Considering how the last two visits to the Meadowlands have gone, it’s no wonder Tom Brady was beaming following New England’s 37-16 win over the Jets on Sunday night.
In the previous two match-ups down in their house Brady and the Patriots’ offense had a tough time getting much of anything going against Rex Ryan’s club. They combined for just 23 points during two brutal losses, and Sunday night was not only their largest victory against Ryan and his team down there since he took over, it was also the most points given up at home by New York during Ryan’s three year tenure as head coach.
Needless to say, Brady was feeling pretty good after the win.
“A lot of guys really stepped up to the challenge,” said Brady after the game. “It was good to see. It’s a tough place to play, it’s a very good football team. So it was very sweet getting this win.”
Obviously coming off of two back-to-back losses to the Steelers and Giants, Brady and the Patriots had spent the last couple of weeks dealing with a lot of adversity. One thing he talked about was the fact that dropping two games meant that there’s basically been a two-week span where it’s just been tough because it’s difficult to build on a loss.
“Losing two straight, you have 14 days of you just feel crappy,” said Brady. “Every day of practice is harder. It’s hard to build on losses, I mean you’re just trying to regroup. It feels pretty good to win this one.”
It was a solid performance for the veteran quarterback, with Brady finishing the night 26-of-39 for 329 yards and three touchdowns. There were moments where he was erratic, with some saying that those throws may have stemmed from a potential elbow injury he’s dealing with. When asked what the problem was, Brady simply blamed it on ‘indecision’.
“Just indecision,” said Brady when asked about some throws that didn’t appear to be accurate. “Sometimes the ball’s just starting to get released and then you see something and then you just don’t put everything on it. So I’ve got to try and eliminate those.”
Now as they return home to face the Chiefs in Foxboro next Monday night, they’ll at least finally have a week where they have something to build on. For the first time in three weeks Sunday’s win should definitely at least leave them feeling a little less ‘crappy’ as they start preparing for yet another nationally televised game.
It was definitely a solid performance, but Brady claims whatever confidence they’ll gather after their win over New York will come from practice this week. He also said as nice as Sunday night’s win was, it’s time to move on and get ready for the next one.
“Well, our confidence is week to week,” said Brady. “We gain our confidence from practice. Every week’s a different game plan. I mean what we did against the Giants last week’s very different than what we did tonight. We’ve got an extra day preparing for Kansas City, and guys will take advantage of that because we’ve got some guys banged up. It’s kind of like, ‘you win and you move on.’
“Honestly, look, we’re happy we won, but we’ve got a lot of football left.”