Tom Brady’s Decline Is As Clear As Day

The Patriots QB ain’t the same at age 41

Tom Bradymay have thrown his final touchdown pass for the New England Patriots.

Wait a minute. That might be a bit overdramatic, premature, if you will.

Still, the end of Brady’s fantastic career is in clear sight. Don’t be fooled, don’t look the other way.

For sure, Patriots’ fans will be in denial.

They are still reliving those five Super Bowl seasons, lucky or not.

They aren’t interested in Father Time. He’s the enemy of Patriots Nation. Truth be told, he’s the only one undefeated in sports.

Instead, Pats’ fans would like to believe that Brady’s woeful performance in the Pats’ embarrassing 34-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans was simply a bad day at the office for the future Hall of Famer.

No way, no how.

Simply put, Brady was terrible. There were a lot of missed throws. Deep balls fluttered to the sidelines, some short throws bounced in front of receivers.

Did we mention that Brady had NO TDs in the game and New England was shut out in the second half?

In all, Brady – who was pulled out the game midway through the fourth quarter – completed just 51% of his passes, had 254 yards and a QB rating of 70.6, his second lowest of the season.

Oh, no. This isn’t a fluke game. This has turned into present day Brady, at age 41.

In the last three games, Brady has exactly just one TD. Somehow, the Buffalo Bills held him to no TDs three weeks ago. And the one TD Brady got in this drought was a late touchdown against the Packers on a defensive mix up that left a receiver wide open.

That’s it. For some, it’s shocking. For some, it was going to happen.

Talk of Brady playing until he was 45 years old was dumb, nonsense.

Before the season, on both Undisputed and The Herd on Fox Sports 1, I tried to tell fans that Brady’s decline was coming this season. And nobody wanted to hear it. I was called simply a hater.

I even brought stats to back up my argument. Nobody wanted to see them.

This season, Brady has 17 TDs and seven INTs. Last year at 40, Brady had 32 TDs and and just eight picks.

Brett Favre fell off the same cliff. At age 40, Favre has almost identical numbers as Brady. He had 33 TDs and just seven picks. But at 41, Favre 11 TDs and 19 picks.

Granted, Favre’s fall was bigger. Still, there’s no denying the Brady has fallen off from his MVP season a year ago.

And yes, despite Brady’s decline the Pats are still 7-3 and headed to the postseason again.

But it’s not on the arm of Brady. The Pats continue to take advantage of the weak AFC East.

This team isn’t close to the team that went to the Super Bowl a year ago and lost to the Philadelphia Eagles.

This 2018 Patriots team has holes all over it. The defense isn’t good. Most of all, Brady isn’t as good.

Did you see Brady catch a trick play against the Titans on Sunday? Unlike the Super Bowl play, Brady actually caught it. But he looked like an old man playing a young man’s game when he stumbled and bumbled after catching the pass from Julian Edelman on a third-and-seven play. Yep, Brady was short of the first down.

“It was just a bad day for all of us,” Brady told the media after the game.

Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick knew this time was coming. He was always a guy that believed in getting rid of a guy one year early rather than one year too late.

This is why Belichick didn’t want to trade away Jimmy Garoppolo. He was supposed to be the Pats’ future QB to replace Brady.

But Brady won over the owner, who couldn’t help but live in the past. The owner picked Brady over the coach and here we are.

Brady isn’t what he used to be, nobody ever is, especially in sports.

Some will simply ignore what they are seeing and remember the highlights from years gone by.

It still won’t bring the good Brady back.

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