Tom Brady's Touch Passing Has Improved So Much....
No hyperbole, I practically got emotional watching Tom Brady on the opening drive tonight. This guy continues to improve. Really. He's stepped up his game....again.
A little back-story from my perspective; remember when he was bashed as a noodle armed check down guy? I do. I'd hear about it constantly on ESPN forums. It wasn't true, but he wasn't exactly great in regards to arm strength. He was always billed, even from supporters, as being about the "intangibles." Arm Strength is tangible. Even his supporters knew he didn't have it. Yet, by about 2005, Brady's arm strength improved tremendously from where it was when he started out. As if he set out to bulk up and work on it. He put that criticism to rest. Since his late 20's he's had one of the strongest arms in the NFL -- and it isn't just me saying it either -- while still keeping accuracy. The guy can gun passes in there like no one. He has the best combination of arm strength and accuracy in the NFL. Bar none.
It seems like touch passing has become next up on his priorities list. I remember watching him in 2007 trying to throw deep to Moss. It was obviously a success, but there were indeed quite a few misses. His deep passes were too straight and flat. They didn't quite drop in nose down, and instead would stay nose up, flat, and sail away over target. Not always, but it happened often enough. He never had consistency with the arc of the pass either. I remember him absolutely skying a pass to Moss - against Miami - that looked like it went about half a mile high before Moss caught it for a TD. Accurate? Yeah. But forced. As if he was overcompensating. He really didn't look like a natural touch passer. I recall it being reported that when he overthrew Moss one too many times, he vowed to work on it. He has.
If there is anything I can appreciate about Peyton Manning, it's his ability to throw touch passes -- almost as if they are just floating, suspended in mid-air so his receivers - and only his receivers - can just sort of adjust their body mid-stride and effortlessly pluck it out of the sky. That's the type of passing I saw flashes of tonight from Tom Brady. Especially to Slater and the leaping grab by Hernandez. 3 years ago, those passes would've been frozen ropes. Accurate, but hard to reel in. Now, they just float right in there. Good arc. Very effortless.
