Tom Brady’s numbers under pressure cratered last year. Why this is huge for Tampa Bay’s success, or lack thereof, in 2020.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the sports world, however, sometimes a number is worth a thousand words. As we start to look forward to the 2020 NFL season, here at Touchdown Wire, we are going to be rolling out some statistics that could be pivotal to a player’s – or a team’s – prospects in the season ahead.
We start this off with of course, Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The NFC South squad was viewed as many as one of the big winners of the 2020 offseason. With good reason. Anytime you add arguably the greatest quarterback of all time to the roster, you’ll be getting some kudos. But the Buccaneers were not done there. They also added offensive tackle Joe Haeg via free agency to add depth up front, and swung a trade (while Brady worked on doing the convincing) to bring Rob Gronkowski out of retirement and to Tampa Bay.
Then in the draft, the Buccaneers made a number of impressive selections at various points over the three days. They were able to trade up just one spot from 14th to 13th and draft right tackle Tristan Wirfs from Iowa, considered one of the “Big Four” offensive linemen in the class. On the second day of the draft they added Antoine Winfield Jr, one of the best defenders in the entire draft, as well as running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn from Vanderbilt. Day Three saw the Buccaneers add one of the more intriguing wide receivers in the group, Tyler Johnson from Minnesota. Johnson’s athleticism – as well as his pre-draft process – can be questioned, but his route-running cannot.
But there is one number that might tell the tale of their 2020 season: 51.8.
That number? That was Tom Brady’s NFL Passer Rating last season when pressured, as charted by Pro Football Focus. In fact, Pat Thorman, an analyst with Establish the Run, showed Brady’s sharp decline in this statistic recently on Twitter:
It should be noted that Thorman included in his sample passers with a minimum dropbacks percentage of 20%. When you shrink that class a bit, inlcluding just passers with a minimum of 50% of dropbacks, Brady’s numbers look like this:
2015: 91.1 (1st)
2016: 84.9 (5th)
2017: 96.1 (1st)
2018: 71.2 (15th)
2019: 51.8 (26th)
Passers that fared better than Brady in this statistic last season? A venerable list of passers that includes Jacoby Brissett, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen, Jared Goff, Andy Dalton, Sam Darnold, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kyle Allen, and Mitchell Trubisky.
You can also measure Brady’s ability to handle pressure by using PFF’s “Adjusted Completion Percentage” metric. Looking at the same period of time, here are the results:
2015: 67.5% (10th)
2016: 68.1% (5th)
2017: 70.2% (2nd)
2018: 62.9% (21st)
2019: 59.5% (21st)
Now yes, the New England Patriots managed to win a Super Bowl during that 2018 season, when Brady was putting up those numbers. But as his numbers took another dip from 2018-2019 to 2019-2020 – including that big drop in NFL passer rating – the Patriots’ Super Bowl chances seemed to crater in tandem.
There are potential explanations for these numbers that Tampa Bay and its fans should keep in mind. This past season the Patriots dealt with changes along their offensive line, due to injuries at both left tackle early in the season, and the center spot as they lost David Andrews to a health issue before the season began.
In addition, after starting the year strong there was a talent drain at both wide receiver and tight end. New England began the year with Josh Gordon, Phillip Dorsett and Julian Edelman as their top three receivers, with Antonio Brown set to join the team in Week 2 and rookie N’Keal Harry waiting in the wings after being picked in the first round.
But down the stretch, Brady was throwing to an injured Edelman, an injured Mohamed Sanu (who was acquired via trade), Harry (who he struggled to get on the same page with), and Jakobi Meyers, a rookie undrafted free agent who started his college career as a quarterback.
Putting that together led to troubles for the New England offense. While Brady has traditionally been effective when pressured, as the numbers from the previous few season illustrate, it did not come together for him as consistently last year.
Now when kept clean, it was a different story for Brady. His NFL Passer Rating of 104.4 when kept clean was ninth-best in the league last year (again, including passers with a dropback minimum of 50%) and his Adjusted Completion Percentage of 81.5 when kept clean tied him with Matthew Stafford for fourth-best in the league.
So the task in front of Tampa Bay is simple: Keep him clean as much as possible. This points to a big reason behind the Wirfs pick, which is to protect Brady so his numbers look more like those “kept clean” numbers as much as possible. In addition, having a consistent receiving corps to throw to – and that he trusts – will be huge for Brady when he does face pressure.
