Through two games in the 2020 NFL season, Saints quarterback Drew Brees looks a lot like a guy who’s just about done playing quarterback at a plus level. In Monday night’s 34-24 loss to the Raiders, Brees completed 26 of 38 passes for 312 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Pretty good stats on their face, especially since Brees was working without receiver Michael Thomas, who’s out with an ankle injury.
But when you go beyond the box score, things are quite disconcerting. Late in the game, when the Saints needed Brees to connect with his receivers on explosive chunk plays that would make the game closer, Brees didn’t do it. Instead, he dinked and dunked his way down the field through the fourth quarter.
Outside of an 18-yard shot to a wide-open Emmanuel Sanders under Las Vegas’ two-deep coverage with 1:05 left in the game, every single fourth-quarter pass that came from Brees was short. 13 of his 14 fourth-quarter passing attempts, in fact. And even then, three of those 13 were incomplete. Head coach and offensive play-designer Sean Payton was in a position where his quarterback would not take the seam and post shots that once defined Brees as one of the best quarterbacks of his generation.
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Next Gen Stats defines their Completion Probability metric as “The probability of a pass completion, based on numerous factors such as receiver separation from the nearest defender, where the receiver is on the field, the separation the passer had at time of throw from the nearest pass rusher, and more.”
Next Gen Stats also has an Expected Completion Percentage metric, which it describes as “Using a passer’s Completion Probability on every play, determine what a passer’s completion percentage is expected to be.”
And finally, Next Gen Stats has a Completion Percentage Above Expectation (+/-) metric, which it defines as “A passer’s actual completion percentage compared to their Expected Completion Percentage.”
What’s the point of all this? Brees has an Expected Completion Percentage of 71.9%, and a Completion Percentage Above (or in this case, Below) Expectation of -8.4%. Only Dwayne Haskins and Carson Wentz fare worse in this stat in 2020.
There was also this interception to linebacker Nick Morrow, which wouldn’t look out of place on Saints backup Jameis Winston’s 2019 lowlight reel with the Buccaneers.
Going the other way!
Nick Morrow with an absolute game-changer. #NOvsLV live on ESPN pic.twitter.com/O9WBNBbJGY
— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) September 22, 2020
“Yeah, I had to throw it a lot earlier than I wanted to,” Brees said after the fact. “Bottom line is, I shouldn’t have thrown that ball. That was either a bad decision or make a much better throw, but at the end of the day just checking out. I didn’t have the time that I needed to really make a good read. I should have just dumped it to [running back] Alvin [Kamara] and moved to the next play.”
Even with Thomas in the lineup in Week 1 against Tampa Bay — at least for 55 of New Orleans’ 68 offensive snaps — Brees kept things under the defense with one notable exception: This 46-yard play to tight end Jared Cook in which cornerback Jamel Dean looked to be playing bail coverage, and was late to match up with his assignment. Not so. The real issue here, as Bucs head coach Bruce Arians said after the game, was that safety Andrew Adams bit on play-action, which would lead me to believe that Brees took advantage of busted two-deep.
Oh, wait! Here’s the quote.
“That was not Jamel Dean’s [responsibility]. Jamel Dean was rolled up – he was a cloud corner. The safety – we were in Cover 2 – bit an inside route, which can’t happen. It was not Jamel Dean at all.”
So, even with a full boat on offense, the one big play Brees has had this season — his one completion of 20 or more air yards — was due to a safety gaffe. Brees has attempted just three deep passes this season on 70 dropbacks.
With all that in mind, Brees and head coach Sean Payton had to address questions about Brees’ viability after the game.
“Well, my job is to execute the offense,” Brees said when asked how he feels about the tape showing a guy in decline. “So, I’ve always evaluated myself on being a good decision maker. And so, at the end of the day, I’m going to throw the ball to the open guy, move the ball down the field, score points, help us win football games. That’s my job. My job is not to have the most air yards, or throw the ball down the field the most, or anything like that. My job is to help us win. My job is to help put everybody around me in a position to succeed and that’s all I’m focused on.”
Yes, but when you’re down double digits in the fourth quarter, and you’re not pulling the trigger on big plays, the lack of air yards has to be a concern.
“I feel like we just need to be more efficient,” Brees concluded. “We have a wealth of stuff that we do within the framework of our offense. You know, we called a shot play, or two, today and just got the wrong coverage on both of them. What could have been big play opportunities, big throws down the field had to be checked down. One was a 10-yard check-down completion and another one was something close to that as well. Again, at the end of the day it is our job to get the ball down the field and score points. However, we do that, we do it.”
Not to play amateur psychologist here, but does that sound like a quarterback who’s confident in his ability to make plays downfield?
“We’ve got to be precise with what we’re doing in the passing game, route-wise,” Payton said when asked if Brees is the problem. “I’m just saying the last two weeks have been average at best offensively. That starts with us, it starts with me, and we have to be better. We ran the ball a little bit better tonight. We’re still not protecting the way we’re supposed to, we’re not functioning well enough and taking advantage of the opportunities we had. We’ll look at that, our third down numbers were better. I’m sure our red zone numbers were a little better. We had some penalties situations, and in that one drive we had three or four penalties that I lost track.”
Payton is also not going to throw the quarterback he’s been with since 2006 under the bus publicly. Nobody is rooting for Drew Brees to be on the steep decline, but it’s hard to come to any other conclusion at this point in time.