Plenty of people were scratching their heads when the New England Patriots elected to kick off after winning the overtime coin toss against the New York Jets on Sunday.
Tom Brady wasn’t one of those people.
The New England Patriots quarterback made his weekly appearance on WEEI’s “Dennis & Callahan” on Monday, and he backed head coach Bill Belichick’s decision to kick in overtime. For Brady, the Patriots’ offense simply wasn’t doing enough to earn Belichick’s trust.
“I think when Coach makes decisions like that, he takes everything into consideration, everything that’s happened over the course of the afternoon,” Brady said. “He obviously did what he thought was best to help the team win.
“As far as an offense goes, I said after the game, it wasn’t like we were really tracking the ball up and down the field. It’s hard to inspire your coach when you don’t do much offensively all day. Our defense was doing a lot of good things there in the fourth quarter. Hindsight’s always 20/20. It just didn’t work out our way this time.”
Brady also stressed that he wasn’t bothered by what could be interpreted as Belichick not having faith in his quarterback.
“No, I’m not offended at all,” Brady said. “We had a situation in Denver this year where we got the ball (in overtime) and we didn’t do anything with it. We kicked it to them on a short field. Like I said, we haven’t exactly inspired our coach to throw our offense out there to say, ‘Go score a touchdown and win the game.’ So I don’t blame him.”
Brady obviously was disappointed about the loss, but he stressed the Patriots still made it competitive against what he called a “playoff-caliber” Jets team. And while he said the Patriots need to turn it around and play better, he said the team’s many injuries haven’t make it easy.
“It does get harder to win games as you lose players, especially some of your consistent, dependable players that we’ve all played together with, there’s a lot of good communication,” Brady said. “When you put guys in that haven’t had that same level of communication and experience, there’s uncertainties. That’s just part of growing and learning with different players. It can be a benefit when those other guys come back, because you have more depth to your team.”
Thumbnail photo via Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY Sports Images
