Patriots' loss shines light on Tom Brady's playoff failures

Forget the talk that Tom Brady is unbeatable at home. The New England Patriots QB has developed another more damning trend -- for failing on the playoff stage.

The QB who burst onto the NFL scene with three Super Bowl wins in his first four years as a starter has suddenly developed a startling lack of poise in the postseason.

Brady and the Patriots -- who fell 28-21 to the New York Jets at home on Sunday -- have lost three straight postseason games.

And ineffective play by Brady has been a hallmark of those losses. Consider his performances:

• 2007, Super Bowl XLII, 17-14 loss to Giants: Brady was 29-for-48 for 266 with one TD. But -- after throwing a record-setting 50 TDs in the regular season -- he was sacked five times and lost a fumble against a relentless Giants defense.
• 2009, wild card, 33-14 loss to Ravens: Brady went 23-for-42 for 154 yards with two TDs and three INTs. He was sacked three times and lost a fumble in a rout.
• 2010, divisional, 28-21 loss to Jets: Brady went 29-for-45 for 299 yards with two TDs and one INT -- his first in three months. He was sacked five times against a Jets defense that confused and battered him.

"I certainly wish I did a better job," Brady said Sunday after his latest playoff defeat.

Brady's credentials for potential enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day are in place. He won three Super Bowls, two Super Bowl MVPs, set the NFL record for most TD passes in a season (50) and is likely set to claim his second NFL MVP award.

In 2010, he set NFL records for most consecutive pass attempts without an INT (335) and most consecutive wins at home (28) -- in the regular season.

Brady earned a reputation as one of the NFL's most clutch performers for his early-career Super Bowl wins. It was in just his second season that he engineered a final-minute drive to beat the heavily-favored St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

But since 2007, Brady has flopped when it counted.

Jets coach Rex Ryan looked at that big-game history and asked his team to expose it on Sunday.

"This was the quarterback that couldn't get touched," LB Bart Scott told the Boston Herald. "(The media) talk all about how great he's playing, but what Rex pulled out for us was his last three playoff games – what his record was and what his rating was then. He had a 66 quarterback rating in his last four or five playoff games and you guys didn't believe that. You guys didn't look deep enough into the notes."

Brady didn't shrink from the blame on Sunday, and his teammates -- most of whom have no connection to his Super Bowl-winning clubs -- share much of it with him.

After starting his postseason career with a 9-0 record, since the start of the 2005 season Brady has done little to separate himself from the rest of the pack of top-caliber NFL QBs. He is 5-5 in the playoffs since then, while rival QBs Ben Roethlisberger (two), Peyton Manning, Eli Manning and Drew Brees have won Lombardi trophies he craved.

It's a problem Brady knows he must fix in order to cement a legacy as one of the NFL's best QBs ever.

"A lot of teams had great seasons," Brady said, "but there's ultimately only one Super Bowl winner. And in order to get to that game and to win it, you've got to play really well in the playoffs."