NFL Reactions: Trying Times for Tom

The Patriots are of course still a dangerous team and one that figures to pose an intimidating playoff presence a few weeks from now, but following their 17-10 loss to the Steelers it's fair to wonder if the Patriots dynasty is perhaps an empire in its terminal phase.

As the face of that dynasty over its brutal reign of 18 years, it makes sense to frame the question around Tom Brady specifically. Brady played 10 regular season games against the Steelers before today, and in those games he averaged over 300 yards passing while producing 25 touchdowns versus four interceptions. He finished Sunday's game 25-of-36 for 279 yards, one touchdown, and one interception – far from bad, but still a clear disappointment in a game where the Patriots carried a projected total of 25.25 points on a slate otherwise littered with low over/unders. And unlike Ben Roethlisberger on the other side, Brady doesn't have an injury designated for blame in the event of failure.

When a 41-year-old quarterback leads his offense to only 10 points against a team he's owned over a double-digit game sample, it's reasonable to suspect the mounting age as the variable responsible for the shift. But there are at the very least other contributing factors, and they might be substantial enough to prove the chief cause of Brady's otherwise seeming decline in firepower. Brady's touchdown percentage on the year now rests at 4.7 percent after posting an average of about 5.9 over the four prior seasons, and his 2018 percentage safely lags even from his career figure of 5.5 percent. But it was only in 2013 that Brady finished the year with a touchdown percentage of 4.0, and that quickly proved an anomaly in the subsequent seasons. Meanwhile, Brady's YPA rests at a healthy 7.8, which would tie for fifth-best among his past 10 years, while his interception percentage of 1.8 is his highest in six years but precisely in line with his career average. For as much as there might be decline in the Patriots offense this year, it might not be Brady's play that explains any of it.

So long as Brady is moving the ball and converting touchdowns at a healthy rate relative to interceptions, we might want to recall the odd circumstances he's played in this year. Brady's two leading wide receivers, Julian Edelman and Josh Gordon, have respectively played just 574 and 508 of Brady's 901 snaps going into Sunday, and Gordon is only three months into his stay with a Patriots offense notorious for its complexity. Rob Gronkowski, perhaps Brady's most trusty partner in crime of all, has missed three games and played through numerous others at less than 100 percent. For about the first half of the season the Patriots offense was buoyed by James White, who while a crucial piece of the offense was never supposed to be a workhorse for it.

We can recall many times when teams improved or regressed over the course of the year, and if you believe those outcomes occurred for anything other than chance, injury, or coaching changes, then you would reason that those teams that 'got hot at the right time' may have in fact started working better together, be it due to increased chemistry or just inexplicable epiphany. It's tough to develop such chemistry or crack codes when you're more so just trying to gather some collection of healthy, unsuspended players who know the offense well enough to produce within it. When that offense in question is known for being inaccessible to new players, it doesn't make it any easier to forge a completed product on the fly.

The odds are that Brady's age has taken something by now. But until we see him disappoint with healthy pass catchers with whom he's familiar, it might be best to assume the bad guys aren't done winning quite yet. His last reported demise was at least five years too early, after all. Even if Brady were 10 years younger he and the Patriots would still have undergone an adjustment period this year. Trading Brandin Cooks might have been a bad move in hindsight. It left them dependent on Phillip Dorsett, who quickly proved inadequate and necessitated the in-season trade for Gordon, who they needed to get up to basically the same speed that they had grown accustomed to with Cooks – a nearly impossible task without an offseason to prepare.

• Jaylen Samuels sure looked good. The Steelers blasted open lots of room for him to run, but I think Samuels consistently showed astute vision and in terms of pure running talent he's an easy standout. His speed is just a bit above average for a 225-pound back, and his combination of balance and burst probably grade higher yet. His tools and skill set are absolutely comparable to those of Le'Veon Bell, though Samuels is far less developed after seeing so many of his college reps at tight end and receiver. The Steelers should seriously consider giving Samuels wideout snaps even when James Conner (ankle) returns.

• I get that Lamar Jackson is an incomparable threat as a rusher, and I can understand why it appeals to John Harbaugh to lean on Jackson's running skills as a way to open up the running game as a whole. It really is difficult to defend Gus Edwards' dive threat and Jackson's threat to containment on any given play, and it seems like the duo are making all the right reads otherwise. But the Ravens need to stop calling so much rush attempts for Jackson, even if he does a good job of avoiding hits as he does so. His carry workload as starter has been heavy even by running back standards, and for a quarterback his 86 carries over five starts are completely unprecedented. I'm fully convinced by Jackson as a prospect, and that includes as a passer, but the Ravens need to start running the Chip Kelly offense instead of this Rich Rodriguez one.

• If the Cardinals don't fire Steve Wilks in two weeks it will be a catastrophe for the franchise. It's stunning to think that the multi-generation scions in charge of the team nearly gave Wilks the authority to sell off assets like Patrick Peterson, Deone Bucannon, and Haason Reddick to subsidize a rebuild that would have been doomed without a doubt.

• Frank Reich had good intel on the Cowboys between his two years in Philadelphia and defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus' seven seasons in Dallas, and you have to wonder if that played a role in the evidently superb game plan Reich and his coaches put together for Dallas' 23-0 embarrassment. The Colts have shown an ability to win by varied means all year, and Reich is perhaps a bigger threat than most coaches to put together matchup-specific game plans rather than adhere to any particular core tendency. Perhaps no one knows this better than Eric Ebron, who owns 13 touchdowns from scrimmage yet has been left in an almost scratch role at several points where Reich decided to go elsewhere with his tight end personnel.

• I have to double down on my recommendation that Nyheim Hines owners in dynasty leagues try to trade the rookie. He has hands and speed, but the evidence that the speed is applicable as more than a decoy is lacking in his results. He's still young – 22 only about a month ago – and perhaps I'm not being patient enough with him. But Hines is averaging just 3.8 yards per carry at this point, and he's yet to break off a 20-yard run in 82 attempts. What's the speed for? As great as it is that he's caught 56 of his 71 targets, it's hard to see the utility in 5.1 yards per target, even at a 78.9 percent catch rate. Hines' speed and hands are novel for now, but the Colts will be a much more talented offense in a year or two, and his novelty might wear off if the Colts are no longer dependent on him for speed. You can find undrafted rookies every year who can exceed the production Hines has provided on his workload.

• I don't know how to immediately explain the disaster game for Dak Prescott and Amari Cooper, but I would bet it had something to do with Reich noticing the route tendencies of the offense. Cooper's route running can only do so much against the predictable blandness of Dallas' route combos, and you can play Rasul Douglas only so many times in a season. Dallas' failure to compete in this game could loom large with the Rams inexplicably collapsing against the Eagles.

• Kalen Ballage is certainly big and fast, but I think Adam Gase is a fool for playing him ahead of Kenyan Drake, who I think is a great buy-low in dynasty as long as his owner might entertain the delusion that Ballage is better. Ballage is basically like if Derrick Henry were a mediocre Pac-12 back, and the second-best one on his own Arizona State team (DeMario Richard), rather than the best player in the SEC on a National Championship-winning team. He has 59 yards on his other 19 carries so far. The tools are there, but the skills have not been, and I just can't let one 75-yard carry overrule years of evidence.

• Dalvin Cook's hamstring is a true multi-year concern and should probably keep him out of the first 15 or so picks in fantasy drafts next year, but he's really something else when he's healthy. His ability to change direction without sacrificing momentum or balance is outdone only by the likes of Tarik Cohen.

• Brandon Beane has much atoning to do yet after jettisoning Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, and Marquise Goodwin for Kelvin Benjamin, Andre Holmes, and Deonte Thompson, but it's admittedly a good start that he brought in Robert Foster and Isaiah McKenzie for nothing. Foster's big-play ability has been awfully convincing in the last five games, in three of which he exceeded 100 yards while posting 94 yards in another. McKenzie only profiles as a WR3 and gadget player, but he too could be a real asset. McKenzie's speed and elusiveness are truly rare – he mostly just needs to stop fumbling.

• Josh Allen continues to flash immense upside while showing just enough dysfunction to make me uneasy about his development prospects. He's developed a lot this year relative to his static trajectory at Wyoming, but he's still doing Vince Young things as a passer. To be fair, he's only recently been given decent wide receiver play, and the offensive line is a big problem even now.

• Matt Patricia really seems in over his head, and unlike the case of Steve Wilks it seems unlikely that Patricia will be fired this year. If so, Lions fans might find themselves jealous of the Cardinals. Better to rip off the band aid and fire after Year 1 than let a failure persist for multiple pointless seasons.

• The only issue Aaron Jones ever had was his durability. Even at UTEP he was hurt often, but it was easy enough to shrug off because he took on truly enormous workloads in college in between the injuries. The hamstring earlier this year plus the knee injury from Sunday are a disappointing continuation of his college durability trends. He's still a killer when he's on the field, though.

• Matt Nagy has room for improvement, but he's been brilliant as a first-year head coach. I can't remember a quarterback with numbers as good as Mitch Trubisky's who looked half as ugly on tape. Nagy is elevating that team, no doubt whatsoever. I wish he was coaching the Packers instead.

• The Jaguars look ridiculous for firing offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett when he was always a disciple if not a collaborator of the not-fired head coach Doug Marrone. Perhaps Marrone's days are numbered, too, but posting 13 points against Washington is proof that Hackett wasn't the problem. There was never any doubt on that question even before Sunday's evidence. I think the answer is Marrone and Hackett are both average at worst, there just isn't much you can do with Cody Kessler and Blake Bortles.

• Perhaps Derrick Henry needs volume to develop any useful rhythm as a runner, but the last two weeks probably convinced Mike Vrabel to pursue that outcome at almost any cost. It's difficult to argue with the results – Henry now has 408 yards and six touchdowns over the last two weeks. His advanced metrics on the season are highly impressive, too. His broken tackle percentage (15.9), positive run percentage (87.6), and after-contact average (3.5) all demand to be tested until the returns diminish. The returns remain strong, so the Titans are compelled to keep going back to Henry against Washington next week.

• Anthony Firkser not getting a single target was bizarre, if only because the useless Luke Stocker and the completely untested MyCole Pruitt combined for four.

• It's one thing for the Giants to pass on a quarterback to select Saquon Barkley, and it's another to let Barkley's best years go to waste because of a refusal to get rid of Eli Manning. The Giants should either cut Manning on Monday or commit to him for at least another five years as an ironic performance art thing.

• The 49ers called a Nick Mullens pass on 52.7 percent of their snaps while the Seahawks called Russell Wilson passes for 47 percent of their snaps, and 10 of Wilson's 29 passes occurred in the fourth quarter. Brian Schottenheimer will of course learn no lesson from this and deserves to lose accordingly. The Seahawks have a truly elite quarterback and three good receivers – it's criminal that they aspire to avoid the pass except for when they need it desperately to get out of the hole they voluntarily dwelled in for the first three quarters.

• Dante Pettis is a player I wasn't high enough on as a prospect. He's already good, and he'll probably get better. Even if he doesn't, he's a top-50 receiver candidate at the moment and would almost certainly be putting up top-30 fantasy production at wideout if Jimmy Garoppolo hadn't gotten hurt. Pettis has the hands and route-running to play as a slot receiver but has the springy hops to make an impact in the end zone, too. He also has elite open-field running skills. He's the rare undersized receiver who should nonetheless find himself in the end zone often in his career.