Tom Brady hasn’t played a competitive NFL game in nearly ten months, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick isn’t anticipating a seamless return to action.
Belichick admitted Friday that that Brady has been watched closely in practice, having only played briefly in the preseason.
“I’ve coached for a long time in this league. I’ve seen a lot of players miss practice time for whatever the reasons are — injuries, contract holdouts, suspensions, etc. I would just say in general it’s hard for a player who’s not playing football to practice playing football,” Belichick said Friday about Brady’s practice, via Mike Reiss of ESPN. “I don’t care how many times you run around the track, I don’t care how many sit-ups you do. If that was the best way to do it, to just not do anything for four weeks and go do push-ups, I think then maybe that’s what we’d do. But I honestly don’t think that’s the right way to go. That’s just my opinion.”
Belichick added that the coaching staff has tried to find the right balance to get Brady up to speed.
“How much is too much? How do you get ready for the speed of the game when you haven’t been at the speed of the game? What kind of condition is the player in based on the time that he has been away?” Belichick mused. “It’s trying to find that sweet spot for getting the player the best preparation you can. In all honesty, my experience with all of those players has been as time goes on they play better. Maybe their first game will be the best game, but most likely the third, fourth, fifth, sixth games will probably be better than the first.
“That’s just based on experience. I don’t know what will happen with a new player who comes back. We have a couple of them. I have no idea. I think those guys are preparing well, they’re competing hard, but again, if that was the best way to prepare then I think you’d see more people doing that. I don’t really think that’s the way to go.”
So yes, there will probably be a period for Brady to get back up to speed, though that likely won’t comfort opponents. Or perhaps Belichick is simply trying to manage expectations.
