How To Beat The New England Patriots

PatsFanTX · July 16, 2005

http://msn.foxsports.com/fantasy/story/3763778

Quote:

Originally Posted by article

One of the articles from Scientific Football 2005 that I have received the most feedback on is the Patriots offensive overview.

A good portion of the feedback has come from people who say the article explains why the Patriots receivers aren't good fantasy players, so I thought I would run the article here and expound a bit on it:

"One of the reasons the Patriots offense is so damn good is that they have a clear idea of what it is they are trying to do not only with each player, but also with each unit. As I've pointed out many times in this book, there are many teams who have schemes that they try to force onto players who simply don't have the proper skill set to run it. The Patriots don't have to do this on offense in large part because of Tom Brady.

"Everyone likes to talk about Brady's leadership, his grace under pressure or his 'big-game ability.' That's all fine and dandy, but you know that I don't deal in that kind of mumbo-jumbo when it comes to player analysis.

"There are four specific skills that Tom Brady has that separate him from the rest of the league. He has no fear in the pocket, he finds the open receiver, he's accurate with the pass and he doesn't make bad decisions. I can't tell you how few NFL quarterbacks have all four of these skills, and no NFL quarterback has all four in the abundance Tom Brady does. The benefits these traits offer are sometimes so subtle that they require additional emphasis.

"I've broken down nearly every New England game from the past two seasons, and I have yet to find a time when Brady felt the pass rush. What I mean by this is that Brady always maintains his downfield vision, even when the pocket is collapsing. He also has the same ability Joe Montana had in making the first pass rusher miss.

"He has an instinctive feel for where the pocket is. He can also adjust to the pocket's movement without having to take his eyes off of looking downfield, and he seems to almost always move with the pocket at just the right time. This is something so many quarterbacks are taught but so few can do well, and Brady is simply the best at it.

"Brady also finds the open receiver. That sounds simple enough, but Brady's pocket presence actually makes this trait even more valuable. Because Brady is so good at buying time in the pocket, and because he has such an intense focus on how the play is developing, he is able to look at third and fourth receivers more often than any other quarterback.

"One of the ingenious things the Patriots coaches do to take advantage of this is to allow all of their receivers to run routes at all depths. Take a look at the Pats receivers and look at their pass depth distribution.

"Every single one of their receivers was used frequently on every depth level. It isn't that their receivers are so great at running routes, although they aren't bad. It's simply that the Patriots realize Brady will find the third and fourth receivers, and they don't want to limit what those receivers can do. It's not only that Brady does a great job of seeing the field. It's also that the Pats coaches have found a way to maximize the value of that skill set.

"Even though his bad decision percentages were high, Brady doesn't typically make poor decisions. He made 12 poor decisions in 19 games, but three of them came in the Monday night game at Miami. Those three plays also accounted for 11 out of the 24 weighted poor-decision points Brady had all year, so if you subtract that one poor game, you have nine poor decisions and 12 poor-decision points in 18 games. Now that's damn good.

"New England also has a very clear idea of what role they want their passing game to serve in their overall offensive philosophy. When the Patriots pass, they want to do one of two things. They either want to use the passing game to augment their running game, or they want to get vertical. The best way to illustrate this is by their percentage of short, medium and deep passes.

"The Patriots had the lowest percentage of short passes in the entire league, (so much for the dink-n-dunk name calling) and there's a clear reason for this. Their short passing game is simply a tool to accomplish three things: 1) To keep defenses from putting eight defenders in the box; 2) To make sure the defense backs don't stay too far off the line to cheat for the deeper passes; and 3) As a checkoff in the event the deep pass isn't open. The Pats also run a very safe short passing game. Brady only had one poor decision on a short pass all year, and that was in the Miami Monday night game.

"The Patriots also ranked second in medium pass percentage and fourth in deep pass percentage. I haven't looked at the combined percentages for these metrics for the entire league, but I'd have to think that this probably makes them either No. 1 or a close No. 2.

"The disparity of short and vertical passes clearly illustrates the Patriots passing game philosophy. When the Pats pass short, they are going to be certain they don't make mistakes on it. They are more willing to make mistakes on vertical passes.

"What I mean by this is that the Patriots seem to have a risk/reward ratio in mind when they pass the ball. They won't take any chances on short passes because the risk far outweighs the reward. They are much more willing to take chances on deeper passes because the reward is higher. Again, they have a very clear idea of what their passing philosophy is. You'd be amazed how many teams don't have this philosophical clarity.

"The clarity of pass depth use provides the answer as to how to stop them, and it was Brady himself who pointed this out to John Madden and Al Michaels before the Miami Monday night game. Brady said he always struggles against Miami because it does two things. They play tight man coverage with their cornerbacks, and they keep their safeties deep. Or to put it another way, they do some of the same things to New England's offense that New England's defense does to other teams. Their deep safeties take away the vertical passes and their tight man coverage takes away the shorter passes. The Pats ended up having to target the Miami linebackers, as the Dolphins coverage scheme put the linebackers in man coverage situations, but it still slowed New England's offense down tremendously.

"The Patriots coaches get a lot of credit for their ingenious playcalling and scheme management, but on offense Tom Brady should get just as much credit. The synergy of Brady's skills and the Patriots skill maximization philosophy has simply made each of them better than they should be. It truly is the subtlety of genius."

The fantasy implications from this are quite clear, with one caveat. The Patriots have shown that they won't direct their offense through one receiver, which makes any of their fantasy receivers risks, but there may be one exception to this in 2005: Deion Branch. Branch had the best completion percentage of any receiver last year and had exceptional performance metric stats at every pass depth level (If only he could stay healthy), so he may allow the Patriots coaches to bend their egalitarian passing rules.

KC Joyner, The Football Scientist, uses unique matchup-analysis scouting systems to provide him with in-depth player vs. player performance information. He can be reached at kc@thefootballscientist.com.

PatsFanTX · July 16, 2005