After two weeks, it's safe to say that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is playing about as well as he's ever played to start a season.
He has completed 63 of his 91 attempts (69 percent) and he's averaging 8.29 yards per attempt, which over the course of the 2014 season would have been third-best in the league. His seven-to-zero touchdown-to-interception ratio is the best in the league, and he's the only player to have surpassed 750 yards to this point (754).
During a conference call on Tuesday, Patriots coach Bill Belichick was reminded of a quote from former Patriots receiver Troy Brown, who said when he retired that, "You can't outrun Father Time." Belichick said that the reason Brady has been able to fend off the aging process for as long as he has is because of all the work he puts in on and off the field.
"Tom works really hard," Belichick said. "He takes great care of himself, and he works really hard physically to be ready to go. I have great respect for the way he competes all over the field in terms of his preparation physically and as far as knowing our opponent and the game plan and all that. That's a big part of it."
Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who has worked closely with Brady for nine years starting in 2004 as the team's quarterbacks coach, was asked about Brady's late-career surge as well.
"He's a tremendous worker," McDaniels said. "He spends the entire year preparing his body and his mind, and I would go so far as to say the emotions and those types of things that we have to put into this job and that he has to put into it as a player. He spends a huge chunk of time getting himself prepared and ready to do the things that he wants to do.
"He has high expectations and high goals for himself. He knows that it's going to to take a tremendous amount of work to continue performing at the level that he wants to play at. I think he deserves a lot of credit for that."
New England Patriots
It's something that not many players are able to do, but Brady's lifestyle revolves around allowing himself to play as long as possible. His eating habits, his sleep patterns, his leisure reading -- they all circle back to how he'll be able to continue playing as an elite NFL quarterback, even into an age when others are drifting into retirement or have already pulled the chute.
As part of his answer on Brady, Belichick explained that part of his job is to give each player an honest assessment of where they are. That Brady has continuously earned the starting job in New England for the last 15 seasons under such scrutiny is among the highest of compliments Belichick can pay to a player.
"I would just say in general, not about any specific players, not directed at anyone, but I think at the beginning of each year, I always try to remind myself to just go back and be objective and look at each player objectively," Belichick said. "Not judge him on the past but judge him on the current year. I know you guys don't like to hear that, and I talk about it probably ad nauseam, but every year is its own year. Some players get better. Some players kind of stay at a fairly consistent area. Other players decline for one reason or another.
"I learned a long time ago that you just . . . you don't take that for granted. You go on what you see. Players that are on this team this year earn what they get based on their performance, as have the ones in the past based on some other resume or some other year or whatever. What the player does, or if there's an injury situation, where you project him to be, you can't dream about that. You have to be realistic and evaluate it.
"I've had players that honestly, one year were as good as players at their positions that were in the league. They went to the Pro Bowl, they were really god players, and the following year they weren't. In some cases they were maybe a year or two from being out of the league. And vice versa. Guys that don't play or that have very little to no role on your team and all of a sudden they go to a very prominent role. Brady as an example."
Belichick added: "This is [a] long answer to a pretty simple question about one player, but for me it's the same. You gotta continue to evaluate each guy, your team, different units in your team, figure out how to get better, why you're having problems, what needs to be corrected, how to maximize what are not your perceived strengths, but what are your actual strengths, how to get the most out of that or the individuals, whatever it happens to be.
"It's constantly changing and constantly evolving. I think that's what I've learned. Certainly there's a point in each player's career where at the end of the year, you've gotta look at that player with the idea of, 'Well let's see where he is next year.' Because Troy's quote certainly has a lot of truth and application to it -- for all of us."