It’s hard to determine how to divy up the blame pie for Tom Brady’s massive decline this year. Is his lack of accuracy related to the fact that he doesn’t trust his new receivers? Is it related to age? An injury to his hand? How much do we blame the new receivers and how much do we blame Brady himself? What we do know is that Brady’s year-to-year decline is one of the biggest for any quarterback in history.
For now, let’s just look at quarterbacks since 1989 using DVOA ratings. After Week 8, Brady’s DVOA rating stands at -16.6%. That’s actually lower than replacement level, which is astonishing for a player who has led the league in passing DVOA three times and passing DYAR four times. As of right now, Brady’s drop of over 50 percentage points in DVOA trails only Brett Favre’s final season in Minnesota as the biggest year-to-year drop in DVOA for a quarterback with at least 300 passes in two straight seasons.
FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Week 8 DVOA Ratings
Sorry if this made you throw up in your mouth a little. Here’s the thing, I’m still not really that worried about Brady. Look at what he’s had to work with in the first half. His protection has been spotty at bad times. His best receiving back played one game (and dominated). He essentially had NO tight end. The best free agent has missed five games.
Essentially Brady has had to get by without much help from anyone. But things have already started to change. Gronk and Amendola are back and getting up to speed. The protection will be better as it always is. Vereen should be back after the bye.
Let’s just say it wouldn’t be crazy to see a huge turnaround in Brady’s stats this year and a lot of these “Has Brady Lost It” articles will look pretty silly.