Tom Brady Still Has Enough Left In The Tank

Tom Brady has six Super Bowl rings, the most of any player, and three NFL MVPs. He’s thrown for more than 500 touchdowns and 70,000 yards, ranking third and fourth of all time.

But let’s strip all the history and the emotion away for the purposes of this article. What we’re trying to evaluate is where Tom Brady ranks among current quarterbacks and what are the important things to watch in his performance in 2019.

Keep The Pressure Off

Brady excels at getting rid of the ball quickly, thus not allowing an opposing defense a chance at a sack. There’s a reason for that; Brady is far better when not pressured. That’s true for every quarterback, but there was a significant swing with Brady.

When Brady was unpressured, he had a knack for making high-value plays. Though his completion and touchdown percentages rank outside the top 10, he ranked fourth in Positive Percentage (the percentage of plays with a positive Expected Points Added value) and third in Points Earned (explained here) among the 40 quarterbacks with the most unpressured attempts.

He ranked 27th in Positive Percentage and 26th in Points Earned among the 40 quarterbacks with the most attempts under pressure. There are good quarterbacks who don’t fare well here.  Ben Roethlisberger is 34th in Points Earned. He and Brady ranked 1-2 in the ratio of unpressured attempts to pressured attempts, making the struggles under pressure survivable.

Anything that bought Brady a little extra time or room was something he used to his advantage. Last season, he had the second-highest Positive Percentage on play-action passes behind only Drew Brees.

The Intermediate Pass

Brady performed poorly on his deep passes last season, completing only 32% of them, which ranked 23rd. His catchable-throws percentage was 54% though, right around the NFL average of 52%

But Brady was an excellent intermediate-depth passer. He ranked sixth in Points Earned on throws from 10 to 19 yards downfield last season. He also ranked third in 2017 and fifth in 2016.

Brady ranked third in Points Earned on pass attempts in between the numbers on throws of both one to nine yards and 10 to 19 yards. This is where Rob Gronkowski often came in handy throughout his career. Last season, Gronkowski caught 81 percent of his targets at these distances over the middle, 34-of-42 in all. That ranked 10th among the 100 pass-catchers with the most such targets. Julian Edelman and Josh Gordon excelled too, though not quite at that level, with a completion percentage of 70% (64-of-91).

With Gronkowski retired, Ben Watson suspended for four games, and Matt Lacosse’s status uncertain because of a high ankle sprain, Brady may be a little more challenged than usual on these passes, especially in the early part of the season.

Throws to RBs

Brady threw to running backs more last season than any quarterback and accumulated the third-most Points Earned on those throws. One of the reasons Brady has been good under pressure historically was because of how efficient he was targeting running backs. Brady ranked 14th in Points Earned Per Attempt and 13th in Positive Percentage among the 32 quarterbacks with the most pass attempts to running backs.

James White was the primary target on those throws. For the season, White finished with 87 receptions and averaged 8.6 yards per reception. White averaged 8.3 yards after the catch, which ranked 15th among the 34 running backs with at least 35 targets, and 1.8 yards after contact, which ranked 29th. White’s catch percentage was 70% last season, second-lowest among running backs who were targeted at least 40 times.

Late-Game Magic

Coolness in the big moment has been a longtime trademark of Brady’s game. You don’t win all those Super Bowls without being really good at the end of games (see the Super Bowl comeback against the Falcons).

Last season, Brady completed 50-of-65 passes in the fourth quarter and overtime of one-score (or tied) games. His 77% completion percentage ranked second behind Matt Ryan. His 68% Positive Percentage was one percentage point behind Ryan for best in the league. This was also another situation in which Brady and his offensive line excelled at avoiding pressure, as he was the only quarterback with at least 25 dropbacks to not be sacked. 

The Last Word

The Patriots are coming off a postseason in which Brady had two touchdown passes and three interceptions, went 4-for-9 on the overtime-winning drive of the AFC Championship Game, and had no touchdown passes in the Super Bowl. These stats are all very un-Brady-like and show he may not be the quarterback he was even a few years ago. 

What Brady is now is still pretty good. He ranked sixth in Points Earned and eighth in Points Earned per 1,000 Plays in 2019. He may not be as great as he once was, but he’s still good enough to put the Patriots in position to be a championship team.

Brady 2018 Season Summary

CategoryResult
Attempts570
Yards4,355
Comp Pct66%
Catchable Pct76%
TD-INT29-11
Points Earned (Rank)108 (6th)
Rushing Points (Rank)3 (8th)
Points Earned Per Play (38 QB with 150 Total Attempts)
SituationPlaysRank
vs Man26210th
vs Zone2578th
Short/Intermediate Pass5354th
Deep Pass5627th
Pressured Pocket15917th
Clean Pocket4555th
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