Brady has hit the wall (1 Viewer)

I prefer Brees' wall to any version of any wall I've heard of lately. Only the fluke thumb injury kept him from having a fully-successful year in 2019, from a performance standpoint. Remember our baseball analogy when it comes to QBs......Brees has never been Nolan Ryan. He's become great by being Greg Maddux.
 
Any person observing objectively can see that both Brady and Brees have hit a wall of sorts. Neither are the player they were 5 years ago, as you would expect from players in their 40s; they're both just managing their shortcomings well.

They've both gone from being elite QBs to being elite game managers that can make the occasional "wow" play or have the occasional "wow" moment, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
 
I dont think it's as much on him as it is the offense as a whole.

Grant it, there is no denying the inevitable decline. Obviously there is some. Let's not act like he is not more then capable of dicing a defense up. If he was the qb of the Cheifs, or any other team with weapons, I promise you, you wouldn't be having this conversation
Which is why Brady is not the GOAT and Brees is. Look at the numbers Brees put up when he had no weapons around him.
 
Not having Michael Thomas would change the offense, but if we are going to play the "what if?" game, everyone would agree that in the event of an injury to Thomas in week 1, the Saints would have aggressively traded for a top flight WR, whatever the cost.

As for Brees' numbers, they wouldn't take as sharp of a dip as you think . Brees is averaging 39 attempts per game, but only 11 of those passes go towards Michael Thomas. That is 28% of his attempts. Even if Brees had a 100% completion percentage throwing to Thomas (he doesn't, it is 83%), there are still 72% of his passes that are having to be caught by someone else. Brees has never won because of his arm strength, he's won because he puts the ball in places where the defender can do nothing about it. If you remove Michael Thomas and his ridiculous catch rate from the Saints totals this season, Brees is still completing 70% of his passes.

Agree in part. But Sean's offense is such that when you remove one of the roles in the passing game, the others suffer unless they are talented enough to get open on their own accord, no matter scheme.

Here's what I mean- if we don't have a burner stretching the field, establishing a viable deep threat that we hit on enough that defenses have to account for it, then defenses play much closer to the LOS, and the Lance Moore / Willie Snead underneath type routes all the sudden don't have the same space to operate in, don't have the same separation because their areas to be surprise! open are now congested. Conversely, with no Moore/Snead guy, Drew doesn't have that easy 3rd down conversion machine because defenders are putting more attention on the satellite RB (Bush / Sproles / Kamara) and Possession WR (Colston / Thomas), and it is especially effective when playing playoff caliber defenses who can get to Drew before vertical deep threat can get vertical. The only time we've legit been without a possession guy was when Colston was a ghost after having knee surgeries every offseason... this was the period Drew would eye fork Jimmy and force interceptions to a double or triple covered Graham.

My point is of those 3 WR roles - Possession, Slot/underneath, and burner, we only legit have one position filled. Ginn has returned to being an imposter, TQS hasn't developed quite as quickly as anticipated due to untimely injuries and complexity of offense, and everyone else came from the dollar tree. So the success any WR not named Thomas is having is largely predicated on the defensive attention Thomas and Kamara are receiving.

Do I think they would have traded for a WR? Yes, they would have absolutely have had to. But the Patriots also had to. And getting someone after the season has begun takes much time to learn the offense and develop chemistry and trust. Exceptions to the rule exist, like Emmanual Sanders going to an offense he was previously in at SF. But I'd consider Sanu, for example, a solid WR and that hasn't been plug and play automatic production, and I think that has zero to do with Brady hitting a wall.

Bottom line, I firmly believe Drew is a better QB than Brady (a good bit better); Brady has had so much more to work with when it comes to top 10 scoring defenses, top 10 special teams units, top 10 turnover getting defenses, ect. I have an article I am working on that shows how the comparison isn't really apples to apples because Brady has played with a stacked deck over the course of his career, but I'll save that argument for another day. I just don't believe what is happening today in New England translates to "Brady has hit a wall"; that it looks very much like it did for Drew last season starting with Dallas game, and the reasons for that are multiple - line play, lack of legit WR talent, ect. Edleman is like Lance Moore/Snead at a pro-bowl level. They don't have a Colston possession guy (hoping Harry becomes that), nor a legit burner. Neither do they have a dependable legit TE; they got a poor mans version of satellite RB. That's it. Drew might not be 50%, but I doubt he'd be 75%; if he would, it would be like you see now with the 2nd lowest distance in the air at like 6 yards per throw.
 
I think the Pats need a quality TE and WR2 a hulluva lot more than a new QB. Not to mention a shored up O-Line..

That said, I did see some inaccurate passes from Brady. Not sure how much of that was him and how much was a very impressive Houston D-line putting him under a lot more pressure.
 
Compare this year to his 2003 season whenever he was in his mid 20ś... It´s pretty comparable and oh he won the super bowl that year, was people saying he was washed up? No people need to get over his age. Brady is still more than capable and is no where near the decline Manning showed his last season.
 
Compare this year to his 2003 season whenever he was in his mid 20ś... It´s pretty comparable and oh he won the super bowl that year, was people saying he was washed up? No people need to get over his age. Brady is still more than capable and is no where near the decline Manning showed his last season.
I do think everyone is making a faulty comparison by using Manning. Manning had nerve damage and could not feel the ball nor his fingers. I think a better comparison of a player hitting a wall would be Brett Favre who went from MVP season to just looking terrible and ineffective - that is what "hitting the wall" looks like IMHO, and neither Brady nor Brees has had that happen; their issues are more to do with lack of personnel - I'd say 75% personnel, 25% age.
 

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