Brady goes cold in second half as Patriots fall

The only thing colder than the way Tom Brady played in the second half of the Patriots' 28-14 loss to the Jets Sunday was the look in his eye afterward when he was asked about Mark Sanchez.

Brady, who has been the measuring stick for great quarterbacks in this league for nearly a decade, had just been thoroughly outplayed by the Jets' second-year quarterback. Sanchez had exactly the type of game he needed to erase the memory of the Jets' season-opening flop, throwing for a career-high three touchdowns while rallying the Jets from a 14-10 halftime deficit.

It was the kind of breakout performance that is nearly impossible to deny, but Brady managed to find a way to do it. When asked what he thought of Sanchez, Brady's voice went flat and his eyes turned steely. "I really wasn't paying much attention to Mark," Brady said.

The rest of the sporting world was, however. "Tom Brady just got outplayed by Mark Sanchez. I feel like my whole life has been a lie," read a tweet from ESPN.com's Bill Simmons that went viral in the fourth quarter.

Brady, like the rest of his team, was dismal in the second half, despite the fact the Jets had lost their best defensive player in Darrelle Revis. In addition to the two interceptions, he completed just 7 of 16 second-half passes for 69 yards.

"We couldn't do anything in the second half," Brady said at the start of his news conference. "We couldn't run it, we couldn't throw it."

It appears that the Patriots believed they could use this game to send a message to the Jets. Brady was so frustrated that he walked out of his news conference saying he "was done" after the Patriots' public-relations person had announced that he would take three more questions.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick also was clearly ticked off by the loss, and answered questions with terse one- or two-sentence answers that really didn't shed any light on what had happened to his team.

Randy Moss, who has slung more than his fair share of arrows at the Jets over the years, was the one player who seemed ready to give them their due.

Said Moss: "I think the Jets handled adversity the right way, and we handled it the wrong way. They're a little cocky and arrogant at times. But you have to commend a team when they come in and talk the talk and then they walk the walk."