Brady and Pass Distribution

Tom has been fairly consistent since hitting 30 averaging about 400 completions on 625 attempts a season roughly. I'm betting against him sitting for the first 4 games and betting his health keeps him on the field for a complete season. With that rough # of 400 as a guideline I'm looking to get some guesses as to how many balls those on the receiving end pile up this season.

Last season, of his 402 completions, 201 went to WR's, 103 to backs and 99 to TE's. My POV has me seeing more grabs at TE with Bennett a big upgrade over Chandler's 23 last season. For the WR's, in the end, I don't think Hogans #'s will really exceed his past production and I could see AD's drop from the 61 he posted last year if Jules can stay on the field for a full 16. Something tells me JE may miss some time though.

With Develin back and Williams staying in the fold as the 300 lb blocking TE I'm hoping for better production running the ball, but I still see 100 RB screens happening again regardless.

That 400 completion # is why I generally disregard any big name WR acqusitions. There's only one ball to go around and past evidence over the last decade indicate a pretty consistent distribution. Brady wouldn't put the ball in the air 800 times if the roster included Megatron and Larry Fitzgerald on top of Gronk, Jules and the backs IMHO.

Thoughts?

OhExaulted1 said:

That 400 completion # is why I generally disregard any big name WR acqusitions. There's only one ball to go around and past evidence over the last decade indicate a pretty consistent distribution. Brady wouldn't put the ball in the air 800 times if the roster included Megatron and Larry Fitzgerald on top of Gronk, Jules and the backs IMHO.

Thoughts?

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Just for the sake of argument, let's assume you had Megatron, Fitz, GRONK, Edelman, and any of the Pats RBs. Even if Brady could throw it 80% of the time, he wouldn't, simply because it would be so easy to pick up yards with the RBs. They'd never see eight men in the box. Ever.

I think it's a bit difficult to try and predict specifics due to the fact that we often see so many injuries occur.

The fact that they upgraded the TE2 and WR2/3 spots tell me that the numbers will likely stay within a certain expected range, with improved depth.

Lastly, I'm a bit surprised to have seen so many RB passes, although I think James White's "garbage time" (wrong end of our usual garbage time) targets may have helped pad those numbers. I'd expect something in the same range once again, particularly with the addition of Brown, a hopeful healthy season from Lewis, and any thoughts of continued progress from White.

supafly said:

I think it's a bit difficult to try and predict specifics due to the fact that we often see so many injuries occur.

The fact that they upgraded the TE2 and WR2/3 spots tell me that the numbers will likely stay within a certain expected range, with improved depth.

Lastly, I'm a bit surprised to have seen so many RB passes, although I think James White's "garbage time" (wrong end of our usual garbage time) targets may have helped pad those numbers. I'd expect something in the same range once again, particularly with the addition of Brown, a hopeful healthy season from Lewis, and any thoughts of continued progress from White.

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It does seem like that's a lot of balls going to the backs, but since they're usually around the LOS those designed screens are more or less running plays. When you looked at the stat sheet last year at Lewis' #'s in his 8 games his highest output with hand-offs was 69 yds in game 1 against the Steelers. He had 40 yards the next week and the #'s went down in every game thereafter. It just feels like he ran the ball more often.

ctpatsfan77 said:

Just for the sake of argument, let's assume you had Megatron, Fitz, GRONK, Edelman, and any of the Pats RBs. Even if Brady could throw it 80% of the time, he wouldn't, simply because it would be so easy to pick up yards with the RBs. They'd never see eight men in the box. Ever.

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Interesting to note: Brady's highest career # of attempts is 637 in 2012. That's the 3rd most in Patriot history. The top 2? Bledsoe. Oddly enough out of the top 24 pass attempt seasons only 2 players from the 90's grace the list (Drew twice and Warren Moon once) and 1 other from before 2010 (Drew Brees 2007).

NFL Single-Season Pass Attempts Leaders | Pro-Football-Reference.com

It's become a passing league indeed and the stats bear that out.

The RB catches were unusual and higher by about 25-30% compared to the previous few years (rudimentary sunday am math, but close), where Vereen was the only back typically with double-digit catches for the season - even when he only played half of it - with somewhere around 60-75 for the whole group. So @supafly would be absolutely correct that White's last 5 games or so inflate those numbers as he was targeted more than a RB might have otherwise been not as a change in strategy or simply because Lewis/LGB were gone, but also because Edelman was out and Lafell/Chandler were terrible. 13 targets for White in the non-Gronk PHI disaster.

For this year, if we go with 400 then yeah I'd expect the TE number to bounce up to around 120-130 between the two big guys, the WRs to catch about 200 balls as they always do, and the RB number to dip back down to 50-70 range unless Lewis is unexpectedly healthy and a full go (and what we saw last year) for all 16 games in which case he could easily catch 80 passes himself.

Jules - 90
Gronk - 75
Bennett - 60
Lewis - 60
Amendola - 50
Hogan - 40

That doesn't leave alot for anyone else. I'm assuming these guys will be healthy all year which unfortunately is unlikely.