Tom Brady (Mostly) On The Mark In Preseason Debut For Patriots

As far as preseason debuts are concerned, Tom Brady's went pretty well. Brady completed 11-of-19 passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns in the New England Patriots' 31-14 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday.

Brady averaged 6.2 yards per completion and, like the Tom Brady or last season, didn't throw a pick in the nearly two quarters he played in. Brady's solid performance resulted in a strong passer rating of 111.3 for his first game.

Is this Hall of Fame stuff? No, of course not. It's the preseason, where we don't even care if we win (well, that's our story until the Pats start losing preseason games, which isn't likely with the Lions and Giants left on the slate).

Nevertheless, it's an encouraging performance from Brady, who is coming of arguably his best season of his 11 year career, throwing for 3,900 yards and 36 touchdowns while throwing a career-best four interceptions. Brady completed 65.9 percent of his passes and had a 111.0 rating for the season. For that. he was named the league's MVP.

But, there was the matter of a few bad passes to tend to. During the first half, Brady tossed back-to-back bad passes, one of which should have been intercepted. And when all was said and done, Brady only completed 57.8 percent of his passes.

It's fair to attribute this to rust, seeing that this was his first game action of the preseason. But this isn't the first time that Brady has misfired this year, as he has been off target with his receivers during several practices at training camp.

Right now, this means absolutely nothing. Like I said before, it's the preseason, and for all we care, Brady could go 0-for-100 with zero touchdowns and 12 interceptions in preseason play, but it wouldn't matter in the least.

Once the regular season comes, Brady can't afford to have theses misfired. But as long as he keeps his bad passes in the preseason, Patriot Nation can sleep peacefully.