PFT Is Father Time Closing in on Drew Brees? (1 Viewer)

They should have made it the number 9 story of this season. That would have made the story even funnier. I hate to have to point this out, but there is a direct correlation to the drop off in Drew's game the last part of the season with the injuries his O. line suffered at the latter part of the season. I don't think Max Unger retired at the end of the season because Drew's game fell apart at the end. Then of course there was the replacement of Theron Armstead with Jermon Bushrod. How big a drop off in talent was that? Then Jermon couldn't hold up & you had Peat taking his place when Peat has never been a solid left tackle to begin with. By the time the season ended you had 7th round rookie pick Will Clapp manning a position on the line for goodness sake. Now I don't have a thing in the world against Clapp. But he might not even make the active roster this season. Then of course there's Larry Wofford, our best guard who played a lot of the season with nagging injuries which finally put him out which is why Clapp was in. Then to use a perfectly thrown ball to Lewis as an excuse when Brees had to let the play develop & put air under the ball to get to Lewis as an example of Brees' drop off is pathetic. Can Brees still zing the ball 70 yards down the field like he could when he was 30? Of course not. Hold the phone! You mean Brees never could zing the ball 70 yards down the field?

Then let's think back. What happened to our receiver group last season? Where did Cameron Merrideth our supposed BIG TIME free agent that everyone was fawning over go? What about Tedd Ginn Jr. Where was he most of the season? Then there was Dez Bryant, Brandon Marshall, Brandon Tate, Josh Hill, Ben Watson. What happened to those guys? We ended the season with rookies Dan Arnold, Trequan Smith, And Keith Kirkwood & free agent Austin Carr being some of our biggest contributors on the team. My goodness man, most quarterbacks would have been getting fitted for a straight jacket, not in the running for MVP.

Sure father Time is closing in on Brees. For that matter its closing in on Aaron rogers & even Patrick Mahomes. Time eventually closes in on everyone. But the stone cold truth is Father time wore out our Offensive line, receiver group, & tight ends a LOT more than Brees And those were the BIG reasons for Drew's lack of production at the end of the season.
 
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I don't understand the fascination that people in the media (and several on this forum over the years) have with wanting to be the person to correctly "call" the decline of Drew Brees.

Father Time is undefeated. We get it.
 
I think he hurt his shoulder in the Thursday night game against the Failcants. He made a tackle at the 5 yard line on an interception. Looked like he got a stinger, wasn’t the same after that.
The interior line was hurt for the last half of the season, resulting in him having to get rid of the ball faster.
He may be declining (a little) but I can’t think of another QB that I would rather have.
 
That O-Line would've been a great O-Line for Drew Brees 5-6 years ago. They gave him enough time. He clearly declined after the Cowboys game.

Honestly, if Drew Brees was 85% of the Drew Brees we know & love..... we would've beaten the Rams to make it to the Super Bowl (even with the bad call).
 
I hope I don't offend anyone, but the flat honest "truth" is that no, Brees isn't his 30 year old self anymore. 20 years of throwing balls is going to catch up eventually. That's just how it is, and no one can escape the laws of time. It happens to every athlete, and it's not a flip of the switch (bam you're old now) type of thing. It tends to happen gradually, and gets more and more noticeable towards the end.

Last season he under-threw some balls to wide open receivers, throws that would have been guaranteed touchdowns 5-10 years ago. He also threw quite a few amazing long passes, too. So point being, he's still capable, but maybe we are seeing some slight glimpses of decline in certain areas. But even if that’s the case, that doesn’t mean he’s done. He makes up for any deficiencies with extreme intelligence, preperation, pinpoint accuracy.

Payton seems to be trying to protect Brees, as well, by not having him air it out for 5,000+ yards, and solely relying on him to win us games. We also have a defense, finally. As long as Brees remains accurate on short to medium passes and protects the ball like last season, we are good. Brees may choose to hang it up after the season. Or he may play 3 more years. Who knows. But he is still a top-tier QB, even with some potential age-related decline.
 
I love Drew Brees. I cherish whatever time we are lucky enough to have him as the Saints’ QB.

I’ll tell you what though... I’m watching the Eagles playoff game replay, and Brees had Ted Ginn OPEN for a long TD on the 1st play from scrimmage... but he underthrew him rather badly.. Brees hits that pass, and that entire game changes course.
 


No offense to you at all

But seriously dont we as a fan base get tired of this played out storyline every year??

Drew is Elite

Drew is one of/if not the best QB to ever place up a pair of cleats

Drew is also self aware of his body and knows what he can and cant do.

He has always said that he will play until he feels he isnt helping the team anymore.

So I have to trust his word. If he is out there, then I feel he is going to get the job done. Just like he always has.
 
They've been saying this for the past five years. Lol
 
I don't understand the fascination that people in the media (and several on this forum over the years) have with wanting to be the person to correctly "call" the decline of Drew Brees.

Father Time is undefeated. We get it.
I have a hard time seeing it as anything more than another angle on the constant downplaying or qualifying/caveating/asterisking all of Drew Brees’ amazing accomplishments, with always changing the goal posts to protect the legend of Brady.

Brees is 40. The long ball isn’t the same. Less consistent. Can still get it pretty far, but just not as consistently accurate as he used to. Everybody should have seen that. And late in the year all the talk was around how we lacked experienced receivers who could separate and/or get deep. It was a little of both with lacking the depth at receiver and TE and Drew also wearing down a bit, IMO.

All that said, wearing down or not, the late season Drew was still orders of magnitude better than a, say, Chad Pennington in his prime. A 40 year old Drew Brees is still going to be better than 2/3 of the QBs In the league now and most who’ve ever played but not better than the 30 year old Drew Brees.

To get back to the ever present bias and media on the Brady jock....Brady was looking older last year too and if you followed the talk of the NE fans they were also worried that he was hitting the wall and also started the “our receivers can’t get separation” discussions to explain why Brady wasn’t dominating. Even in the Super Bowl it wasn’t vertical big plays and flash but short and intermediate routes to Edelman that helped win it. Brady isn’t much different than Drew at this point and the same questions are relevant but...let’s talk about Drew.

I’ll re-iterate here that Tom Brady is a great QB who played in perhaps the greatest team situation any QB ever had with quality of coaching, talent management, always having a better than average defense and running game and a team that always had multiple ways to win or game plan. Much of Drew’s career when he was at peak the rest of the team was poor and Drew carried it and he was the only way to win.

To finish with the original question, I’d say Father Time is having an impact but If the whole team pulls its weight and Payton coaches and game plans strategically around it Drew has more than enough to lead the team to challenge in the playoffs again. Really, a lot is on Payton to manage it all and keep Drew fresh for the long haul. Would be great early in the season if we can win with defense and running the ball a bit more.
 
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It’s a myth.
As many have pointed out, the main reasons for the drop off were:
- OL play
- WR play
- Winter
- Defenses catching up
- Possible injury
- Brees isn’t getting any younger, his numbers MUST go down. But that doesn’t mean he’s not an elite QB anymore.

In fact, he was the 2nd best QB overall (at least), and by far the best manager of the offense as a whole. Also note that he had a drop off from a STELLAR level of play - he had the best rating EVER entering the Cowboys I believe.

Deep balls: his completion % dropped a bit, but not that much. He managed to finish 9 points above the 2nd (Fitzpatrick).

Underthrown balls: he’s getting older, so that’s fine. But take into account at least a couple of drops and a couple of bad timings by the WRs.

He had his best game in years in November against the Eagles, with lots of intermediate and deep balls, some in double tight coverage. He completed 9 passes in tight windows (less than 1 yard of separation), a staggering number.
Of course, the OL was playing great, and so was... TreQuan Smith.
Now, you don’t fall from stellar play to just above average in one month all by yourself.

Lastly, look at that forgotten pass to Ginn against the Rams, just a couple of plays before the infamous PI: he perfectly found Ginn in tight coverage, and the ball travelled exactly 50 yards in the air.

So Brees is not what he was 5 years ago from a strenght/athleticism standpoint, obviously; but as of now, he’s clearly capable of being a top-3 QB thanks to his technique, football IQ, and his teammates play.
He will eventually drop, but there’s not a single fact today that points to that.
 
I'm not worried.

Here's footage of the last time Father Time tried to catch Brees.


tenor.gif
 
I love Drew Brees. I cherish whatever time we are lucky enough to have him as the Saints’ QB.

I’ll tell you what though... I’m watching the Eagles playoff game replay, and Brees had Ted Ginn OPEN for a long TD on the 1st play from scrimmage... but he underthrew him rather badly.. Brees hits that pass, and that entire game changes course.

Name an NFL QB that this doesn't happen to multiple times a year.
I've seen Drew do this back in his prime days. It happens.

I'm sure this picture has been posted on SR already, but it fits perfectly for this thread.drewb.jpg
 
He's 40 years old. Of course it's closing in on him. He's still a beast.

PFT's next article..."Is Water Indeed Wet?"
 

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