BRADY’S NUMBERS DEFINITELY DESERVE A PAT ON THE BACK
New England star the NFL’s most efficient QB of late, despite playing into his 40s
To make a sweeping judgment about an established quarterback on how he performed last year alone isn’t fair, right?
Maybe he’s coming off an outlier career year. Or, in contrast, a clunker to forget.
Similarly, a career body of work might not be any more accurate or fair. For example, what if he’s pulling a Peyton Manning and is hanging around too long, past the point of elitism or even reliable effectiveness?
These thought exercises led me to look up how the most often mentioned top-10 NFL quarterbacks since 2015 have fared in that time frame en masse.
An aggregate analysis of a veteran’s three most recent seasons has got to be a fairer way to answer the question, “So how’s he doing lately?” Right?
I ignored completions, attempts and yards and zeroed in on volume of touchdown passes and avoidance of interceptions from 2015-17.
The results surprised me. Among the principal revelations: 1.
Best TD-to-INT ratio
Tom Brady really is better than ever. I figured Aaron Rodgers of Green Bay had to have the best touchdown-to-interception ratio in this span. But he’s No. 2, with a fantastic 4.14-to-1 mark.
Tops is New England’s Brady, who over the last three seasons — at age 38, 39 and 40, for crying out loud — far and away has led everybody, including Rodgers, at 5.65 to 1.
If that’s not the best aggregate ratio by any passer in any threeyear span in league history, it’s gotta be dang close.
I was surprised to learn Brady, Rodgers and Seattle’s Russell Wilson are heads and shoulders above every other passer in NFL history with their career TD -topick ratios: Rodgers, 4.01 to 1; Brady, 3.05 to 1; and Wilson, 2.88 to 1. Joe Montana, Manning, Steve Young, Drew Brees, Tony Romo, Donovan McNabb, Ben Roethlisberger, et al are all in the career range of 1.89-2.17 to 1. Not even close.
But how about Brady? To throw the most scoring passes in the NFL over any three-year span, while also throwing the fewest interceptions of any regular starter, takes incredible accuracy.
While it might take a sixth Super Bowl championship for Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to say something like this again about Brady, the morning after they won their fifth some 19 months ago I asked Surly McGrumpypants at the MVP presser if Brady’s accuracy is under-appreciated. His answer:
“I don’t think anybody throws a ball into more tight windows than Tom does consistently.”
Only now he does it better than ever.
Bill O’Brien, Brady’s former offensive co-ordinator in New England who’s now head coach of the Houston Texans, on Tuesday said this of Brady: “I think he’s actually improved, if he was able to do that. (He’s) always thinking about football and how to get the edge and that’s why he’s the player he is (and) that’s why he’s still playing.”
2.
Most touchdown passes Brady leads all NFL passers with 96 touchdown throws since September 2015. Add in the four he threw in the preceding Super Bowl XLIX and it’s an even 100 since that infamous Deflategate game. Ah, revenge.
It’s probably no surprise that New Orleans’ Brees is second in 2015-17 TD passes with 92 and Philip Rivers of the Los Angeles Chargers is third with 90. But Wilson ranking fourth in TD totals with 89 — as he continually runs for his life behind that continuously wretched offensive line of his and with no decent running game to boot — is a stunner. It confirms Wilson’s elite status.
In TDs per game since 2015, Rodgers leads all with 2.23, followed by Brady (2.18), Brees (1.96), Roethlisberger (1.95) and Rivers (1.88).
Perhaps the two most surprising entries in this category: despite passing for 35 TDs in his MVP season of 2015, over the two years since then Carolina’s Cam Newton has combined to throw only 41; and Atlanta’s Matt Ryan is last of the 10 in TDs per game (1.645, despite averaging 2.38 in his MVP season of 2016).
3.
Fewest interceptions
That Brady leads here, too, is no surprise. By how much is. The 41-year-old has been picked off only 17 times over the last three seasons. Next fewest is Rodgers, with 21. The other eight range between 30 and 44.
I expected Pittsburgh’s Roethlisberger not to fare well in this category, but he was even worse than I figured. He’s the worst of the 10, throwing more than an interception a game (1.08). It feels as though he has just become too reckless with the ball and these numbers bear that out.
Two other surprises: First, Wilson’s interception total (30) and per-game rate (0.63) both rank third after Brady and Rodgers. Conclusion: Wilson not only is highly prolific at throwing touchdowns, but extraordinarily careful with his throws, too.
Second, that Detroit’s Matthew Stafford ranked fourth in both categories — 33 total and only 0.69 per game. I’d have thought at least Brees and Ryan would be better in these interception-avoidance categories than Stafford.
(Tom Brady is) always thinking about football and how to get the edge and that’s why he’s the player he is (and) that’s why he’s still playing (at the age of 41).