Tom Brady Points To ‘07, ‘11 Giants Team As Blueprint For ‘19 Patriots

The New England Patriots will have to play the wild card round. Quarterback Tom Brady hasn’t really played this game. In his previous 16 playoffs, TB12 had played in just three wild card games. The Patriots’ win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2005, the win over the New York Jets in 2006 and the loss to the Baltimore Ravens in the 2009 playoffs.

During his appearance on WEEI, Brady said he doesn’t have to look too far to find teams that won a championship while holding a lower seed.

“There’s a lot of examples of that,” said Brady, whose Patriots will host the sixth-seeded Titans in the first round on Saturday night. “The Giants in 2011, against us. The Giants in 2007, against us. So we don’t have to look too far to realize that it’s about one game to move on. It’s a tournament, single elimination … some teams get a bye, some teams get home field, but everyone’s got a chance to go out and compete until we lose. For us, we’re not looking at games beyond this one. This is about one week, and we gotta pour everything we’ve got into it and try to go out there and play our best game.” 

Tom Brady is right about the Giants

The quarterback had trouble sleeping Sunday night following the Patriots’ loss to the Miami Dolphins. This loss cost the Patriots their tenth consecutive playoff bye. Brady went just 16 of 29 for 221 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. 

“Yesterday, we had plays, I certainly did, that I should make, and I didn’t make them, and that’s why you lose games,” said Brady. “This week, it’s gotta be more concentration, focus, determination, attitude, everything has to be at its top, top, top this week. We just gotta get to a great place where we’re confident and trusting and going out there and executing at our highest level. 

“We can certainly execute a lot better than we did yesterday. We had too many unforced errors, things that Miami didn’t even have to do to stop us, and I think that’s when you know that you’re disappointed with the way you played when it’s self-inflicted errors. I give them all the credit for winning, but there are things that we did that we didn’t do, and we gotta tighten those things up.”

When it comes to confronting a former teammate, Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, the GOAT said that it’s more about the Patriots’ game than it is about playing former teammate or coach.

“If you look at Buffalo, their offensive coordinator (Brian Daboll) used to be with us,” Brady said. “You look at Miami, their offensive coordinator/defensive coordinator/head coach. If you look at the Jets for example, Adam Gase coached with Josh McDaniels, so we know him. Vrabel in Tennessee and Billy O’Brien in Houston. Being in the league, there’s a lot of guys that have coached with the Patriots that are now in different places. Good football is good football, and that’s keeping the fundamentals, throwing the ball accurately, making plays in the passing game, executing the running game, that’s what football comes down to. You can draw up a lot of plays, but ultimately it comes down to us getting the job done on the field, and that’s what we’re going to have to do this week.” 

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *