Tom Brady Shows Signs of New Life

Last Four Games

Week five, vs Cincinnati Bengals (win)

After two awful weeks of play, New England’s offensive line saw a new order along the offensive line that seemed to mesh well. Since then, the overall stability of the offensive line has been improved immensely. Though, that was just one of two key factors to Tom Brady being able to operate more efficiently. The other factor? Increased, and more correct, use of Brandon LaFell (trust me, this surprised me just as much as it surprises you).

Is LaFell some sort of transcendent talent that gives Brady an elite target? No, but what LaFell does provide is the threat of stretching the field, which added a dynamic to the offense that allowed for so much more to be able to happen. Not only does LaFell’s ability to stretch the field give Brady a deep threat other than Gronkowski, but it forces defenses to open up the middle of the field in fear that LaFell may burn them deep.

With a more spacious field to work with, Tom Brady was able to see the field more cleanly and throw into wider windows. As a product of that, Tim Wright emerged as a more realistic threat in the offense. With Edelman underneath, LaFell posing a threat down the field, and Gronkowski generally attracting a ton of attention, who was left to handle Wright? A linebacker? Wright is simply too athletic for a fair amount of linebackers, thus he is able to work the middle of the field and pick up huge chunks of yards.

To digress to the topic of the offensive line, the new rotation, from left-to-right, was Nate Solder, Dan Connolly, Bryan Stork, Ryan Wendell, and Sebastian Vollmer. As compared to the week one lineup, all three interior positions saw new faces. The fresh interior unit gelled together much better than the previous composition and gave Brady more security.

Now, the impacts of the new offensive line and LaFell’s new/involved role are recurring themes throughout weeks 6-8 as well, but this week 5 game against Cincinnati is where it all began.

GIF summary of week five