When Tom Brady made his departure from the Patriots official after a few decades in Foxborough, the discussion began to determine who had the dominant role in New England’s successes 43-year-old passer or coach Bill Belichick. With a little less than a year since the divorce, Michigan’s product has tipped the scales in its favor.
Brady and the Buccaneers
The first point, and perhaps the most important, is that Brady has made it to the Super Bowl for the tenth time in his career. The company is getting bigger given that Tampa Bay is in its first playoff appearance since 2007 and will play the second Super Bowl in its history.
On a personal level Brady had one of his best seasons statistically. Ended up with 4,633 meters (fifth of his career), 40 touchdowns (second time it crosses this barrier), 65.9 percent completed (fourth best record as a professional) and a rating of 102.2 (sixth best). By comparison, in 2019, his senior year at Gillette Stadium, he collected 4,057 yards, 24 touchdowns, 60.8% completions and an 88 rating.
Should he bring in the second Vince Lombardi for the Florida organization, Brady would barely become the second quarterback in history to win the title with two different organizations.
Patriots after Brady
For Robert Kraft’s team, the beginning of the era without Tom Brady was difficult. After qualifying for 11 consecutive postseason runs and 20 winning seasons, the patriots saw these stripes end with a 7-9 balance in late 2020, which earned them to be the third team in the AFC East.
It did not go well on violation without ‘TB12’. With Cam Newton at the controls they got only 2,890 passing yards (third worst bout of the season) and 12 touchdown passes (linked to the Giants in the NFL basement). Faced with shortcomings by air, evident since 2019 with a limited distribution of receivers, the Patriots found a new force, the running game, a division in which they were one of the strengths of the league, finishing 2,345 yards (fourth-best team) . ).
The problems didn’t just remain on the offensive; defensively, they were the best defense in the championship in 2019 (average 275.8 yards per game) to seventh in 2020 (353.7 yards per game). What’s really disturbing about the case is that on the ground they tolerated 2,103 yards (131.43 per pledge), far from the 1,528 (95.5) they accepted a year ago.
However, For New England, the outlook for 2021 is not as dark as one might diagnose. In free agency they will be the fourth team with the most money in the salary cap and on top of that they will get back the eight elements that decided not to play in 2020 due to COVID. Of the players who chose to stay out, at least three are clear starters (Dont’a Hightower, Patrick Chung and Marcus Cannon).