How did Brady manage to be so clutch then, if his performance was so much worse than what ought to be typical? Defense, of course. In the Patriots’ first championship season, the New England defense ranked sixth in the league in points allowed before holding a series of high-octane offenses (capped off by the Greatest Show on Turf) to an average of only 15.7 points per game in the playoffs (the tuck rule helped too). The ’03 team led the league in scoring defense by a wide margin, and allowed an average of 19.0 points in the playoffs – a figure inflated by Carolina’s 29 point Super Bowl outburst. Finally, the ’04 defense tied for second in the league in scoring defense behind Pittsburgh, then held opponents to 17 points per game in the Lombardi run.
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Brady got the ball back needing a late field goal. 35 seconds and three timeouts proved not enough. Brady proved not up to the comeback challenge in his next Super Bowl meeting with the Giants either, getting the ball back and needing a touchdown with 57 seconds and one timeout. The media rushed to lay the blame on Wes Welker for failing to make a spectacular catch late. As the Cold Hard Football Facts have pointed out, that was a connection that Brady and Welker just didn’t make during the season. Commentators and writers claiming it was a “routine” catch for Welker apparently didn’t see the play or watch the Patriots all year. They rushed to defend the “clutch” of Tom Brady.
Scott Kacsmar has pointed out Brady’s shortcomings before, with a look at specific flaws in his game. Hopefully the data here can put those shortcomings into a larger historical context. Tom Brady’s dirty little secret is that he’s never been a great postseason quarterback. Without the tuck rule and Drew Bledsoe’s TD pass (the only one of the game) against Pittsburgh in the AFC championship, he never gets that first ring, and this debate never starts. So let the debate end now – despite an impressive resume, Brady is not “just a winner who steps up.”
