New England's Receiving Incompetency and its Effect on Brady's Success Against the Blitz

Last year, many of us at PatriotsLife, and nearly all football prognosticators in general, knew that the teams who were successful against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were those with defenses that can bring three-man rushes and keep Brady from getting the ball out quickly. Why? Well, because Brady's stats when you blitz five rushers or more are unprecedented. Why is that? Because Brady had the quickest and most successful trigger in the NFL last year. I posted something similar to this prior to the Patriots playoff game against the Houston Texans, and you can find it here. The following stats are there to show just how amazing Brady really is when faced with 5+ rushers and open receivers:

Brady by seconds-before-pass (2012)
Within 3.0 More Than 3.0
Comp pct 72%* 41%
Yds per att 8.1 6.4
TD-Int 26-4 8-4
Total QBR 87.9 38.4

Last year, Brady had a +20 TD-INT ratio when facing 5+ rushers. He threw 20 TDs and not a single interception. No quarterback before him has ever even thrown 20 TDs against extra pressure, let alone doing so without any interceptions in tandem. His completion percentage was 67.1%, threw for 1,586 yards, and his passer rating was 135.6. Eye-popping numbers.

The year before? Similar story: Completion percentage was 60.1%, threw for 1,200 yards, seven TDs, and two interceptions. Some people have said if you get to Brady, you will throw him off his game, but even that idea has proven to be suspect at best. Through 2010, Brady's record when being sacked three times or more in a game was 19-4. The next two best on that list? Peyton Manning at 6-5 and Brett Favre at 11-11. Brady can take pressure, his pocket presence is brilliant. From the numbers, it seems to boil down to getting what is called "coverage sacks" on Brady. The longer you force Brady to hold onto the ball, the better chance you have at beating the Patriots.

When I went back and read these numbers again, I noticed a quote from Miami Dolphins beat writer James Walker who had this to say to the Dolphins defense:

"Brady, 34, is at the point in his career where he's seen every defensive scheme. Chances are, you're not going to surprise him with a blitz, and his receivers are talented enough to beat single coverage. The best route for opponents is to just sit back and hope Brady makes a couple mistakes."

I bolded the part I found most interesting, and it is something that the Patriots do not have this year. The rookie receivers, dropped passes, and no Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Wes Welker or Brandon Lloyd culminates in two things for the Patriots: An inability to utilize the run game effectively because teams can just go man-to-man all game and load the box, and no open receivers means Brady has to hold on to the ball too long - which, looking at the stats above, does not mean good things for the Patriots offense.

How do we know that Brady's receivers cannot get open on man coverage? Because his numbers have tanked from last year when teams bring five or more pass rushers. His QBR has gone from 87.6 to 35.1, he has been sacked five times in five games as opposed to seven times in eighteen games last year, and his completion percentage went from 64.2% to 53.4%.

For a great example of this, here is a video from ESPN's film room to display just how incompetent the Patriots receivers have been thus far. The the video that follows is one of Brady with his receivers from last year, who seem to have no problem getting open on man-to-man coverage because when you have Gronk, Hernandez, Welker, and even Lloyd - there will be a mismatch for Brady to exploit.

I hope that Rob Gronkowski can take some of this pressure off of Brady, and maybe Amendola can as well; however, as of right now, the future looks grim from Brady and the boys if receivers cannot get open sooner. I guess we will see on Sunday.

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