You may not have been familiar with Chargers cornerback Michael Davis before one play in Los Angeles’ game against the Buccaneers, but any time you take a Tom Brady pass 78 yards the other way for a pick-six, that’ll get people’s attention.
Michael Davis. 78-yard Pick Six đź‘€pic.twitter.com/tVD9jZI3bP
(via @NFL)— NFLonCBS (@NFLonCBS) October 4, 2020
The Chargers, who played more zone coverage than any other NFL team last season (75% of their defensive snaps), showed Brady a single-high look and spun it to two-deep after the snap. Something Brady’s seen a zillion times in his career, and that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Brady was trying to hit receiver Justin Watson on a quick out, and Davis did a brilliant job of backing off, baiting the GOAT, and moving in to grab the ball
From there, it was all academic.
Davis isn’t a big name, but I ranked him as the 11th-best zone cornerback in the NFL last season, and it’s clear that he’s keeping it up.
Also, this marks the third time in Brady’s career that he’s thrown two pick-sixes in the same season — he also did it in 2001 and 2015. Brady also threw one in Week 1 of the 2020 campaign against Saints cornerback Janoris Jenkins, who I ranked as the third-best at his position in zone coverage in 2019. You can read analysis of that play below:
Anatomy of a Play: Saints cracked Bruce Arians’ code on Tom Brady’s pick-six