Well, our worst fears have come true; Brady is out for the season. This is a player that can take the abuse that comes with the job, and often plays hurt, so you just knew when he didn’t come back on the field Sunday that it was really bad, and it is.
He’ll need season ending surgery on his left knee for..., well, we don’t know exactly what for, but it’s safe to assume that it’s a torn ACL, MCL, or both. You didn’t think the Patriots would be a fountain of information now, did you?
I’ve been kind of in shock since the moment he went down, hoping that it would turn out to be a sprain, hell, hoping I was dreaming, but I’m not. Hearing Belichick’s press conference yesterday was sobering, and seeing a piece on the news about how we’ve entered the “Cassel Era” was downright scary, but I’ve finally started to adjust to the idea of a Brady-less season, and here’s what I know:
The team will miss Tom, the fans will miss Tom, the game of football itself will miss Tom, this is all undeniably true. The pundits will say the Pats are through for the season, but they aren’t, and that’s also undeniably true. The Patriots still have at least 15 games to play, win, lose or draw, and although I don’t expect any passing records to be broken with Matt Cassel at the helm, this is still one of the best Patriots teams I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen them all. Every last one.
There aren’t that many marquis quarterbacks out there in the NFL, most are serviceable at best, and teams still go about the business of playing week in and week out. That’s us now, a great team with a serviceable QB. The team needs to rally around him, and we as fans need to rally around them. Everyone is going to have to work harder now, the players, the coaches, even the fans.
It’s your team; you can’t and shouldn’t bail out on them now, just because one player is gone, even if he is the best player in the NFL.
The wins, the championships, the trips to the Superbowl, that’s all just gravy. We’ve still got a lot of football left, and that’s all that really matters.
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