Getty Tom Brady voiced his thoughts on the Patriots' losing streak.
Former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said he didn’t buy the Bill Belichick “start all over” comment amid back-to-back losses of 30-plus points.
“Absolutely,” Brady said of his former head coach during the “Let’s Go!” podcast on Monday, October 9. “I think that he’s got a very consistent approach that he’s always taken and, you know, it’s the right approach. It’s try to prepare the players, give them the best opportunity to succeed. You know, you get out there on the field in the end, the coaches, once the play is called in, the players gotta go do it.”
Tom Brady on Bill Belichick this week: “He’s still got the same work ethic. He’s got the same coaching style.”
Catch an all-new Let’s Go! with @TomBrady @LarryFitzgerald @JimGrayOfficial RIGHT NOW on the @SIRIUSXM app
STREAM 🔗 t.co/6UhxoR3CnK
After the Patriots were beaten 34-0 by the New Orleans Saints on October 8, Belichick told reporters: “We’ve simply got to find a better way to play and coach than that. … So, that’s what we are going to do, start all over and get back on a better track than we’re on right now.”
The Patriots look like a team and organization in disarray after two weeks in a row of lopsided defeats: The Dallas Cowboys rolled 38-3 in Week 4, before the beatdown by the Saints in Foxborough. Brady suggested everyone on the Patriots had a hand in the losses.
“It takes a great coaching staff to win. It takes great players to win. It takes great front office support to win. It’s an organizational win. It’s an organizational loss,” he said. “To ascribe a win or loss to one player — and they did that for me a lot with winning — and I always say, ‘It’s not about me, it’s about us.’ And when you lose, as a leader, when you lose you take the blame and you give the credit when you win. But at the end of the day it’s a team sport.”
Tom Brady Endured Similar Defeats but Never Like This Year’s Patriots
Brady went through one similar defeat with the Patriots: In 2014, when the Kansas City Chiefs rolled to a 41-14 win. The Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl that season nonetheless.
His worst career loss, notably, came close to Sunday’s debacle. Brady and the Patriots fell 31-0 to the Buffalo Bills in 2003, and that Patriots squad also won the Super Bowl that season.
#OTD in 2003 Sam Adams rumbles 37 yards into the end zone after picking off Tom Brady as the Buffalo Bills shut out the New England Patriots 31-0. Brady is intercepted 4 times while Drew Bledsoe goes 17-28 for 230 yards in the win.
However, neither of those teams started 1-4 or back-to-back losses of that magnitude. Brady said he recognized it as a new challenge for Belichick.
“I think the results are different from what they’ve been, but I know that he’s still got the same work ethic, he’s got the same coaching style,” Brady said. “I think the thing that I think as I watch not only the Patriots, but a lot of other things, football’s a hard sport. You know, it was very different when I was in there because I could control a lot of the outcome.
“When I’m sitting here watching from afar I realize, [expletive], there’s a lot of variables, there’s a lot of things that need to go right in order to have team success,” he said. “And I was a part of a lot of those teams and I didn’t take any of those things for granted. I needed a great defense. I needed a great kicker. Obviously, I needed a great coach. I needed great receivers and a great O-line. If I was gonna be successful as a player, I needed all those things.”
Patriots Enduring Franchise’s Worst Season of the Millennium
Brady enjoyed 19 seasons of wild success as the Patriots starting quarterback from 2001 to 2019 with six Super Bowl wins in nine appearances. His rookie year as a backup in 2000 was the lone exception, when the Patriots went 5-11, and not even that team endured the kind of blowouts that the 2023 squad has.
“And I was fortunate to have a lot of those things over a long period of time. So, the teams that lose, they’re putting a lot into it. The teams that win, they’re putting a lot into it. It’s a relentless sport and nothing is given to you,” Brady said. “It’s all hard. Losing is hard, winning is hard. To be in it year in and year out is hard. To lose and have a horrible season is very hard.”