Boomer Esiason: With Brady Hurting, Opposing Teams Should Ramp Up The Pressure
BOSTON (CBS) -- Sunday was your typical Patriots-Jets game -- a rock fight that ended with a Patriots victory.
The Patriots came back to claim a 22-17 win in New Jersey, despite losing tight end Rob Gronkowski to a back injury in the first quarter. The good news is that Gronk's injury doesn't appear to be anything serious, and early reports say he isn't expected to miss any time.
But we also saw the effects of the injuries (quad and knee ailments) that quarterback Tom Brady has been dealing with since Week 10's loss to Seattle, as Brady was occasionally inaccurate and overthrew a handful of his receivers against the Jets.
Boomer Esiason of WFAN and CBS' The NFL Today joined 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich on Monday for his weekly breakdown of Sunday's game, calling the win "a grind all the way through," for the Patriots. Boomer said it was clear that Brady was hobbled by his knee injury, which kept him out of a pair of practices last week, and was surprised the Jets pass rush didn't try to take advantage more often.
"It's obviously affected him and the last two games it has affected him. He doesn't look smooth to me. It was a grind yesterday. Some of his inaccurate throws were a little bit eye-opening. But we also know the defensive line of the Jets is the best part of the team, and they can put on pressure on when they're motivated. Yesterday, for the first half, we saw that," said Esiason. "It was not an easy game and watching Tom you could tell he wasn't 100 percent. You could tell there is something amiss. I would say anything below the waist is going to affect your accuracy and that's what we saw that yesterday."
The Jets brought the pressure early on but appeared to have let up as the game went on. This let Brady get comfortable in the final quarter, as he threw for 132 yards and a touchdown on the Patriots' final two drives of the day.
Boomer said he would have continued to go after Brady given his injury situation, and thinks opposing teams will do just that going forward.
"I would go after him. Anyone out there on the field, regardless if they're a quarterback, if they have a problem you go after them. This is why teams don't want to disclose injuries. It's survival of the fittest out there and you're not making friends; you're trying to win a football game," said Boomer. "I would definitely ramp up the pressure, especially when you're playing against a Hall of Fame quarterback who is not on top of his game. But miraculously, somehow in the second half of the fourth quarter he turned into that Tom Brady that was throwing spirals and the accuracy was there. The Jets just ran out of gas."
Brady actually opened up about the injury after the game, which according to The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe originally started as a quad injury before affecting his knee. Despite all this, Brady finished with solid numbers on Sunday, completing 30 of his 50 passes for 286 yards, a pair of touchdowns and no interceptions en route to his 200th career victory.
Listen to Toucher & Rich's full chat with Boomer, including Brady's drive towards greatness, how important Gronk is to the offense as a whole and improved TV ratings across the league:
