The one year anniversary of ‘Brady’s decline’

On this day in 2014, media outlets across the NFL declared the death of Tom Brady as an elite quarterback and the New England Patriots as dominant team.

Following a 41-14 drubbing at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs, the once-great Patriots sat at 2-2. Brady had thrown just four touchdown passes through four games and was intercepted twice by Chiefs, with one being returned for a touchdown.

Brady finished the Monday night contest with just 159 passing yards and a completion rate of 59 per cent, his worst in 14 years as the Patriots starter. Rookie Jimmy Garroppolo entered in relief of Brady and completed 6 of 7 passes for 70 yards and a touchdown.

After the game, coach Bill Belichick was asked whether the quarterback position would be evaluated – if the promising second-round pick would get a chance. Belichick shook off the question and backed his three-time Super Bowl winner.

Owner Robert Kraft called the game one the worst he’d watched since buying the team in 1994.

Brady shouldered his part of the blame, but vowed the team would not trend in the same direction for the remainder of the season.

"It was just a bad performance by everybody," Brady said. "We need to make sure we never have this feeling again. We've got to figure out what we have to do better."

Despite the talk of their season already being over, the Patriots still owned a share of the AFC East lead, tied with the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins.

In the week that followed, both Brady and Belichick made it clear they were over discussing the team’s stunning primetime loss.

“We're on to Cincinnati,” Belichick said repeatedly as the media asked questions about the embarrassing loss, while Brady responded to questions with, “we’ll see.”

When the Bengals arrived in Foxborough the following Sunday as the AFC’s lone unbeaten team, they saw a whole new Patriots team.

The Pats took a 20-3 lead into halftime and finished with a dominant 43-17 win while Tom Brady became the sixth NFL quarterback to cross the 50,000-yard mark.

Brady threw for two touchdowns in the win and proceeded to throw multiple touchdown passes in the team’s next nine games – including a five touchdown performance against the Chicago Bears.
 

The Patriots lost just one of their remaining games before resting their starters in a meaningless 17-9 Week 17 loss to the Bills. In the playoffs, Brady threw 10 touchdowns to four interceptions over three games as the Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl title. Brady claimed his third Super Bowl MVP.

Now, coming off an offseason of controversy and the “DeflateGate” saga, Brady has looked as good as ever through three weeks.  Brady has dominated the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars to the tune of nine touchdowns without an interception.

Much like those of Mark Twain, reports of Brady’s death, at least as an elite quarterback, were greatly exaggerated.