In One Minute, Tom Brady Explains 20 Years of His Receivers Failing in NE

Boston Globe. Getty Images.

The failure of so many physically gifted - and sometimes even accomplished professional - wide receivers to make it in New England is one of the enduring mysteries of the Patriots Dynasty. And perhaps the biggest criticism of Tom Brady in his 20 years of unprecedented success was that it was his fault a lot of his wideouts managed to fall through the cracks, even when they proven themselves on other teams. The knock on Brady was that he'd lose patience with a guy too soon. And that once his trust was gone, there was no getting it back. 

Granted, Brady had plenty of receivers he bonded with. Troy Brown. David Patten. David Givens. Deion Branch. Years later it was Randy Moss and Wes Welker. Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Brandin Cooks and Chris Hogan. One rare exception to the argument that when he lost confidence in you, there was not getting it back was Malcolm Mitchell, who seemed to be getting frozen out in his one career season. But by Super Bowl LI, he became indispensable. (Plus of course, Gronk. But for the sake of this discussion, I'm going to stick to just the wide receivers.) All these guys managed to form whatever psychic/spiritual/emotional connection to their quarterback that is necessary to function in an NFL offense. Obviously, since as a wise woman once pointed out, even Brady could not fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. 

But each of the names on that list had a counterpoint. An equal and opposite non-achiever. An Evil Twin. The Anti-Wideout. Chad Ochocinco (above) being the Patron Saint of the group that also includes established NFL veterans Donald Hayes, Doug Gabriel, Joey Galloway, Phillip Dorsett, Mohamed Sanu. And players the Pats drafted who suffered Failure to Launch like the notorious Chad Jackson, Brandon Tate, Taylor Price, Aaron Dobson and N'Keal Harry, without whom no such list could be complete. 

The question of why the Bust Rate has always been so high at this position in this town. And here the man himself breaks it all down for us in one minute of pure, undiluted, unvarnished truth:

It all makes such perfect sense now. "Perfect" being the operative word because Brady is, above all else, a perfectionist. Hearing him express his frustration with looking over to see one of his potential targets not knowing where to line up, turning to the sidelines for guidance, not understanding the route concepts, being unable to read the coverage with the same eyes as his quarterback … it was exactly like playing 10-on-11 because he was not going to even think about going to that guy. 

This is explains a whole heck of a lot. For instance, why in his last year as a Patriot, Brady attempted 613 passes and fully 25% of them were to Edelman. With another 15.5% going to James White. Because he wasn't going to down with the ship by forcing the ball to Dorsett, Sanu and Harry. (Looking at Jakobi Meyers' gamelog in his UDFA season shows his targets peaked with back-to-back weeks 4-of-9 and 3-of-7, then Brady essentially ghosted him from then on.) But also why the greatest Dynasty in sports had a graveyard out back littered with the bones of pass catchers who never caught many passes.

What's funny hearing him explain it in these fairly simply, obvious terms his how much heat he caught from football media pundits in this town. They made him out to be a diva who refused to work with teammates unless they were in his Circle of Trust:

And once you're out, you're out. And there's no coming back. Which, the logic went, you were wasting talent and squandering a lot of opportunities. 

But look at it from Brady's point of view. Imagine being the master of anything the way he was in the Patriots offensive system. Now imagine having to explain it to someone who can't grasp it. That has to be incredibly frustrating. For him, it was like Einstein trying to teach quantum physics to a Kindergarten class. Immanuel Kant explaining The Critique of Pure Reason to his dog. Newton reading Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica to a bunch of 17th century Irishmen. 

Remember the way Yoda got all frustrated with Luke when he first showed up on Dagobah not knowing a bloody thing about harnessing The Force? That was Brady's everyday existence with some of the guys who came through this program and couldn't learn this system. And he didn't have time for their shenanigans because he had Super Bowls to win and GOATness to achieve. I for one will be glad to finally have a new scheme installed because it's so hard to find someone who can perfect it the way he did. But in no way will I ever hold it against him that he mastered it in ways no one else could.