Brady Ready For Tough Matchup Against Suh, Lions Defense
BOSTON (CBS) -- It was nearly 14 years ago when Tom Brady took his first ever snap in an NFL game.
Fittingly, it came against the Patriots next opponent: The Detroit Lions.
Brady entered New England's November 23, 2000 loss to the Lions late in the game, completing one of his three passes. His lone completion went to Rod Rutledge, if you want to keep that in the back of your mind for future trivia nights.
Plenty has changed since that year, when the Pats finished with a 5-11 record. Just 10 months later Brady would take over for an injured Drew Bledsoe, and eventually lead the Patriots to their first Super Bowl title in team history.
Brady and the Patriots have Super Bowl aspirations once again this season, winners of six straight and sitting atop everyone else in the AFC in the standings. But standing in their way of a seventh straight win are the 7-3 Lions, who tout the best defense in the NFL. Detroit has allowed just 15.6 points and 290.3 yards per game over the first 11 weeks of the season, both the lowest in the league.
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Brady knows he'll be facing a formidable defense come Sunday, which includes a very healthy pass rush. Despite the fact his offensive line has done a great job keeping him clean over the last month, Brady knows they'll have their hands full with the Lions, starting with three-time Pro Bowl tackle Ndamukong Suh.
"He's a phenomenal player and we have to think about him on every play. He can ruin a game," Brady said of Suh, who has 4.5 sacks on the season to go with 28 total tackles. "He's a big, physical presence, and I think he really sets the tone for that defense."
His head coach agrees.
"He's pretty dominant," Bill Belichick said of Suh. "He can do it all and his effort, the plays he makes from behind in chase, on screen plays, hustling downfield, backside plays in addition to all of his point-of-attack and pass rushes, disruptive plays. The guy gets double-teamed a lot and is still productive.
"They move him around and make it a little bit difficult to know exactly where he's going to be," continued Belichick. "You have a pretty good idea but they do enough other things with their front to give him opportunities to make plays and he takes advantage of them. He's really good. That's a very good front they have. He's the marquis guy but they have a lot of good guys on that front. They roll them all through, they all play, they rotate frequently and they're fresh and they're active and very disruptive."
"The front seven is big, fast and athletic," added Brady. "It's a big challenge for us and we're going to have to have a good week of execution, because that's what it's going to take to score points. They've shut out some good offenses."
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With Suh commanding so much attention, that has allowed linebacker DeAndre Levy to cause some havoc. Levy leads Detroit with 96 tackles, and has racked up double-digit tackles in seven games this season, including three of the last four contests.
"There's a little bit of rotation there with the other guys but Levy is on the field pretty much every play," said Belichick. "[He's] very fast, instinctive. He does a great job of taking advantage of the penetration that their defensive line gets. He gets on the ball well, makes a lot of plays in the running game, does an excellent job in pursuit, plays to perimeter. He can can go sideline to sideline, has really good speed, range. He's a very instinctive player."
The marquee win for Detroit's defense came back in Week 3 when they held the Green Bay Packers to just seven points in a 19-7 victory. But the Packers were still a work-in-progress at that point, and the Patriots are now firing on all cylinders on the offensive side of the ball.
We'll see how Detroit's top-rated defense stacks up against one of the more talented offenses in the NFL come Sunday.
Tune in to Sunday's Patriots-Lions game on 98.5 The Sports Hub -- the flagship station for the New England Patriots. Pregame coverage begins at 10am, with three full hours of postgame coverage following the game. On the TV side, tune in to Patriots GameDay at 11:30am on WBZ-TV and Patriots 5th Quarter following the game over on myTV38.
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