DaBruinz

How can one refute stats (hits taken by a QB) that aren't even official? They do not definie what a HIT is. The ESPN article that Maverick used to erroneously lambaste McDaniels, ignored sacks and didn't define what a hit was considered either.

While Curran and Kirwin mention the 19 sacks in those 10 games, what they don't mention is that Neal wasn't playing for in 4 of those games and in 2 more, he played less than half the game. One of the games that he played less than half was the SB and the Pats got schooled because they didn't recognize the stunts or couldn't break free to pick up the stunting DE.

Any article that hangs its hat on stats it refuses to define is not an article worth the Cyberspace its inhabiting.

In all honesty, Brady gets hit too much after he's gotten rid of the ball and the Refs let it go because he just bounces back up ususally. There really needs to be a better point of emphasis on hitting the QB late because it will cost this league QBs.

Also, it should be noted that Curran and Kirwan erroneously attribute the increase in the blitzing of Brady to Jim Johnson. What they fail to remember is that Johnson actually attributed it to Romeo Crennel and the Browns.

Rob0729

I can endorse this post as a valid rebuttal.

patchick

Reality check time. Last year:

- Superbowl-winning QB Ben Roethlisberger was sacked once in every 10 attempts.

- #1-rated QB Philip Rivers, once in every 19 attempts.

- Breakthrough QB of the year Aaron Rodgers, once in every 16 attempts.

In fact, only 6 starting QBs in the league were sacked LESS than once in every 20 attempts.

IOW, Brady's numbers are perfectly normal. Nothing to see here.

borg

Argue the presentation of material if you want, but my eyes tell me that since Moss was added to the roster, Brady and Cassel had been willing to sit in the pocket longer waiting for Moss to free up. Before Moss, the passing attack was based on short and intermediate routes...
My eyes also tell me that the Pats passing attack is most disrupted when teams rush the center of the OLine, collapse the pocket, and mess up Brady's stride forward. When Brady steps into the pass, he is deadly....but throwing flat footed or off back foot is when Brady becomes average at best.
In my mind, Neal is the key. When he is in the game, the line has balanced strength both in terms of run/ pass success and strength of its 5 parts. When Neal has been sidelined, I felt that teams were more inclined to attack up the middle.
Bottomline...keep Brady clean and this team wins big

Box_O_Rocks

We're dooommmed.

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BPF

Agreed on Baker and Matthews -- they'll help the OT's.

QB gets hit, when you spread the field. The league is a pass happy spread the field to create mismatches game now and the way to attack it on D is to pressure the passer.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."
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"I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance."
Socrates

STH since 1994....sec 236

PatsFanSince74

The challenge is exacerbated by the fact that the article limits the evaluation period to a limited universe of games and includes "hits," which I don't think are formally tracked, so we have to take the word of the observer. In addition, sack stats are usually presented only for the regular season; to get reliable full season numbers we'd have to factor in the Playoffs and I just don't have the time to fire up a spreadsheet today. But, on the assumption that the observer is reliable and looking at facts we can gather, here are a few things that we can discover.

Looking just at 2007, since that's the period from which the article derives its data, we can compare Brady's sacks per attempt for the full season to the sacks on other elite QB's; this doesn't include hits. Any analysis like this has to acknowledge, of course, that the playcalling and style of play of QB's differs (see Ben below). I get this from ProFootBallReference.com.

Sacks per Attempt % (Sacks/Attempts + Sacks)

Brady: 3.5%
Brees: 2.4%
Favre: 2.7%
Payme: 3.9%
Rivers: 4.7%
Big Ben: 10.4%

This suggests that, throughout the entire season, Brady was sacked roughly 46% more often than Brees, 30% more often than Favre, 11% less often than Peyton, 27% less often than Rivers and a lot less often than Roethlisberger.

But, the article talks about the latter part of the season and the playoffs. So, if we look at the first ten games, Brady was sacked just 2.9% of the time; for the last six games (Philly on as the article argues), Brady was sacked 4.4% of the time, or more than 50% more often than in the beginning of the season. When we look at the Playoffs, he was sacked 6.8% of the time, or 230% more often than in the first six games of the season and nearly twice as often as in the entire regular season. If we look at his sack percentage for the last six games plus the playoffs, it is 5.2%.

Since the article is accurate in its arguments about sacks, barring the presentation of alternative data, I'll concede that it is likely also accurate in its stats on "hits" and will accept that its conclusion is valid, barring the presentation of contrary data. From the 11th game on of the 2007 season, Brady was sacked and hit more often than before and more often than other elite QB's, other than Roethlisberger, were sacked and hit on average over the season. This is probably not a good thing.

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PatsFanSince74

Please see my post above. That's not quite accurate.

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TheComeback

Nice article. I think the best way to counter the blitz is to make them pay for blitzing by running out of the shotgun, which we did so well last year, and running more in general. Faulk and F. Taylor are perfect for running in the shotgun.

As we saw last year, the oline is great at run-blocking, but they need to be doing it all year. You can't just start running the ball 25 times a game halfway through the season and expect results. The more we ran last year, the better our line became at it. I hope Belichick does NOT try to repeat 2007. We were way too one-dimensional.

TheComeback

Just wanted to note that QB hits actually are formally tracked (on ESPN.com). You have to look at the box scores for individual games.