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Shouldering the load Rollercoaster season left Brady with something to provePosted: Monday July 28, 2003 1:27 PM
With a retooled defense offering the hope that the Patriots won't have to depend so exclusively on Brady's passing, as they did for most of last year's 9-7 season, many believe New England is ready to rebound atop the ultra-tight AFC East. SI.com's Don Banks talked with Brady during the weekend, amid preparations for his fourth NFL season and as the Patriots continued their 2003 training camp in Foxboro, Mass. SI.com: You suffered a shoulder injury in the last game of last season. And the state of the shoulder is? TB: It feels good. You try to get some rest where you can over the course of all these practices in training camp, but it feels good. It's an injury that happened late in the year last season, and I probably rushed back this summer getting into the lifting and stuff like that. But overall it's fine. It's feeling good. SI.com: What do you know this year that you couldn't possibly have known last year as you were starting to defend your Super Bowl title? TB: There's such high expectations. And there's high expectations because there's so many comparisons to a season where everything went your way. People press a little bit. Some people deal with winning a bit better than others. Some people deal with losing better than others. And then each week you're going out and teams are really measuring themselves against you, because you're the champ, you're the one they've got to dethrone. So you're going to get everyone's best shot. SI.com: Personally, what was the toughest part about trying to defend? TB: I'd say the hardest thing I found were the comparisons to the Super Bowl season. You're trying not to make those comparisons to last year at this time, but it's an easy trap to fall into. But things change from year to year. You have new players. Every team has new players. You have a new schedule. Injuries play a part, or whether you're catching a team while it's hot. You playing good football at certain times. There's so much that goes into a winning season, and to try and compare 2003 to 2002, or 2002 to 2001, it's pointless to do. SI.com: There were times last season that people thought the Patriots forgot what kind of offense they really were. Did the offense go away from what got it there in 2001, and rely too much on the pass at various times? TB: I think so, in a sense that we weren't playing as smart, we weren't playing as disciplined, we weren't playing as tough. The plays that are called the coach wants us to execute. And we got off to a good start last year because we weren't committing penalties and we weren't turning the ball over. Now all of a sudden we're playing Green Bay and we turn it over four times. Then we play Denver and we turn it over three times, and we play Miami and we turn it over three times. That's what is going to lose a game for you. It doesn't matter if we call a run or we pass. If you execute the plays that the coach expects, you're going to be successful. But we got away from winning football because we weren't executing. We were throwing interceptions. That's losing football. SI.com: Did last year feel like a rollercoaster ride, with the 3-0 start, the four-game losing streak, and then winning five of six, only to eventually fall just short of the playoffs? TB: We just had a bad stretch in the middle of the year and it cost us. We played four teams, lost four in a row, and then it was a struggle to get back to a winning record by the end of the year. I think that was a time where there was some serious evaluation that went on, from being 3-0 to 3-4, and then saying where do we go from here? You know we fought back, but it just wasn't enough. And like I said many of those inconsistencies in our play, they came back to haunt us. SI.com: Almost all of the focus this offseason has been on the changes to your defense. What feel do you have for where this offense will be in 2003? TB: At this point, they've added a lot of guys on defense and hopefully they'll play as well as everyone expects them to. We go against them every day and it's going to be a good defense. Offensively, some young guys have got to mature. Deion Branch has to have a big year. Daniel Graham has to have a big year. David Givens has to have a big year. The offensive line, hopefully they're healthy. If Antowain Smith plays like the way he's capable, and Kevin Faulk plays the way he's capable, we should be fine. If we play like we did at certain points of the season last year, hopefully we can put together a run. But it's always hard to get wins. SI.com: Is it critical that you get the kind of production you got out Antowain Smith in 2001, rather than the 2002 version? TB: Yeah, no question, because the one thing our offensive style is it's a tough, physical football team. And that's our running game. When you run the ball, you can do anything you want. Everything comes from that. It's so much easier to throw the ball when you're running. The play-action is there, you're never in third-and-long, you keep drives going, lot of first downs, score a lot of points, kick a lot of field goals, you run the ball in the red zone. Those are the things that lead to those long stretches of wins. And that's where you can get a confidence about you, because if you can line up against anyone and just say, 'Do whatever you want, we're going to run the ball.' '' SI.com: Are you more comfortable with the profile you have this year, rather than last year at this time when everything you did was in the spotlight? TB: Yeah, I think there are a lot things you deal with when you win a Super Bowl. There are a lot of distractions to handle off the field, that get you away from thinking about football. But when you finish not making the playoffs, that takes care of those. As a quarterback, you're judged on winning games, and winning playoff games. You always have to deal with those distractions when you win a Super Bowl, and hopefully you can learn how to do it better the next time. SI.com: You had a strong second season as a starter, and yet you didn't reach the playoffs as a team. Did it feel like a step back or a step forward as a quarterback?
TB: I think you have to prove it every year, that's the good part about it. In this game you have to prove it every practice and prove it every week, because no one gives a darn what you did last year. Half the people are rooting against you any way. That's why there's a competition among players to be the very best every week.
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