There were a number of reasons the Patriots were handed their first loss of the year by the New York Jets on Sunday, and Tom Brady will be the first to tell you that fact. Assistance from his former understudy, however, likely didn't make much of a difference for the Jets, according to Brady.
Speaking on WEEI on Monday morning, Brady explained that the Pats' offense has too many wrinkles for the Jets to know exactly what to expect.
"They don't know what play is called," he said. "We have a bunch of different
protections. We have a bunch of different blitz beaters, [so] unless you
know what play is called at that time, you're not going to know how
we're adjusting to the blitz. We do that in a multitude of ways.
"He can go in there and say, 'Yeah, on this play. This is what they
do.' But that's always in hindsight. Most teams do it the exact same
way. It's not hard to study film and figure out how you pick up the
blitz. That's not something that's like a big mystery."
Aside from blitz pickups, Brady said that O'Connell, the 25-year-old signal caller who was released by the Partiots at the end of August, likely couldn't have helped the Jets prepare for the Patriots any better than anyone else.
"I don't think it came down to what Kevin told them or didn't tell them," said Brady. "I think it came down to the way we executed and as an offense the failure to get the ball into the end zone. We had opportunities that we didn't take advantage of. That's the frustrating part when you're flying back last night and realizing the plays that were out there, and had we made some of those plays the outcome would have been different."
