Can Drew Brees still throw it deep?

Soooo, I did a little research and was surprised by the results! You may be surprised too. My research started with finding his longest throws in the air for his entire career. You can look these up pretty easy on you tube. My method was simple 1. Add the yardage of ball in flight from where Brees threw it to where it was caught, on some occasions I may have added a yard or 2 if the receiver caught it at a high point. 2. Based on the horizontal field measurements, I was able to estimate the flight of the ball horizontally for a total yards in flight. For reference, center hash to same side sideline is approx. 23 yards. The objective was to see how far the ball was thrown in flight. These were also all completed passes so this does not include uncompleted passes as they are harder to find. This does not take into account time of ball flight or trajectory which can also be used as a measure of arm strength. For example a 35 yard pass that does not go higher than 10' would be a harder thrown ball then one that goes 40 but with a more distance friendly trajectory. This was not an exact science but can serve as a guide. Obviously, these are not all his throws . There were some that he made that were only 45-50 yards but was off back foot or someone in his face that were pretty impressive as well. There were several of throws that were around 50 especially in 2017-18 to ginn. Here are the results of the throws I included in chronological order:

1. 2004, Pass to Parker - 56 yards in air with an extra yard of horizontal flight =total 57 yards in flight.
2. 2011, Pass to Henderson - 56 yards in air with 0 extra yards horizontal flights =56 yards in flight.
3. 2012, Pass to Morgan - 49 yards in air with approximately 6 additional yards in horizontal flight = 55 yards in flight.
4. 2015, Pass to Cooks - 50 yards in vertical air with approximately 10 additional yards in horizontal flight = 60 yards in flight.
5. 2016, Pass to Cooks - 34 yards in vertical air with approximately 22 additional yards in horizontal flight = 56 yards in flight.
6. 2017, Pass to Ginn vs Bears - 54 yards in vertical air with approximately 1 additional yards in horizontal flight = 55 yards in flight.
7. 2017 playoffs, Pass to Ginn vs Panthers - 48 yards in vertical air with approximately 2 additional yards in horizontal flight = 50 yards in flight.
8. 2018, Pass to Smith-33 yards vertical with 20 yards horizontal = 53 yards in flight.
9. 2019, Pass to Ginn vs Rams in NFC championship - 50 yards in vertical air with approximately 20 additional yards in horizontal flight = 70 yards in flight!!!

So, I will let you make up your mind based on those numbers. However, I did make some other observations and possible reasons that he has the perception of lost arm strength. When I started this,I thought his max throw was about 55 yards with a drop off to about 50 yards but that is not what I saw on video.

Observations:
1. In 2018, it appears that a lot of teams were playing 2 deep safeties. Way more than he has seen in past. There seemed to be a blueprint that was to keep everything in front.
2. Ginn being out really hurt his deep threat. from 2017 to 2019 Ginn had several balls that were thrown 45-55 yards in air to him. With the exception of the one to Smith no one else had any....zero (at least that were caught that I found). And the one to Smith was a drop in between coverage not over the top.
3. Some of the deep balls that he did under throw were late throws or just came out of his hand bad.
4. Okay, this one is key. It appears that Drew has changed his philosophy on the deep throws as his career has progressed. He use to throw a decent amount of balls too far, but now even on his long throws they are rarely in stride. As they were more often earlier. The receiver may have to slow just a bit to not overrun ball coming in. I think this is intentional. Like in golf, a short putt is missed 100% of the time. Where as one that may have been hit just a tad hard can still fall in. Bree's figures an overthrown ball is missed 100% of the time. Why not make sure the receiver has a shot at it....maybe this is why he is one of the most accurate passers on the deep ball? Just speculation, put you can see the obvious progression to this in his career and I don't think it has anything to do with arm strength. Also, if you have listen to some of his interviews over the last few years, he hints to this without coming right out and saying it.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think.