Drew Brees finally showed us a glimpse of his old self in Week 4’s Sunday night game against the injury-ravaged Dallas Cowboys. But even despite the 359 passing yards for 2 TDs (24.5 DraftKings fantasy points), it still just didn’t seem like vintage Brees, ya know?
So what’s going on with him this year? Is it age? Or maybe he’s feeling the loss of safety blanket Jimmy Graham? Or perhaps he just hasn’t quite yet developed the rapport with WR Brandin Cooks that we were all expecting? Let’s take a look at the data and see what we can find.
According to nflsavant.com, Brees just isn’t throwing the ball down the field very often this year.
Also, this chart is illuminative as well.
He’s only taken eight shots downfield on first down this year and very little overall. Interestingly, in the small sample of deep balls, he’s really gone towards the right side in the early downs, but primarily to the left on 3rd down. What gets even more interesting is that while 2/5 deep throws on third down have gone to Brandin Cooks, in general, Brees hasn’t really looked to him on 3rd downs this year.
The majority of his targets have come on short passes to the left or right on first down. That’s probably a smart strategy – try to get the elusive Cooks in space and let him try to make guys miss. However, they just haven’t been relying on him in the later downs, which is problematic because he was supposed to fill that role when Jimmy Graham left town for Seattle.
Interestingly, they’ve been relying on guys like Marques Colston and Mark Ingram in dump-off situations in second and third down.
Now, none of this is a problem innately – we’ve seen prolific offenses rely on short passes before, and even Tom Brady has torched teams lately by getting the ball out in a snap. However, it’s really hard to keep an offense rolling when there’s really no downfield threat. And the issue is that Brees just hasn’t been consistent in his throws downfield. So far this year, Brees has only thrown downfield 29 times and has a completion percentage of just 37.9% on those throws.
I’m not sure what the answer is for Brees, or really any of some of the older QBs – Peyton is having similar problems this year. Maybe it’s just an arm strength thing and Brees just can’t be accurate down the field anymore? Or maybe defenses are just too keyed in to Cooks and there’s no other downfield threat? Either way, the Saints offense has been somewhat of a disappointment.
However, Sunday night was a good start. Is it a sign of more to come? If so, the Saints have a great opportunity in Week 5 against the fast-paced Philadelphia Eagles, who haven’t exactly been dominating with their pass defense. NFL DFS has had a shortage of stud QBs this year, and with Andrew Luck battling injuries and Peyton battling father time, Brees is one of the most interesting QBs of the year from now on. Will he get back to his form of old or are we looking at the year of low-salary QB plays?
