Former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is used to success in his career. After all, he won six Super Bowls with the Patriots and established one of the greatest dynasties in modern football history.
Now, things are a bit different in New England. They have made the playoffs once in the last four seasons, and if the season ended today, they’d have the third overall selection in the 2024 NFL draft.
The winds of change are indeed blowing in New England, and it looks like there will be a rebuild in short order.
Brady discussed New England’s struggles this season and took a measured approach to the concept of wins and losses. He elaborated on his “Let’s Go!” podcast with Jim Gray, as transcribed by NESN.com’s Zack Cox.
“When you look at losing, the whole organization loses, the fan base loses, everyone’s in it together. And it’s hard to get it right. And when you get it right, you should really appreciate it, especially in the NFL, because you’re not in a situation where you’re Floyd Mayweather and you’re just better than everybody every time you take the fight to the ring. You’re not like Tiger Woods, that every time you tee it up you’re better than your opponent.
“The NFL’s tough. Everything’s trying to bring you back to 8-9 or 9-8. It’s hard, and you just gotta appreciate it when you win, and you gotta try to make the corrections when you lose.”
This certainly puts things into perspective, especially when you consider the days of the Patriots in the pre-Tom Brady era.
For example, New England went 6-10 in 1995 and 5-11 in 2000. Bill Parcells did lead them to a Super Bowl appearance, as well as an appearance in the wild card and divisional round playoff games.
To say there was zero success pre-Brady would be ignorant. Nevertheless, the Brady-era level of success was something truly special in modern football.
