CHFF:Tom Brady: Not So Terrific

[ivanvamp]

um.....not really

Yeah, really. He played really well on Sunday. I just broke it down in a previous post.

I get that you guys wanted an 80% completion rate for 400 yds and 5 td. Understood. And completely unrealistic and unfair expectation.

He completed, minus the spike and hail mary, 70% of his passes. He set the record for consecutive completions. He re-injured his shoulder on the first Tuck sack. He consistently eluded pressure and made some incredible plays.

He made one big mistake.

 

[Bertil]

That article is dead-on-balls accurate. He does not make throws into tight coverage, mostly I believe because his WRs cannot get them if they have to fight for them. They absolutlely must get some dynamic WRs on this team so that he can use the entire field, not just the Welker/TE Zone between the numbers. Then he has to Man-Up and go for it. The entire team looked like they were playing not to lose, him included.

 

[ivanvamp]

That article is dead-on-balls accurate. He does not make throws into tight coverage, mostly I believe because his WRs cannot get them if they have to fight for them. They absolutlely must get some dynamic WRs on this team so that he can use the entire field, not just the Welker/TE Zone between the numbers. Then he has to Man-Up and go for it. The entire team looked like they were playing not to lose, him included.

1. Watch the TD to Woodhead....that was a pretty tight window.

2. Was the deep ball to Gronk - when he had a safer play to Hernandez to the right - a sign of "playing not to lose" or "playing to put the nail in the coffin" (i.e., "playing to win")?

 

[JackBauer]

(4) The INT. This was his mistake, and he'll kick himself when he sees the film and notices Hernandez wide open on the right for about 15 yards. But here's why it was defensible. You have Gronk deep, and he beat his man by about 3 yards. You have what amounts to a backup linebacker on him. You could throw that ball up there a hundred times and probably only on one of those occasions does it end up as an interception. Well, guess what, that was the one time. So it was the wrong play...the big mistake. But even that mistake was a defensible one.

I don't see how that's defensible at all. Because even if Gronk were healthy, the ball was severely underthrown. So it was not only a bad decision, but a worse throw. I really don't see how throwing a duck of a jump ball to your TE who, due to injury, can't really jump, falls anywhere in the realm of defensible.

I'm not blaming Brady for the loss by any means, but in order for us to win consistently against playoff caliber teams, we need him to be pretty much flawless. Unfortunately, he wasn't. Them's the breaks, I guess.

 

[ivanvamp]

I don't see how that's defensible at all. Because even if Gronk were healthy, the ball was severely underthrown. So it was not only a bad decision, but a worse throw. I really don't see how throwing a duck of a jump ball to your TE who, due to injury, can't really jump, falls anywhere in the realm of defensible.

I'm not blaming Brady for the loss by any means, but in order for us to win consistently against playoff caliber teams, we need him to be pretty much flawless. Unfortunately, he wasn't. Them's the breaks, I guess.

Well the throw itself - the execution of the decision - was very poor. But when I was talking about the "mistake" I was referring to the decision.

Look, I acknowledge it was a mistake - a big one. But I think it was defensible. I think if you asked Brady how confident he is that Rob Gronkowski could - at a minimum - keep the ball from a backup linebacker on a jump-ball kind of pass, he would say 100%. So I bet he felt like there was very little risk.

Here's the ironic thing about that. The Giants got the ball and Ahmad Bradshaw promptly fumbled on his 10 yard line...........which, of course, bounced right into the hands of a Giant player.

 

[IllegalContact]

Yeah, really. He played really well on Sunday. I just broke it down in a previous post.

I get that you guys wanted an 80% completion rate for 400 yds and 5 td. Understood. And completely unrealistic and unfair expectation.

He completed, minus the spike and hail mary, 70% of his passes. He set the record for consecutive completions. He re-injured his shoulder on the first Tuck sack. He consistently eluded pressure and made some incredible plays.

He made one big mistake.

he made more than one

he did not play that well, and your breakdown is not the final answer

 

[Snake Eyes]

Brady's accuracy on deep balls has always been the worst part of his game (besides running, which, really, nobody cares about).

How many receiver does TFB have that are really good deep threats? When he was throwing to Moss in 07 every talked about how incredible his deep ball accuracy was. Any catch is a synthesis of the QB and the receiver, on a deep ball it takes a lot longer to happen which means there’s more things that can go wrong, a good deep receiver needs speed and quickness, the ability to track where the ball will be, and the ability to adjust. If your receivers don’t have that the QB will need to be damn near perfect on his deep ball throws, which TFB isn’t but neither is just about any QB out there.

 

[sieglo]

Only seven months to go until September.

 

[ivanvamp]

he made more than one

he did not play that well, and your breakdown is not the final answer

How many real mistakes did he make? Can you please point them out?

Don't be totally unfair and say, a ball that was six inches off target on a throw 20 yards downfield, because then the standard would literally be perfection, and that's absurd.

So tell me, other than the pick (which I have suggested is at least a defensible decision, even if the execution was horrible), what other real mistake did he make?

 

[patsfan13]

Brady was having a great game right up to the point when he injured his shoulder. After that he struggled.

As to the other years, he was playing injured in both 2007 (high ankle IIRC) and 2005 sports hernia) playoffs. Stats while useful can't factor in the effects of injuries on performance.

 

[ivanvamp]

Brady was having a great game right up to the point when he injured his shoulder. After that he struggled.

As to the other years, he was playing injured in both 2007 (high ankle IIRC) and 2005 sports hernia) playoffs. Stats while useful can't factor in the effects of injuries on performance.

I mean, at one point he was 20-23, with the three incompletions being the throw-away that became a safety (but as far as incompletions go, he had to throw it away or take the sack), and two passes batted down at the LOS by JPP.

In other words, the guy was NAILS accurate...right up until the moment he got squashed by Tuck. Then he was a little off. Won't surprise me if we learn that he actually had a separated shoulder or something from that hit.

 

[BigHoss28]

Brady played well enough to win. Period.

 

[Uncle Rico]

I mean, at one point he was 20-23, with the three incompletions being the throw-away that became a safety (but as far as incompletions go, he had to throw it away or take the sack), and two passes batted down at the LOS by JPP.

In other words, the guy was NAILS accurate...right up until the moment he got squashed by Tuck. Then he was a little off. Won't surprise me if we learn that he actually had a separated shoulder or something from that hit.

The stat I heard on the radio was: Passer rating before that sack, 144; after, 35 or so.

 

[upstater1]

I sometimes wonder what people are watching.

Uh, Brady used to launch bombs on target to Deion Branch regularly, he hit Bethel Johnson in the playoffs a couple times with bombs, he did it with Randy Moss.

NEWSFLASH: Mario Manningham does not play for the New England Patriots.

On the particular bomb in question this week, Brady had to heave it 50 yards downfield. He threw it before he could set and gather himself because he had a defender in his face. If he set himself properly, he could have thrown it 50 yards, as he did on the HailyMarys, but then the defender would have planted him before he let go of the ball.

Brady was missing Gronk and his window of opportunity was smaller than Elis.

People compare his game to Elis, but what they tend to miss is that Eli was capable of throwing the ball into the ground multiple times (as he did in Sunday's game) and people forgot because a play or two later, Manningham makes a spectacular grab. Then I see Bob Ryan oohing and ahhing about how great a throw it was, how he fit that throw into a window, and yet the replay tells me different. Manningham did not fly down the field under the ball, he actually stopped his stride and had to adjust to it. I still call it a great throw but I give the vast majority of the credit (90%) to Manningham for slowing down and getting his body in perfect position to catch that ball. Brady doesn't have a Manningham.

The point is, Brady was largely on target on Sunday with the possible exception of the throw to Branch and maybe Welker. He had no absolute clunker throws whereas Eli had several. In the end, Eli's guys made the plays on Eli's balls, and Brady's guys did not.

 

[letekro]

How many receiver does TFB have that are really good deep threats? When he was throwing to Moss in 07 every talked about how incredible his deep ball accuracy was. Any catch is a synthesis of the QB and the receiver, on a deep ball it takes a lot longer to happen which means there’s more things that can go wrong, a good deep receiver needs speed and quickness, the ability to track where the ball will be, and the ability to adjust. If your receivers don’t have that the QB will need to be damn near perfect on his deep ball throws, which TFB isn’t but neither is just about any QB out there.

Nobody talked about TB's deep ball accuracy in 2007. In Randy's prime or close to it, as in 2007, it was almost impossible to overthrow or underthrow him. For example, Brady's long bombs to him against the Jets and Dolphins were randomly thrown and Moss went and got them. Here's the thing. Brady can throw deep accurately in the same way he can throw short accurately--if he steps into his throw like a baseball pitcher and drives the ball, keeping the trajectory low. Think of his throw to Branch against Denver or to Moss in the first NYG game in 2007. Brady's problem is when he has to put touch on the ball--like the throw he made to Welker in SB 46. He is just not good at this, doesn't matter whether the pass is short, medium or long. Contrast him with Bledsoe, who had tremendous touch all around the field, although he was lacking in other areas.

 

[patsfan13]

Won't surprise me if we learn that he actually had a separated shoulder or something from that hit.

Boomer Esiason is certain he either separated his shoulder or fractured his collar bone on that hit.

Seeing his throws after that hit, I agree with his observation.

 

[upstater1]

Nobody talked about TB's deep ball accuracy in 2007. In Randy's prime or close to it, as in 2007, it was almost impossible to overthrow or underthrow him. For example, Brady's long bombs to him against the Jets and Dolphins were randomly thrown and Moss went and got them. Here's the thing. Brady can throw deep accurately in the same way he can throw short accurately--if he steps into his throw like a baseball pitcher and drives the ball, keeping the trajectory low. Think of his throw to Branch against Denver or to Moss in the first NYG game in 2007. Brady's problem is when he has to put touch on the ball--like the throw he made to Welker in SB 46. He is just not good at this, doesn't matter whether the pass is short, medium or long. Contrast him with Bledsoe, who had tremendous touch all around the field, although he was lacking in other areas.

So you're dismissing the bombs to Moss but forgetting the bombs (touch throws, not line drives) to Branch and Bethel from earlier years?

 

[WelshPat]

Brady was having a great game right up to the point when he injured his shoulder. After that he struggled.

As to the other years, he was playing injured in both 2007 (high ankle IIRC) and 2005 sports hernia) playoffs. Stats while useful can't factor in the effects of injuries on performance.

Isn't it slightly concerning that he is getting injured more and more often? he's almost always dealing with something

As for the article its pretty much XMFD not because of the Brady stuff but more that they say he should look up to joe Montana who btw, was exactly the same as Brady in that he threw a lot of short passes... I love stupid people, so funny...

 

[PrairiePat]

In other words, the guy was NAILS accurate...right up until the moment he got squashed by Tuck. Then he was a little off. Won't surprise me if we learn that he actually had a separated shoulder or something from that hit.

I keep hearing this, but it's just not true. Unless you count the passes where the receiver wasn't hit between the #'s or something. I can literally remember one overthrow in the 4th quarter, to Branch on that last desperation drive near the sideline. The other misses I remember: (2nd last drive) he threw to the back shoulder of Welker (dropped), slightly behind Branch over the middle (dropped), (last drive) Branch over the middle (tipped), Hernandez over the middle (dropped), a spike, and the Hail Mary. When you consider that the pass rush was cranking up for the Giants at that point, and Brady was scrambling around just to find time to throw, most of those throws HAVE to be caught by our receivers.

How many leaping catches did Manning's receivers make for him? A bunch. Plus Manningham's fantastic reception along the sidelines. I'm more in agreement with Giselle here than the CHFF guys.

If Welker or Branch catch their balls on the 2nd last drive, we're having the GOAT discussion today instead of this one.

 

[patsfan13]

Isn't it slightly concerning that he is getting injured more and more often? he's almost always dealing with something

As for the article its pretty much XMFD not because of the Brady stuff but more that they say he should look up to joe Montana who btw, was exactly the same as Brady in that he threw a lot of short passes... I love stupid people, so funny...

He is now an older player who has take a lot of hits. So yes, the concerns with his ability to be healthy enough in the play offs is legit. He will be 35 in his next training camp.