People Are Way To Up On Brady
by shake n bake on Aug 15, 2008 8:37 AM EDT
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PrintI've seen a ton of talk about Tom Brady as a early first round, and sometimes 1st overall pick in fantasy drafts. It's dumb. Brady had an amazing season last year. He took me to the last years Stampede Blue league championship game (got him by autodraft since I was at work). But the reality is that Brady is going to come back down to earth. Brady's 08 was the 5th QB in the history of the league with 40+ TDs here are the totals the next year with their 40+ season total in parenthesis and the drop in brackets.
Manning 2005: 28 (49) [-21]
Marino 1985: 30 (48) [-18]
Marino 1987: 26 (44) [-18]
Warner 1999: 21 (41) [-20]
The least anyone dropped off was 18 Touchdowns. It's a small sample, but the result is very intuitive. Teams will gameplan to stop or limit the QB to an even greater extent after a record season. How often did Manning see safeties shallow or single coverage on the outside after his 49 TD season? Combine that with regression to the mean and you get 20 TD dropoffs.
Lets up the sample with 10 more great seasons. Here is every season with at least 35 TDs with the following season and drop off.
Brett Favre 1996: 39 (35) [-4]
Dante Culpepper 2004: 39 (6) [-33] no, those numbers aren't flipped around he threw 6 TDs
Brett Favre 1995: 38 (39) [+1]
George Blanda 1961: 36 (27) [-9]
Y.A. Tittle 1963: 36 (10) [-26] not flipped around, only 10 TDs
Steve Young 1998: 36 (3) [-33] only 3 TDs
Steve Beuerlein 1999: 36 (19) [-17]
Kurt Warner: 2001: 36 (3) [-33] again, not flipped around, 3 TDs
Tony Romo 2007: 36 (?) [?]
Brett Favre 1997: 35 (31) [-4]
Steve Young 1994: 35 (20) [-15]
Only Brett Favre maintained a high level of TD passes for more than one year. Interestingly his INT % increased each of the years after the 35 TD performance. From 2.3 in his first 35+ season to 2.4 then 3.1 and finally 4.2 following the third 35+ season, suggesting he did a bit of gunslinging to keep the TD total up.
The odds are very very strongly against Tom Brady coming close to repeating last season. So chill on him for a second. I will not draft Brady in the first round in any league that doesn't start multiple QBs (I'm not in any at this time). He more the likely won't even come close to last season's marks. Only Favre hasn't had a significant dropoff in TDs after a 35+ TD season and only Favre and Blanda didn't drop by 15 or more TDs.
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+1
I have been thinking the exact same thing minus all the data you provide to back-up my suspicion that consecutive 40+ TD season would be historicla in nature, and I generally play the percentages on history not occuring. Better said, my ability to correctly predict who will make statistical history.
Interesting Premise
While I will agree with you that Tom Brady is certainly due for a drop off, the way you go about trying to prove your idea is flawed. Lets consider some of the players and years you pointed out to support your premise.
Is Tom Brady going to retire next year like Y.A. Tittle did after he dropped down to only 10 TDs after his career year at the age of 37 in 1963? Or is he going to only play 3 games this year and then retire like Steve Young did after his drop off from 36 to 3 TDs in 1999? You know the year he had when he was 38 years old just like Y.A. Tittle.
Uh-oh. Is Tom Brady 38 years old? Nope he’s only 31. So I guess we don’t need to worry about his performance dropping off due to age or imminent retirement. At least not this year.
Some other notable seasons you mentioned. Daunte Culpepper? Gee, what could have happened to him to explain such a huge regression in performance? How about the fact he lost Randy Moss in the offseason and he got hurt after starting the year 2-5, you know, without Randy Moss.
Kurt Warner from 2001 to 2002, he was injured that year. He only had 6 starts. As for 2000? He only played in 11 games. Pro-rate his performance out to a full season and he would have had 30 TDs that year.
Uh-oh. Did the Patriots not resign Randy Moss? Oh wait, they did. So I guess we don’t need to worry about his performance dropping off due to no Randy Moss. At least not this year. Do I even need to elaborate on the injury plagued seasons?
It would have been much simpler for you to point out how hard it is for a QB to even throw 30 TDs in a year let alone 40+ or the ridiculous 50 Brady put up last year. Take a look at Peyton Manning’s career stats. Even though he’s averaged just over 30 TDs a year for his career he’s only thrown for 30+ TDs in 4 out of his 10 years.
It’s just like Eric said above. Consecutive 40+ TD seasons would be historic. Highly unlikely considering that Brady had never put up 30+ TDs in any season before last year. But on the other hand he’s never had a duo like Moss and Welker to throw to before. So I think I just might end up watching him make history this year.
Same guy, new name.
There's a good reason nobody's done it
And that’s because opposing defenses figure it out. The Giants showed the league how to stop Brady — knock him down…a lot. All the time. Now that wasn’t really a secret, and there aren’t many teams that have the personnel to do it, but the league started to figure Brady and the Pats out in the second half of the season. He threw three picks against the Chargers and we know what happened against the Giants.
The ability of the NFL to adapt to new offensive (and defensive) schemes is truly amazing..it’s like a body adapting to fight off a new bacteria. I wouldn’t bet against it.
Adapting
SRSF mentioned a couple of QBs (Damn you again Daunte Culpepper!) getting injured the next season. This seems to be a tie to skeelar’s observation about adapting. The Giants did it to Brady in the Superbowl.
Is Brady more likely to throw 40+ or get injured from the pressure on him, and if the Pats secondary is awful, Brady will be under pressure more than usual.
I've been saying the same thing
Once there was enough film on the first half of the year “carpet bombing”, the Pats had a tougher time. This is fairly evident when looking at TD reception numbers for the first vs. the second half of the season. As defenses adjust, offenses to, too (which I believe you mentioned). The Pats have now stacked the backfield with 5 running backs. Who knows whether that number will survive the next round of player cuts, but if it does, look for a renewed running attack in 2008 from NE.
Blogger at SBNation's New England Patriots blog, Pats Pulpit
+1
I had the same thought when looking at Laurence Maroney. At the end fo the season, he had become the back fantasy players thought he was going to be when he was drafted. Unfortunately, Maroney was that back in December and January when most fantasy football players are done.
I think ffbers know this because Maroney is still going in the second/thrid round, but Jordan’s presence, esp as a pass catcher, makes me wonder if MAroney
Jordan
His hands are an unknown to me, but it would be very cool for NE if he was counted on for pulling down the rock when needed. If it doesn’t work out, Kevin Faulk is darn good at it. I think Jordan will be most used in short yardage and redzone situations; he’s a bowling ball with legs.
Blogger at SBNation's New England Patriots blog, Pats Pulpit
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