I'm Tom freakin' Brady....

"I'm Tom freakin' Brady..." It was suggested by a sports radio caller that Brady should open his press conferences with that statement. It is in response to the media and those fans who have been critical of his performance in the first 2 games. People who, evidently have forgotten that Tom Brady is indeed human and in their own minds Tom Brady has a perfect QB rating and 4 TD's a game without missing one throw. Wrong. Tom Brady IS human. One of the post game TV shows actually ran a poll asking the fans to grade Brady's performance for the first two games and the 'experts' were giving him low grades! I refer you to the blog I posted on August 2nd where I asked you to give Brady some slack. For the reasons mentioned in that post, we need to give him a break. Yes he had 2 average performances, but the Pats ARE undefeated. Who can blame Brady for being noticeably upset by the departure of his favorite receiver and best friend on the team? To his credit though, he hasn't complained, rather he's gone to work with his new receivers-even when he really didn't want to.

A story was published after Sunday's game about how NFL players are creatures of habit, especially on game day where they go through the same routine almost to the minute. During Brady's pre game routine he was in the locker room when approached by Jackson who asked him to go out on the field and throw him some balls. Brady declined, but the reporter later noticed Brady out on the field throwing balls to Jackson. It speaks volumes for Brady, as if we'd ever doubt his work ethic. Some of the media actually get that.

Take Peter King for example in his review of the week 2 games:

The new Brady Bunch. This was just before 8 p.m. on Sunday
night, and Brady sounded like the man who'd just lost a game to the Jets, not won. "This was a long day,'' he told me, winding down after New England's survivalist 24-17 win over the Jets. "I'm very tired.'' New England almost blew a 24-0 lead, enduring a late blocked field goal by Jonathan Vilma and a frenzied Jets rally to hang on.

Brady is the guy who has to make everything right on the field after all of the Patriots' free-agency losses and contract-related crap, and it's an exhausting job. But you know what? He just does it. No wonder the Patriots' management and coaching staff thinks they'll always be OK with Brady behind center. He bails them out continuously. Look at what happened in the fourth quarter of this one. With 9:20 to go, New England was grimly trying to hold on to a 24-17 lead and took the ball at its 30. Bleed the clock. That was Brady's job. With 7:51 left, on third-and-five, he hit Reche Caldwell for six. With 6:00 left, from the shotgun, on third-and-five again, he dumped it to Kevin Faulk for six. Tick, tick, tick. With 4:08 left, from the shotgun again on third-and-seven, he threw to Troy Brown, who burrowed for eight.

Notice the pattern? They need five, they get six. They need seven, they get eight. They converted another first down, bled the clock some more, then got into position for the clinching field goal. It was blocked, but Brady had done his job. He'd taken new England 63 yards downfield, but more importantly, he'd taken eight minutes and 15 seconds off the clock ... and he'd done it, amazingly, with the Jets burning all three timeouts and the two-minute warning stopping the clock another time.
The numbers say Brady had a pedestrian game (15 of 29, 220 yards, one touchdown, one pick), but he led his team to a 24-0 lead on the road,
then helped the Pats survive with that drive. "We're a long way from being where we need to be,'' he said. "A long way. There're times we don't look so good. We've got to be able to put the nail in the coffin. But that's what happens with a new team.'' That's what this group feels like, a new team.

Remember when Brady was "just a game manager"? Remember how excited we would have been 3 years ago if Brady did what he did last Sunday? They beat the Jets on the road, they are 2-0 and more imprtantly 2-0 IN THE DIVISION. This week he gets his chance for revenge. You don't think he's forgotten about the one and only playoff loss of his career do you? No matter if he throws 3 picks or 3 TD's this weekend, you can bet that Tom Brady will find a way to win this one. He is, afterall, Tom freakin' Brady.