Anatomy of a Divisional Round Win: Saints have to deal with the Tom Brady everybody feared

If the Saints want to complete the three-sweep of the Buccaneers in the divisional round, they’ll have to deal with the REAL Tom Brady.

The last time Tom Brady faced the Saints, everyone watching was wondering two things: Has Brady finally reached his final decline, and if not, would the marriage between Brady and Bruce Arians ever make sense? Tampa Bay lost a Week 9 embarrassment 38-3, allowing New Orleans to take the season series. Brady completed 22 of 38 passes for 209 yards, no touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 40.4 — the third-worst of his career.

That loss put the Bucs at 6-3, and there were serious doubts about Tampa Bay’s postseason viability. More worrisome was the idea that the decision to sign Brady to a two-year, $50 million contract with an additional $9 million available through incentives was a major mistake. Brady was not throwing deep well, he was collapsing under pressure, and there was no part of that offense that was working well from week to week.

In Weeks 1-9, per Pro Football Focus, Brady attempted 48 passes of 20 or more air yards, completing just 17 for 583 yards, three touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 94.4.

A lot of those deep shots were lost on the field. That Week 9 game was the nadir for the Arians/Brady combination in terms of Arians and his offensive staff, especially offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, refusing to do some of the things that have helped Brady in the past. It also didn’t help that Brady and his receivers struggled to communicate on the field to an embarrassing degree.

Check out this deep boundary throw to receiver Chris Godwin. Problem is, Godwin is running a switch release with receiver Antonio Brown, and he completes a comeback at the boundary while Brady clearly thinks his target will run up the field. New-guy route yips are not what you want to see in Week 9.

One of Brady’s three interceptions came on a play in which Brady thought Antonio Brown was running deep, but Brown stopped along the way, and two Saints defenders were fighting for the ball instead. Safety Marcus Williams was the lucky recipient.

Finally, there’s this airball in the general vicinity of receiver Scotty Miller, in which — guess what! — Brady throws deep, and Miller stops too soon to be part of the concept.

When was the last time you saw this happen three times in an NFL game?

“It kind of was with Scotty [Miller],” Arians said of the various miscommunications, where Brady and his targets were seeing different things in coverage. “The interception to A.B.  – that was just a poor throw. The one to Chris [Godwin] – Chris read the route properly, [but] Tom thought he was going deep. He stopped, [and] those things can happen sometimes when you’re doing it on the run.”

Besides the miscommunication, another common characteristic of these three plays is a lack of pre-snap motion. All three of those plays are static before the snap, and Arians was stubbornly hanging onto that idea.

Thing is, Brady and his receivers have figured it out. Brady and his coaches have figured it out, and the results bear out on the field. As a result, when the Buccaneers travel to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome for the third matchup of the season — this time in the divisional round of the playoffs — this time, the Saints will have to deal with the Tom Brady the Buccaneers hoped he would be.

Let’s start with the deep ball. From Week 10 through Tampa Bay’s wild-card win over Washington, Brady attempted 50 passes of 20 or more air yards, completing 23 for 768 yards, a league-leading 10 touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 107.1. Quite an uptick from the first half of the season. And while the reliance on pre-snap motion for impact and information has been streaky all season, it has seen a more robust presence of late.

This touchdown from Brady to Chris Godwin in Week 17 is a perfect example of how motioning a receiver across the formation not only gives Brady a zone indicator, but also creates an unfavorable matchup for the Falcons’ defense. Safety Keanu Neal checks linebacker Foyesade Oluokun to trail Godwin on the slot fade, and that’s… not the best call.

Add in the specter of  ’12’ personnel, which is the personnel on this play, and another advantage becomes clear — with two tight ends in the formation, there are more blockers. This is especially true when one of those tight ends is Rob Gronkowski, the best blocking tight end of his era. It’s one reason Brady has been more willing to take deep shots out of ’12.’

With ’12’ personnel and play-action since Week 13, Brady completed 12 of 20 passes for 239 yards, 108 air yards, five touchdowns, one interception. On attempts of 20 or more air yards in those same circumstances, Brady had five attempts, four completions, two touchdowns, one interception. If you see the Bucs in ’12,’ the deep shot is coming.

Here’s another example against the Lions’ hapless pass defense in Week 16. The Bucs have Gronk and Cameron Brate aligned to the right side. Subtle pre-snap motion moving Brate inside tells Brady that Detroit is playing man coverage (which Detroit should never do), there’s inside zone play-action to suck the linebackers down, the stack creates coverage confusion off the snap, and then it’s yet another Brady-to-Gronk deep fade in which Gronk bodies the poor defender for the 33-yard touchdown.

It’s almost like those two guys have been there before.

So, how do the Saints counter all of this — the Tom Brady they’ve not seen as opposed to the guy who threw five of his 12 picks in 2020 against their defense this season?

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