Shaunodon said:
Don't lump in Brady with your woeful team. No one in history could lift this offense. Someone here may have been telling your that for most of the season, but you were busy burying your head in the sand. It's only too poetic that it ends with Edelman-- his supposed no.1 receiver --dropping a lollipop on 2nd down, during the most important drive of the game, and then letting a punt roll to the 1yd on the last ditch attempt drive. And I love Edelman, and he's been playing on one leg with one arm for a while now, but his limitations have been more exposed the more reliant they've been on him. Tom Brady is a free man now though, so it's ultimately a good day. Good luck with your team and whomever they draft going forward. With any luck, Brady won't be on that team, and so I won't have to watch them and the spare parts they scramble together, while Brady's last few good years are being wasted. |
First, you're reading way too much into things if you think I'm somehow blaming Brady. All I'm saying is that he isn't capable of carrying an offense with this few weapons like he has in the past. And Brady has carried offenses arguably even worse than this in the past. He went to an AFC Championship game throwing to fucking Reche Caldwell and Jabbar Gaffney. None of that is to shit on Brady, the guy's 42 years old, after all. Some of the miracle working power inevitably declines when you lose some of the physical capabilities you had in the past. He's still a very good QB, and I'm happy to have him on my team.
Second, good Lord, are we really referencing Chris Hogan as a huge gap in the Patriots' offense? This is the same guy who everyone made fun of the Steelers' secondary for two weeks after he had like the first big game of his life in the 2016 AFC Championship.
But, yeah, losing Gronk, Amendola, etc. hurts. And it'd be great to replace them, but the thing is, replacing them (with anyone competent) is easier said than done. Players like Amendola, Welker, Stallworth, and even Hogan were all low risk free agency pickups/trades. The unfortunate reality of the NFL is, due to the salary cap, you can't really afford to keep all your now good players around when they turn out to be good. There will inevitably be at least one other team out there that can pay more. So you have to replace them. Big name signings are fine, but also usually very expensive, which the Patriots haven't been able to afford as of late. So you have to take your chances on less expensive players. Sometimes those players work out really, really well, like Welker, Amendola, etc. (as well as James White, who's replaced Dion Lewis just fine). Sometimes, they don't. Unfortunately, this was one of the years where they didn't, and combined with some really shitty injury luck, a Super Bowl run wasn't in the cards.
This is how the NFL works, though. Browse literally any fandom's forum for a recent star QB and chances are you'll run across some time where they talk about how the QB had to deal with a talentless team. Rodgers, Peyton, Brees, etc. This is how the NFL is supposed to work. It's not supposed to be easy to sustain success. Replacing your players is supposed to be really challenging.
I sincerely doubt Brady will leave; he'll either be back or retire. Regardless of what he does, though, I'm grateful to have watched him play.
