Much has been said about Tom Brady’s ability to save the Bucs on Monday Night when he led two heroic late game drives to help vault the Bucs to a victory. Prior to the final two drives of the game, the offense could not get anything going. They had a long field goal drive to open the game and then went dark for the next eight drives spanning about three full quarters. And most, I included, thought part of the problem for this game was the quarterback. Even the most respected of Brady evaluators thought he had a poor showing at home against the Saints. Imagine our surprise when we watched the tape back and saw the entirety of what was going on with full all-22 context.

Brady played much better than I initially thought, and it wasn’t just the last two drives.

The Saints pressured him more times than any team all year. And they hardly blitzed.

He managed a few big time throws and turned plenty of would-be negative plays into slight positives.

— Paul Atwal (@AtwalNFL) December 7, 2022

But what many may not realize is that Brady was saving the offense for the 55 minutes previous to those two drives. It wasn’t obvious as the game played out. For many, as they watched the game live, it seemed like Brady had been reduced to a “checkdown Charlie.” Brady was dinking and dunking with short passes everywhere. Of Brady’s 54 pass attempts, 28% (15 targets) went to running backs Rachaad White and Leonard Fournette.

Another 46% (25 targets) went to underneath options Chris Godwin, Cade Otton, and Ko Kieft. These 40 pass attempts resulted in 27 receptions that only netted 176 yards (4.4 yards per attempt). This led to Brady’s fourth-lowest average depth of target of the season.

What led to this short-yardage strategy? Was it by design? Was Brady passing up deeper options for lower-risk outlets? Was he gun-shy? The truth is much simpler than that, and also seemingly much more difficult for Bucs fans to accept.

Brady Saved His Pass Protection

The Bucs offensive line allowed only one sack while helping their running backs gain over four yards per carry, so they must have been playing at a pretty high-level right? No not at all. Brady was pressured 16 times on the evening. This is by far the most he has been pressured in any game this season and fourth-most dating back to 2020 when he joined the Bucs. When you consider that Brady’s time to throw is a league-leading 2.29 seconds this year, the fact that the Saints were able to generate this much pressure shows how Brady had to make quick decisions for shorter-developing routes or checkdowns in order to prevent himself from getting sacked at a very high rate.

Looking through the tape, you can see this happening time and time again. Like on this check down to Fournette on second-and-5 deep in Saints territory on the first drive of the game.

The Saints bring a backside blitz that H-back Ko Kieft is tasked with picking up. Kieft ID’s the blitzer, but is unable to get a good block in. This leaves Brady dead to rights for a surefire sack. And Brady is left with little time to try and move in the pocket to avoid the rusher due to the play-action element that began the play.

At the moment that he turns and sees the imminent danger he is in, the only receiving option who has his head turned to make a catch is Fournette as the check down option. All three of the other routes being run are longer-developing ones that had yet to make their final breaks. This easily could have been a sack that put the Bucs in 3rd and long instead of the four-yard pickup and third-and-1 it turned out to be.

Bucs Offense – Like All Offenses – Calls For QB To Throw To Open Men As They Come Up In Read Progression

One of the more frustrating things for Bucs fans is if to see a replay and notice a receiver open and not have the ball thrown to them. I get it. But playing quarterback in real life is very different than doing it on a video game or watching a game at home. Television and video game camera angles give the viewer/player the benefit of seeing the whole field at the same time.

While Bucs quarterback Tom Brady has shown himself to be a superhuman throughout his career he still has not mastered the art of being able to see every receiver all at once. Brady has to go through read progressions based on the play called and the defensive coverage. And as he goes through those progressions, as soon as he identifies an open receiver, he is supposed to pull the trigger on getting the ball to him.

He can’t know whether the next receiver in the progression is open or not, and therefore he can’t pass up an opportunity for a positive play in the hopes he can get a better one. The game moves too fast for him to be able to count on the initial open read to still be open and him to have enough time to come back to it. Here is an example of that from the Bucs’ second drive.

This is a classic example of Tampa Bay’s 9-8-9 concept. Godwin motions from one to two on the field side of the formation and works to the middle of the field. Brady sees Julio Jones lined up against press coverage to the boundary and Mike Evans facing softer coverage to his right. Pre-snap this means he is going to read away from Evans. Evans’ route will work right into the teeth of the coverage he is facing which is guarding against a deep route.

Knowing this Brady will check Jones’ deep nine to see if he can beat the jam off the line. If he can Brady would try and hit him for an explosive. Jones isn’t able to create any separation, so Brady then looks to the middle of the field for Godwin.  But the Saints know the Bucs well and are deploying multiple resources to take away Godwin and the middle. They have the box safety trailing him over the top with inside leverage from the dropping linebacker. So that’s a no-go. That leaves Brady moving to his next option, which happens to be Fournette once again as the check down moving to the field-side flat. Lenny is open so that’s the smart play that Brady makes for a sensible gain.

Evans winds up getting open deep on a double move, but there is no way that Brady could have counted on that pre-snap. And based on his pre-snap read Evans gets removed from the play from Brady’s standpoint. Or at least gets pushed down so far that he isn’t going to look to Evans unless everything else is covered up. And if Brady bypasses Fournette and Evans isn’t open? By the time he would come back to Fournette, Demario Davis would have closed him off, leaving Brady with nowhere to go.

Brady Took Shots When He Could – But They Didn’t Connect

When he had the time and protection, and when the read progression and defense allowed for it, Brady still took shots. Unfortunately, his connection with his deep threats continued to be off. Like on this attempt to go deep to Scotty Miller.

Miller wins off the line and gets a step on cornerback Alontae Taylor. The Saints are running Cover 2 man with the safeties in charge of not letting anything get behind them. Safety Tyrann Matheiu initially turns his hips to the field side, which allows Brady to feel good going for Miller as Matheiu won’t be able to get back over in time. The only problem is that Brady delays pulling the trigger for just a split second, double clutching the throw. That extra beat caused the throw to be slightly underthrown and Taylor to come back into the play.

And two plays later he went for broke again on third-and-8.

The Saints initially show a two-high look, but quickly move into cover-1 after the snap. Evans is lined up in a tight split to the boundary. Based on the pre-snap look again Brady has to account for the safety over top of Evans as a potential barrier to that being a successful way to go. So, he decides to read to the field first (the Godwin, Brate, Jones side). With Godwin attacking the middle and holding the deep safety, Brady sees he has Jones winning his one-on-one to the outside and uncorks a deep ball to him. They just miss. Julio got open and Brady just barely overthrew him. In a third and eight situation this is an all or nothing play.

These deep shots are something that have been more difficult for the Bucs offense to connect on this year versus years past. And it may be part of the reason offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich feels the offense is close to clicking. When asked if he could change one thing on offense, part of Leftwich’s answer included a common refrain from him this season. “… I think we’re closer than what people think.”

While the offense didn’t score enough points throughout most of the game on Monday in a nail-biting win, it wasn’t because of the play of the quarterback. The last two-drives played out much like the rest of the game, except in a much faster and condensed way.

In the final two touchdown drives Brady was 13-of-18 for 109 yards. That’s a 6.1 yards per attempt average. Brady was taking short throw after short throw due to the Saints pass rush, and the defense that he was presented with. When he had a deep opportunity, he went for it (the 44-yard defensive pass interference call on the deep post ran by Evans on the first drive and the 15-yard fade to Jones on the final one).

No, Brady was playing at a high-level for the majority of the night. It just all came together at the end. And I’m sure the Bucs are happy it did.