Last night's New England at New Orleans game was an out-an-out drubbing. And while Drew Brees and his merry band of men were outstanding last night, part of the reason is the incredibly poor play from Tom Brady. It was a rare game where Brady was bad both visually and statistically. He was perpetually throwing off his back foot, and once the Saints took the lead, the play-calling was woefully predictable. When a street free agent like Mike McKenzie can consistently jump routes, it's a sign that either the play-calling is predictable or the quarterback is telegraphing his throws. Neither of those options are good.
Looking for solace, I turned to Brady's pro-football-reference.com game log to see if this was Brady's worst regular season game. I ended up feeling even more depressed. Using QB rating as the judge, last night's game was Brady's tenth worst game overall, but since one of those was his pro debut, when he went one-for-three as a backup in 2000 against Detroit. Another one was the final game of the 2005 season, when the Pats had already clinched a playoff berth, and Brady started the game against the Dolphins but gave way to Matt Cassel after eight passing attempts, so we won't count that game either. So we can safely say that last night was Brady's eighth worst regular season performance ever. So while it is troubling in and of itself that Brady had seven worse regular season starts, the distribution of these abysmal starts is perhaps even more troubling. Breaking these into two season chunks of Brady's career, we can see the following negative trend:
Games 2-32: Three of the worst games
Games 33-64: Zero
Games 65-96: Two
Games 97-124: Three
To recap, five of Brady's worst eight starts have come in the second half of his career. Brady is now 32 years old. How many QB's can be consistent week in and week out when they're 32, when they've started 120+ games in the NFL. A lot was made of the fact that Brady passed Bledsoe in passing yards last night, and that he did it in the same number of games as did Bledsoe. What was left unsaid in that statement was how Bledsoe's career tailed off after he left the Pats. He was good that first year in Buffalo, posting a QB rating of 86.0, with a completion percentage of 61.5% and 24 TDs against 15 INTs for an 8-8 Buffalo squad. In the four years after 2002, Bledsoe had an average QB rating of 75.6, and never completed better than 60.1% of his passes.
Now, am I saying that Tom Brady is washed up right this second? Of course not, he just had four straight weeks of 300+ yards passing. But his body type is very similar to Drew Bledsoe's, and his lack of mobility was one of the reasons why he was a sixth round draft pick in the first place. There have been two teams that have blitzed the Pats successfully this year - the Jets and the Saints. In both games, Brady repeatedly threw off his back foot or threw to his first read. In the Jets game, the generally accepted notion (I am guilty here as well) was that Tom Terrific was shaking off the rust. But the same Brady that was seen in the Jets game - which not coincidentally was his seventh worst regular season start - was seen last night. I think it is now fair game to question whether or not Brady is over the hill. I'm not saying definitively that he is, but last night's game certainly wasn't encouraging.
Looking for solace, I turned to Brady's pro-football-reference.com game log to see if this was Brady's worst regular season game. I ended up feeling even more depressed. Using QB rating as the judge, last night's game was Brady's tenth worst game overall, but since one of those was his pro debut, when he went one-for-three as a backup in 2000 against Detroit. Another one was the final game of the 2005 season, when the Pats had already clinched a playoff berth, and Brady started the game against the Dolphins but gave way to Matt Cassel after eight passing attempts, so we won't count that game either. So we can safely say that last night was Brady's eighth worst regular season performance ever. So while it is troubling in and of itself that Brady had seven worse regular season starts, the distribution of these abysmal starts is perhaps even more troubling. Breaking these into two season chunks of Brady's career, we can see the following negative trend:
Games 2-32: Three of the worst games
Games 33-64: Zero
Games 65-96: Two
Games 97-124: Three
To recap, five of Brady's worst eight starts have come in the second half of his career. Brady is now 32 years old. How many QB's can be consistent week in and week out when they're 32, when they've started 120+ games in the NFL. A lot was made of the fact that Brady passed Bledsoe in passing yards last night, and that he did it in the same number of games as did Bledsoe. What was left unsaid in that statement was how Bledsoe's career tailed off after he left the Pats. He was good that first year in Buffalo, posting a QB rating of 86.0, with a completion percentage of 61.5% and 24 TDs against 15 INTs for an 8-8 Buffalo squad. In the four years after 2002, Bledsoe had an average QB rating of 75.6, and never completed better than 60.1% of his passes.
Now, am I saying that Tom Brady is washed up right this second? Of course not, he just had four straight weeks of 300+ yards passing. But his body type is very similar to Drew Bledsoe's, and his lack of mobility was one of the reasons why he was a sixth round draft pick in the first place. There have been two teams that have blitzed the Pats successfully this year - the Jets and the Saints. In both games, Brady repeatedly threw off his back foot or threw to his first read. In the Jets game, the generally accepted notion (I am guilty here as well) was that Tom Terrific was shaking off the rust. But the same Brady that was seen in the Jets game - which not coincidentally was his seventh worst regular season start - was seen last night. I think it is now fair game to question whether or not Brady is over the hill. I'm not saying definitively that he is, but last night's game certainly wasn't encouraging.
1 comment:
Tom Brady is on the decline. It happens to the best of them.....like Kobe Bryant.
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