Bill Belichick downplays QB position depth by saying Patriots have played without Tom Brady in past

NFL: AFC Wild Card-Tennessee Titans at New England Patriots

The Patriots’ biggest position of strength has become arguably their most-glaring weakness, but their head coach doesn’t believe that’s the case.

Tom Brady had been starting under center for the Patriots for 20 years, having been drafted by the team, but he’s elected to take his talents to Tampa Bay, giving playing in the NFC a shot.

Brady led the team to six Super Bowl wins, but Belichick deserves a lot of that credit as well. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares in life without TB12, but Belichick pointed out that he’s won a few games with other signal-callers in the past, during an appearance on NFL Network.

“Well, we’ve played at other times without Tom,” Belichick said, as transcribed by NESN. “Whether it was the [2008] season after he was injured — we played 15 games with Cassel and went 11-5 — or heading into the ’16 season with Jimmy and then Jacoby, and Tom coming back after the four-game suspension.

“So there have been other times where we’ve dealt with that. We’ll do what we always do, which is try to prepare the team the best that we can, utilize our players and the skills that they have and put ourselves in the best position we can to be competitive and win. That’s what we always do, and we’ll continue to do that.”

Brady missed nearly the entirety of the 2007 season with a torn ACL, and the Patriots missed the playoffs that year.

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