fourthandmiles

Brady has had some passes sail on him and I would like to hear from someone that really knows QB mechanics what the reason for this might be. ie. not being able to step into the throw? Throwing from the back foot?

Is this a typical problem comming off knee surgury? Are his arms not in sync with his legs because of conditioning? Obviously timing is an issue. Are receivers trying to compensate in a way they did not before? Should Brady just lighten up and let it all come to him?

Tell me something I have not read before.

And I know Brady is still better than 99% of all the other QB's out there blah blah blah And the O-line blah blah blah.

SeanBruschi54

Carson Palmer took over a year to get back to playing pre injury.

Peyton Manning took about 6 weeks and then never lost again.

Different people progress differently.

Hopefully he follows the manning route

goldenaleus

At times, he doesn't look like he is planting himself and stepping into his throws. He is trying to throw with his upper body only.

capetide

If I remember correctly, Manning's injury was completely different and not nearly as severe. He was only out a matter of weeks during preseason. While I have no medical expertise, I would assume that the course of and timetable for recovery would be completely different from TB.

TheComeback

Palmer played pretty well the year after his ACL surgery. Manning played like crap until about week 8. Seems like all the NFL fans conveniently forget that when they say Brady is never going to be the same again.

Metaphors

The only fine tuning Brady needs is between the ears. What he is seeing isn't translating into accurate throws. His throwing mechanics are spot on (for those that disagree, compare this year to video from 2007...no significant difference).

So when you see a throw that is too high or too hard, it isn't because Brady knew exactly the throw to make and his body betrayed him. Just the opposite. He is just missing his targets on a higher percentage of passes than he traditionally does. Given the magnitude of the games so far, those misses get even more focus. If the Pats played Washington, Dallas, TB, KC and Oakland, we wouldn't give his stats a second thought.

BTW, that schedule is the one Goober Jr. has faced so far in the Giants rise to consensus #1 in the power rankings. If we are still talking about this over the bye week (after a home date with the injured and struggling Titans and a neutral site game with the hapless Bucs), then we should worry.

SVN

as i have said before. ignore brady's injury for a second. he has not played a complete football season and for a QB it must be big.
if you want to compare with palmer,rivers,manning see when their injury occured.
Palmer -playoff game - he at most missed 3 possible games if the bengals went to the SB
Rivers= AFC div game , he played awfully in the AFCC and wouldve played in the SB or at missed that one game
Manning-offseason(?) missed no games.
Brady = 16 full games+ any playoffs

this has to be a huge diff. agreedthat brady injury early in the season helped him recover but at the same time he is out of football for 1+ yr. He should be better by now but who knows ..

convertedpatsfan

I'm not a QB coach, but I've watched Brady since he was at Michigan. I think he's progressing, but I don't think it's the same problem from week 1 to now.

The first few games, he didn't seem comfortable in the pocket at all. For most of the Bills and Jets games, he seemed jittery by his usual standards. For those first two games, he was extremely inconsistent. Short, intermediate, long, it didn't matter. He would throw one way while the receiver went the other. But he seemed to settle down in the Atlanta game.

Once he settled down, he had better success with the short and intermediate routes, where he can rely on his arm only. This is when the team started moving the ball well, and we started to see more TDs in the red zone as Brady could complete these short passes consistently.

However, the one area that he's really struggled all season is the long ball. He's consistently overthrowing receivers, and the ball often sails high because he's throwing off his back foot. If you watch the Broncos game, Brady never comes close to stepping into that ball to Moss that would have been a TD.

Pure speculation here, but it seems like he doesn't want to step into it because his front leg will be locked for a few seconds, which is how he got hurt last season. I don't know what happens in practice, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's making these throws just fine.

I've heard speculation about his arm and shoulder from the Haynesworth hit, but those seem fine to me. His throws have good velocity and the ball remains in a tight spiral, even on deep balls. The majority of the misses are overthrows. I can only think of one throw that didn't have the velocity to get there, the long ball to Galloway vs. the Jets that would have been a TD, but it floated and a Jets DB caught up to knock it down in the end zone.

The good news is that the speed of the game doesn't seem to be overwhelming him, his decision-making looks great as he's often going to the right receiver (though against Denver, he seemed to look to Welker's way only at times), and his arm strength seems pretty good to me. So all of the problems are not permanent; they can be corrected.

I'm really not that concerned about Tom. Yes, it's frustrating. But I remember him as the 7th-string QB at Michigan at one point. The guy knows how to overcome adversity. He'll be fine.

Patspsycho

That, I think, is one of the last barriers he is facing: stepping into his throws, i.e., putting all his weight on his injured knee, while it is locked.

convertedpatsfan

Yeah, I'm convinced it's a mental thing, because he's able to slide around the pocket and scramble without any awkwardness.

I also forgot to add that the play-calling hasn't been that great, especially at the beginning of the season. The pass/run ratio those first two weeks was awful.