Tom Brady

Tom Brady still might have enough talent left to lead the New England Patriots to another Super Bowl title.

But an embarrassing 34-10 loss to the Detroit Lions reminded the All-Pro quarterback and his teammates that it's only the preseason and a potential championship won't come easy.

Brady was shrugging his shoulders trying to explain how his team, after two excellent preseason efforts, could fall flat against the Lions. He was 12-of-22 for 145 yards in about 2 1/2 quarters of work.

"It wasn't our best game obviously," said Brady, who played his college football in nearby Ann Arbor with the Michigan Wolverines. "From the first series on, we just could never really get into a rhythm. It was just a bad night all around."

You don't make excuses for it. We didn't play the way we needed to play, missed open receivers, a careless interception there. You're not going to win games if you play like that. There's only one way to get better, just get out to practice and get back to work, try to improve the things we didn't do very well and hopefully play better next week."

Brady indicated that one aspect of his game he needs to improve on this season is releasing the ball quicker.

"I've got to do a better job of making quicker decisions and getting rid of the football and getting it to the guys who can do something with it," he said. "In practice, it was better, but then you get out on the game field when it actually means something, it didn't really show up tonight."

Brady faced extensive pressure from the Detroit front line, led by sophomore defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh.

"To be honest with you, I didn't pay attention to his emotions," Suh said. "My job is to continue to rattle him, get after him and be in his face. "When he starts yelling at me, like 'leave me alone,' that is when I know I have completed my job. He didn't talk too much today. He's a good player and I respect him a lot."

Brady last played at Ford Field in a Thanksgiving Day victory over Detroit.

"Ever since we played against him last Thanksgiving and I had a conversation (with him after the game), I have a lot more respect for him," Suh said. "He is a great player and he keeps it in house with whatever is going wrong with him, if anything."

The Patriots end the preseason Thursday at home against the New York Giants. The season starts Sept.12 at Miami.

"I think we have to understand like every week when you play well, that there are things you need to do better. When you lose, there's things you need to do better and you don't want to ride the wave of emotions...."

Coach (Bill) Belichick always says do your job and he means it. When I'm the starting quarterback and he says do your job, I've got to do it very well and that's what he expects of me and that's what I expect of myself. We're going to get out there and try to do a lot better job."

Some NFL experts theorize time is running out on Brady in his hopes of bringing another Super Bowl title, his possiblefourth, to New England.

"Look, it's football," he said. "When you make a bad play, you've got to overcome it. There's resiliency that comes into this game and mental toughness. It's all the things you're trying to build on as a team, trying to figure out what kind of team you've got. When practices don't go well at the start of practice, you've got to figure out a way to turn those and make them into good practices.

"Then you string those good practices together, and you're going to have a good week. If one bad drive leads to a bad quarter, which leads to a bad half, which leads to a bad game, you're never going to win games because you always have adversity in this game."

Brady is still determined to lead the Patriots to a lot of wins and perhaps the biggest victory of all—the Super Bowl.

"We've got a few weeks until the opener," he said. "Hopefully, we make a lot of improvements. We've got a big week coming up this week to see what we can do against the Giants."

 

 

 

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