Tom Brady Doesn't Throw the Ball Downfield, and the Seahawks Defense is Best Against Short Passes

Tom Brady and the Patriots turned in an impressive performance in the AFC Championship game – NO, WE WILL NOT TALK ABOUT DEFLATED FOOTBALLS HERE – hammering the Colts, 45-7. That triumph, combined with Seattle needing a rally-for-the-ages to beat Green Bay, has had a massive impact on the point spread for the Super Bowl. It initially opened at Seattle -2.5, but kept going down Sunday night, and down, and down … and the game is either a pick ’em or the Patriots are favored by 1.

My thought, two weeks ago, was that I liked the Patriots. I didn’t like what I saw from the Seattle defense against Carolina, and those fears were cemented for 55 minutes at home against a mundane Green Bay defense. But then I saw these stats, and began having second thoughts.

Tom Brady’s offense thrives on short passes. Exclusively short passes. No, really – he doesn’t throw the ball downfield. At all. The Hall of Fame lock playing in his 6th Super Bowl has some interesting stats in the passing game in 2014:

He excels in the short passing game (as most of the elite QBs do), and as the 37-year old Brady has to throw downfield, his percentages increasingly plummet. That stat happens with most QBs (Luck’s completion percentages for the first four are 79/65/52/42; Joe Flacco‘s are 72/70/47/40; Drew Brees comes in at 79/74/62/44), but you can see that Brady doesn’t like throwing down the field. When he does, his accuracy is significantly below other star QBs, although we’re dealing with a small sample size.

Of the 20 quarterbacks who started 14 or more games, Brady had the 5th lowest percentage of throws at least 21 yards downfield (Alex Smith, Ryan Tannehill, Drew Brees, and Eli Manning).

Well … guess which defense in the NFL was 4th against short passes (15 yards or less downfield, last chart) according to the Football Outsiders?

Seattle.

And you know who actually had very similar numbers to Tom Brady by distance? Peyton Manning.

In 2013.

Eerily, both QBs were lights out on the short passes and behind the line of scrimmage; in the 11-20 range they were nearly identical in pass attempts, yardage and completion percentage. We know how the Super Bowl went for Manning. It obviously should be noted the Seattle defense isn’t nearly as overpowering as it was last year. It couldn’t get a hand on Aaron Rodgers in the NFC Title game. Last year, Seattle was tied for 8th in sacks (44) and this year they were 31st (37 sacks).

Going up against a fast Seattle defense that tackles well and has the corners to take away the short passes, this is something that could be cause for concern if you’re a Patriots fan.

Hey, you know who was really strong in the 21-30 yard range this year?

Tony Romo. His Cowboys beat the Seahawks, 30-20 earlier this season.