Notebook: Tom Brady ends season with new mark for 40-year-old QBs

FOXBOROUGH — When stacked against what he did earlier in the season, his numbers were a little below par. But on Sunday, Tom Brady finished off one of the best seasons for any quarterback age 40 or older in NFL history.



Brady ended the 2017 season with a 66 percent completion rate, 4,577 passing yards, 32 touchdowns, eight interceptions and a passer rating of 102.8. His only real competition? Brett Favre. As a member of the 2009 Vikings, a 40-year-old Favre completed 68 percent of his passes for 4,202 yards, 33 touchdowns, seven interceptions and a passer rating of 107.2. Brady was able to one-up Favre when it comes to passing yards, as well as regular-season wins (13 to 12).

(Brady's league-leading 4,577 yards allowed him to pass Fran Tarkenton as the oldest quarterback to lead the NFL in passing yards. Tarkenton had 3,468 yards at age 38 in 1978.)

One other area where Brady could surpass Favre? In the postseason. Favre won just one playoff game with Minnesota that year.

Brady ended the day Sunday 18-for-37 for 190 yards with a pair of touchdowns. Passing wasn’t easy in the near sub-zero temps. It was 13 degrees at kickoff, marking the coldest regular-season game at Gillette Stadium. The previous coldest regular-season game was Dec. 11, 1977, when it was 14 degrees in a 14-10 win vs. Miami.

“I think, in general, it just makes everything harder,” Brady said of the cold. “I mean, it’s harder to throw, it’s harder to catch, it’s harder to tackle. I mean, it’s just, I think for you guys standing out there in 10 degrees, it’s pretty tough. So, it’s a very technical sport. And, really, you’re not really playing the weather. You’re playing the other team. So, whoever handles it the best wins, and today winning 26-6, I think we handled it pretty well.”

Gronkowski OK with targetless appearance

For the first time in his career, Rob Gronkowski was not targeted in a game. The big tight end got plenty of run in the early going, but appeared to have his workload scaled back a bit in the first half, and ended the game without a catch. After the game, he sounded cool about things, saying that it was “coaches’ decision,” and the important thing was that they ended up with the win.

“Everything is good,” he said. “We just (landed the top seed in the AFC). We got the number one seed. That was a big win right there. It was a good all-around team win.

“We’ve got to just keep on working hard,” he added. "The playoffs are coming around so we’ve got to keep going, we’ve got to keep working.”

For what it’s worth, he came up 11 catches short of the mark needed to cash in on his full $5.5-million incentive, but he’ll still likely land his big payday by being named first-team All-Pro.

Good day for the defense

The 2017 Patriots were unable to pitch a shutout this year, but the six points for the Jets represented one of four games where New England was able to hold a team in single digits, and the second time this season it has kept a team out of the end zone all day.

The Patriots did blank the Jets’ offense when it came to third down — New York was 0-for-12 on third down, marking the first time the Patriots held a team without a third-down conversion since Oct. 5, 2014, vs. Cincinnati. (In the “On To Cincinnati” game, the Bengals were 0-for-7 on third down.)

“It’s something that we really worked hard on, talked a lot about defensively, especially last week, how we gave up four in a row to start the game (last week against Buffalo),” said Bill Belichick. “It’s just team defense. It’s the rush, it’s the coverage, it’s jamming receivers, it’s disguise. I thought (defensive coordinator) Matt (Patricia) and the defensive staff did a good job of mixing it up and trying to keep the offense off-balance with a variety of calls and looks. But in the end, it came down to the players and their execution.”

“We had talked about it during the week,” said defensive back Devin McCourty. “A lot of our third down comes down to individual matchup – just someone winning it, whether it's in the pass rush, whether it's in coverage. (We're) just trying to execute that and play better. Most of our breakdowns were a guy makes a good catch or we should be a little tighter, or we just missed a sack and the quarterback gets out of the pocket. I thought we just did a better job of executing and finishing those plays (Sunday).”

For the regular-season, the Patriots defense allowed just 18.5 points per game in 2017, marking the 12th season since 2001 that the team kept opponents under 20 points per game, the most in the NFL over that span.

On to 2018

With the 2017 regular-season now in the books, the 2018 list of opponents has been determined. As the first-place team in the AFC East, the Patriots will play the first-place team of the AFC West (Kansas City) and AFC North (Pittsburgh). In addition to playing each of the other AFC East opponents twice, the Patriots will play one game against each of the AFC South and NFC North teams. As the first-place team in the AFC East, the Patriots will play the first-place team of the AFC West (Kansas City) and AFC North (Pittsburgh).

Home: Buffalo, Miami., NY Jets, Green Bay, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minnesota
Away: Buffalo, Miami., NY Jets, Chicago, Detroit, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Tennessee