After the Patriots lost to the Seahawks, I tweeted (@stevenlourie) this: “Cue a week long of columns about how Tom Brady has “lost it.” Seattle is a good team, especially at home. This is not surprising.” One of the things I love to talk about when I make picks is overreaction, public overreaction and media overreaction, in order to find teams that have been devalued off of one bad game. I hate putting too much stock into one game.

However, right now I’m writing an article about if Tom Brady has “lost it.” This isn’t an overreaction to one week, however. This is a reaction to a statistic that I figured out after the game that relates to not just this game, but a number of games dating back over 3 or more games. In his last 15 games in which he has held a lead of 10 or fewer heading into the 4^th quarter, Tom Brady, formerly known as the most clutch quarterback alive, is 7-8.

Now, you don’t need any other number to know that’s not good, but here it is. The league as a whole since the start of the 2009 season is 320-137. That means the average quarterback when spotted that kind of lead wins at about a 70% clip. Notorious choker Tony Romo is actually 6-4. Not good, but better than the Golden Boy. Philip Rivers, whose epic meltdown on Monday Night Football has taken some of the media off of Tom Brady, is 7-6. Jay Cutler, often a media whipping boy, is 10-3. Peyton Manning is 5-1. Aaron Rodgers is 15-4. Drew Brees is 17-2. Eli Manning is 11-1. Tim Tebow (TEEEEEEEEEBOW) is 2-0. Mark Sanchez is 10-3. Blaine fucking Gabbert is 7-2.

What’s even more depressing for Patriots fans is that Tom Brady used to be golden in these situations. The last 15 games excluded, Tom Brady would be 37-3 in those games in his career. 2 of those 3 losses were postseason games (2006 AFC Championship game against Indianapolis, Super Bowl XVII). In fact, dating back to that infamous loss to the Colts in the 2006 postseason, Tom Brady is just 12-10 in those games, after being 32-1 prior.

I want to add that the Patriots haven’t become a worse team in this time period. Dating back to that Colts loss, Tom Brady is 61-19 as a starter. That’s a 76.3% winning percentage. In between, he’s won 2 MVPs, made 2 Super Bowls, had the first undefeated 16-0 regular season, set the season single record for touchdowns, set the single season record for TD:INT rate, and had a 5000 passing yard season. Prior to that loss, he was 82-25 in his career, a 76.6% winning percentage.

He hasn’t become a worse quarterback overall. The Patriots are probably going to finish with 11 or 12 wins this season and Tom Brady will be among the finalists for a 3^rd MVP. He’s on pace for 32 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and 4640 passing yards. He’s still winning the same amount of games as he was before.

The difference is how he is winning those games. More of them have been blowout wins, which is great and should be applauded and celebrated by Patriots fans. However, his inability to nail down wins when taking a close lead into the 4^th quarter is troubling. Of his 19 losses since that Indianapolis loss, 10 of them were ones in which he took a lead of 10 or fewer into the 4^th quarter. 10 of them are ones that he should be winning. He has an awesome record over the last few seasons, but he should be better.

And before you call me greedy for expecting even more from someone who’s going to be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer, remember this. Tom Brady hasn’t won a Super Bowl since 2004. He’s 4-5 in his last 9 playoff games. Blowing teams out is great in the regular season, but in the postseason, you have to be able to protect small leads heading into the 4^th quarter. You’d have to be blind to see not a relationship between his recent inability to protect small leads heading into the 4^th quarter and his recent lack of postseason success and Super Bowl victories.

Also note that is a “has Tom Brady lost it?” article not a “Tom Brady has lost it” article. I don’t know if he’s lost it. Quarterbacks should not be defined solely by their win-loss record. It is a team game. In fact, I’d argue that he doesn’t deserve most of the blame, but rather it’s a combination of poor defensive play and overly conservative play calling.

I’ve probably seen most, if not all of these games and I don’t remember once coming away from a game thinking “Tom Brady blew it today.” It’s always been “I hate our defense” or “why we running the ball so much?” But that’s just a hypothesis. That’s the purpose of this article, to test that hypothesis. Here’s what I found.

The Defense Sucks

In those 10 losses, the defense has surrendered a whopping 13.0 points per 4^th quarter. On average since 2007, teams surrender 6.2 points per 4^th quarter, so we have a defense surrendering more than twice the average. However, since 2007, the defense actually only surrendered 6.2 points per 4^th quarter in general. They’ve just been especially bad in those 10 4^th quarters. What’s also somewhat promising is that in those 12 wins in this situation, the Patriots’ defense has only surrendered 2.5 points per 4^th quarter, which is well above average. Overall, they haven’t been horrific in the 4^th quarter. They’ve just had 10 especially bad games that have led to blown leads.

Tom Brady isn’t blameless

Of course, that’s not the only problem. Yes, the Patriots do surrendered 13.0 per in the 4^th quarter in those 10 losses, they score 4.3 per. The defense is horrible, but the offense isn’t helping matters. It’s been a complete team meltdown. Since 2007, Brady is completing just 58.9% of his passes for 15 TDs and 10 INTs in the 4th quarter of games within 7 points either way, so it’s not all on the coaching staff running the ball too much. Brady isn’t closing like he used to.

I wish it was only a defensive issue. That can be solved (or worked around) be continuing to be aggressive offensively and assuming that if the other team gets the ball, they’re going to score (and that’s normally true anyway). An entire team issue is something completely different. Maybe Brady hasn’t completely lost it in clutch situations, but it doesn’t look good.

Fortunately, he does so many other things well (61-19 isn’t bad at all), but this is, at the very least, a dark cloud hanging over his head, at most, something that could cost him the chance to ever win a 4^th Super Bowl. One positive is that when trailing heading into the 4th quarter since that Indianapolis loss, Tom Brady is 7-9, including 7-6 when trailing by 10 or fewer (which is very strangely almost as good as his record when leading by 10 or fewer in that time period).

Situation	Record since Indianapolis loss in 2006	League average in that time period
Leading by more than 10 going into 4th	41-0	97.8%
Leading by 10 or fewer going into 4th	12-10	71.3%
Trailing by 10 or fewer going into 4th	7-6	28.7%
Trailing by more than 10 going into 4th	0-3	2.2%

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]