it's always fun being out there, having the opportunity to go play. It was a good win."
Normally, it stands to reason that the combination of a drawn-out legal fight with the league and limited preseason reps would lead to a little bit of a slow start. But for arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, even at age 38, it's clearly no issue.
"I mean ... you don't really forget how to play football, I think, in seven months," Brady said. "I think it was nice to be out there. It's a little different than preseason."
The win and the performance adds even more accolades to Brady's career. He earned his 161st victory, pushing him ahead of Brett Favre for the most by any quarterback for one team. He improved to 12-2 as a starting quarterback in Week 1, which is the best record of any QB in the modern era. His 19 straight completions set a team record, besting his own marks of 16 in a postseason game (Super Bowl XLVI) and 14 in a regular-season game in 2009. It was his 18th game with four touchdowns and zero interceptions, tying him with Drew Brees and Peyton Manning for most all time.
It seems that with every game completed by Brady, the achievements will keep piling up. It speaks to his talent, obviously, but after the turmoil-filled offseason where he served as tabloid fodder and for the first time in his life faced harsh national criticism, it speaks much more to his ability to keep his focus on simply playing football.
"Coach [Belichick] always says you have one week," Brady said, "and you put everything you can into it for that one, three-hour performance."
It would have been hard for Brady to have made this three-hour performance much better than it was, and the quarterback indicated he may be able to achieve the impossible. After all that controversy, after all those headlines, and after all those wasted hours spent around the country arguing about PSI levels and equipment managers, Brady may quickly make "DeflateGate" a distant memory. Brady, through a decade-and-a-half in the league, is still capable of putting together some pretty special performances.
The home crowd, obviously, left Gillette Stadium quite happy, which was an emotion easy to find all night long. From the unveiling of the Super Bowl XLIX banner, to the three Gronkowski touchdowns, to the satisfying feeling of winning in Week 1, the fans had themselves quite the night in rainy Foxboro. And during the game, as you'd expect, they let their love for the quarterback be known, breaking out in chants of "Braaa-dy, Braaa-dy" at various points through the night.
At one point early in the fourth quarter, Brady stepped out of the huddle to ask the fans to end the chant. Facing a crucial set of downs at the goal line, the Patriots needed to score. Sure enough, three plays later, Brady hit Gronkowski in the left corner of the end zone, scoring what proved to be the game-winning points.Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
