Tom Brady was among league's worst in 'bad passes' last season

[BradyManny]

This is stupid.

Wasn't Brady also the among the top 2 or 3 in "catchable" passes last year?

 

[BananaRepublican]

A lot of those passes weren't his fault. How many of those passes were to Ochocinco where Ocho should have been where Brady threw it to and wasn't?

Abso-effing-lootly.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

This has nothing to do with time. They could work this for 100 years. It's never going to be right. The reason is simple:

When a pass is not completed, they don't actually know if it's a bad pass or not.

Ah, i knew we'd get to Heisenberg at some point. Perception will always shape our view because what we're trying to observe is, in truth, un-observable other than through the instruments (in this case, statistics based on flawed observations) that we fashion for the purpose of observation.

With that, I notice it's the ****tail hour. Time for a drink!

 

[Deus Irae]

Ah, i knew we'd get to Heisenberg at some point. Perception will always shape our view because what we're trying to observe is, in truth, un-observable other than through the instruments (in this case, statistics based on flawed observations) that we fashion for the purpose of observation.

With that, I notice it's the ****tail hour. Time for a drink!

I'm not really talking about the uncertainty principle, though. I'm saying that we don't know if the problem was the route run by the receiver or the throw by the QB. If a receiver is supposed to run a 10 yard out, and he goes 11 yards, the throw could look like it was a bad one when the receiver was the one who erred.

That sort of thing is what I'm talking about.

 

[Metaphors]

Brady is listed as having only 1 interception on drops. I can remember at least 2 (Woodhead against the Bills, Hernandez against the Jets). Only 2 picks for batted throws and I can remember at least 3 (Odrick, Florence, Newman). There isn't even a category for poor WR routes (the Ocho pick against the Bills and the Underwood pick against the Skins).

I don't understand the premise of the statistic anyway. If the meaning is that 18% of the time Brady had an open receiver and missed the target so badly that there was no chance for a reception...well I'm not buying. If it means that 18% of the time a receiver couldn't get his hands on a Brady pass, I could see that but I wouldn't say all of those are "bad". The Pats system requires Brady to manage risk through pass placement. If the play isn't turning out to be optimal, Brady will still give the receiver a slight chance but avoid any chance of a pick. That counts as a wide/long/short "bad" pass for this metric, but could have been exactly the right decision to keep a drive from stalling.

Other teams are different. Brees will throw into coverage more often which results in higher risk, more actual and potential interceptions. Brees also plays in a simpler passing scheme. The result being a very low "bad" percentage, even compared to Aaron Rodgers who had an amazingly efficient year.

I'm less concerned about the times Brady throws at a receiver's feet and more interested in how often he forces the ball to a receiver (usually Welker or Gronk). He was historically efficient in 2010 and took a slight step back in 2011. Lots of reasons why that might be (defense/pressure to score, no outside weapons, scheme that frequently ignored RBs). Some of it may even be age and nagging injuries. If the OL can get/stay healthy and McDaniels will use all the weapons at his disposal, the only people worrying about Brady's arm will be opposing defenses.

 

[PatsWSB47]

I'm not really talking about the uncertainty principle, though. I'm saying that we don't know if the problem was the route run by the receiver or the throw by the QB. If a receiver is supposed to run a 10 yard out, and he goes 11 yards, the throw could look like it was a bad one when the receiver was the one who erred.

That sort of thing is what I'm talking about.

I agree with this. The same thing applies to all the quarterbacks they analyzed. Some people seem to be saying that only Brady's stats are the one's that aren't right. You'd think the margin of error would be fairly consistent throughout the report.

 

[juny]

Brady was absolutely terrific last year. Although I noticed him missing more open receivers than usual, sometimes really open receivers, Gronk in AFCCG for example. Hopefully it was due to not being 100% healthy.

At this point it doesn't matter. I just want the season to start and see what he does with all of his main weapons from last year + Lloyd

 

[RobertWeathers]

I love stats and will certainly use them to make a point but to say Brady was amongst the league worst in bad passes is like saying 2004 David Ortiz led MLB in called 3rd strikes. He hit .301, 41hrs and 139 RBIs...

Maybe TB did throw a lot of bad passes. Who cares?

I guess you can use it to judge how many of TBs throws were outside of some kind of catch zone and surely some of them that he threw were low and away or super high because the receiver failed to get adequate separation. The guy completed almost 66% of his passes. A bit nit-picky IMO...

 

[Bassman]

There is only one stat I'm interested in. 0-2 in his last 2 SB's.

 

[PatsWSB47]

Bad passes are just that, whether it is the QB or receivers fault. Since all QB's are based on the same criteria the results are a valid point.

I agree. The question is what point are we going to make? Left alone with those stats Brady's a bottom tier quarterback. Add in everything else and he's a Hall of Famer and most of the rest of the quarterbacks are eating his dust.

Edit: I forgot to welcome you to the board so....Welcome to the board!

 

[Deus Irae]

Bad passes are just that, whether it is the QB or receivers fault. Since all QB's are based on the same criteria the results are a valid point.

It doesn't get much more wrong than your post.

 

[MrNathanDrake]

That pass to Welker in the SuperBowl comes to mind...

 

[Joker]

which one?..the one that hit Welker in BOTH HANDS???...that one???

 

[unoriginal]

It doesn't strike me as particularily ludicrous that a detailed breakdown of QBs would show Brady had a high percentage of overthrows / underthrows / wide throws last year.

Given the elbow issue, a proclivity to throw away from defenders, even if it means missing the receiver, an offense without fixed pass routes, and a patchwork o-line that saw extended duty from four centers, three right tackles, a left guard with a torn ACL, and whose steadiest performer hadn't been invited to an NFL training camp, all resulting in Brady taking the second-most sacks of his career, it's not surprising a good deal of passes were not considered catchable by a receiver.

In fact, the Stats Inc. claims Brady was shorthopping and tossing ducks at the same rate as Jay Cutler, which I think is about right. Seems like every game last year I watched, those QBs were good for about two one-hoppers to an open receiver.

Given how popular those abominable game threads are on this forum, frankly I'm surprised there aren't people in here saying Stats Inc. "bad passes" percentage is way too low...

 

[nicku]

I wrote the article being discussed and wanted to clear up a couple questions.

1. Some of you are misinterpreting the point of the article. If it seemed like I was using these numbers to make a point about Brady's accuracy, I failed to convey my point. We all obviously know how good Brady is and how accurate he is. These numbers were just surprising. I was bored during Monday's off day and came across some numbers that were interesting to me. I ran them against the rest of the league. I then allowed the football geek in me to come out and wrote about it to start a conversation. I noted in there that you shouldn't put much stock in the figures because we lack context. Really, it doesn't matter how an incompletion is created -- it's still an incompletion.

2. I've seen some of you ask about passes that were thrown away, thrown too low, etc. Those are scored separately and not included in the figures presented.

3. Someone asked why I didn't score Brady vs. Brady in other years. I wish I could have. I could only find numbers from last season.

Anyways, some good stuff in here. Thanks for reading the article.

 

[nicku]

Aaron Rodgers just put together the best season in NFL history, for efficiency, and he is ranked 9th. Move on folks, nothing to see here.

This isn't about accuracy. It's about how someone missed on a particular throw.

 

[Joker]

3. Someone asked why I didn't score Brady vs. Brady in other years. I wish I could have. I could only find numbers from last season.

all stats from 2009 season and back are here..

New England Patriots 2009 Stats, History, Awards and More


don't know where the 2010 and 2011 stats are...they WERE up..perhaps there's some link maintenance going on for those years.

and there's the bible of the NFL..

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/


as far as your post goes, I didn't read much into those stats...perhaps this is because Brady threw for over FIVE THOUSAND YARDS and led the Patriots to the Super Bowl, with a defense that was at times called the worst in the league.

 

[Joey007]

Well since throwing it to Ochocinco in general is a bad pass....

 

[Deus Irae]

This isn't about accuracy. It's about how someone missed on a particular throw.

Saying that the QB missed is part of the problem in the first place. It's entirely possible that the QB's pass was right where it was supposed to be.

 

[nicku]

3. Someone asked why I didn't score Brady vs. Brady in other years. I wish I could have. I could only find numbers from last season.

all stats from 2009 season and back are here..

New England Patriots 2009 Stats, History, Awards and More

don't know where the 2010 and 2011 stats are...they WERE up..perhaps there's some link maintenance going on for those years.

as far as your post goes, I didn't read much into those stats...perhaps this is because Brady threw for over FIVE THOUSAND YARDS and led the Patriots to the Super Bowl, with a defense that was at times called the worst in the league.

Anyone that is trying to use to assess skill has missed the point. There are no conclusions to be drawn here. It was simply something interesting to think about. We all know that Brady is one of the top three passers in the league. This was a way to look at a tiny aspect of his game in a different light.

And thanks for the link, but if overthrown, underthrown, wide pass stats are on those sites, I couldn't find them yesterday.