FOXBOROUGH — A headstone in a gridiron graveyard...
It's taken up residence in a freshly dug plot right alongside:
- Tony Dungy's Tampa 2
- Dick LeBeau's zone blitz
- Keith Butler's zone coverage
- Romeo Crennel's 3-4
Tom Brady has been a certified serial killer when it comes to trendy NFL pass defenses that work great in the regular season against less-advanced quarterbacks. But when the money is on the line or in the postseason, Brady annihilates them.
Brady and offensive coordinator/partner in (this) crime(wave) Josh McDaniels were just one of the many reasons why the Patriots overwhelmed the Chargers 35-7 in the first half on Sunday, and then cruised to a 41-28 victory in an AFC divisional playoff game. But they might have been the biggest.
Brady slayed the Cover 3 made famous by Pete Carroll in Seattle with the Legion of Boom, a defense that has now spread to Atlanta, Jacksonville and San Francisco.
If any NFL coaches were watching this game, they might very well have second thoughts about allowing it to spread any further.
Brady was 34 of 44 for 343 yards and one touchdown for a rating of 106.5 against the Chargers. He hardly looked like he broke a sweat. Only two of his passes were touched by a defender, and one was at the line of scrimmage. Not many of his passes were even contested.
This is decidedly not abnormal for Brady against this scheme. Just look at his record (7-1) and stats against it since the Seattle Super Bowl.
[table id=227 /]
What's the secret? And why is Brady such a lethal weapon against it? Two things stand out: One, his nature as a quarterback. And, two, Brady and McDaniels have the answers to the test before it starts.
The scheme itself, if you have the right personnel, is sound and simple to repeat. Coaches believe it allows the players to play faster. It's a 4-3 base, with some 3-4 tendencies. If you have the right personnel, it's a very good run defense. The strong safety plays in the box, giving the defense seven or eight defenders near the line of scrimmage. The scheme works when they stop the run, put the offense in long yardage, give up only underneath passes, and then rally with speed and strong tackling skills to the ball.
That's all great in theory. But to execute against the best quarterbacks (not Lamar Jackson), you have to have terrific personnel. Namely, great interior run defenders, great edge pass rushers, fast and physical linebackers who can stuff the run and defend the pass, a ball-hawking free safety, a physical strong safety, and 2-3 cornerbacks who can be physical against contested deep passes in their three-deep coverage.
Think the Legion of Boom ... right up until Brady's historic, 14-point fourth quarter against them in Super Bowl XLIX. It was great when everyone was young and on rookie contracts. Once the players, rightfully, had to start getting paid, it all crumbled.
The Falcons almost captured the same magic at 28-3 ... and you know what happened there.
The Chargers just never had the personnel to really make it sing against the likes of Brady. There might be some new, shiny and talented toys at the quarterback position, but dinosaurs like Brady and Drew Brees are still the best option when it comes to picking apart zone defenses.
That's where Brady's nature comes in. The Cover 3 rewards those who are patient and exacting. Brady, like any quarterback, might have issues against tight man coverage, but Brady's ability to be patient with the Patriots' passing offense that features adjustments to coverage after the snap, and you have a lethal combination. If you're not an impatient deep-ball thrower, then you're going to have options against this scheme.
That's right in Brady's wheelhouse. Just look at his spraychart against the Chargers:
Of Brady's 44 pass attempts, 36 went 10 yards or under (81.8 percent). Of his 343 yards, 229 yards came from throws that went 10 yards or under (66.8 percent).
"They're a good defense, and I think they do a lot of things well. And I thought we just did a good job executing," Brady said. "Again, blocking great and running the ball well and guys made some great catches, converted early on third downs. It was really important. It was good to get ahead of that team. They have a lot of good skill players, a very good offense. They battle to the end. They're a great football team. It's good to win."
The other reason why the Patriots were so effective (again) against this scheme was a combination of Chargers defensive coordinator Gus Bradley not changing anything up (possibly due to personnel limitations), and McDaniels and Brady knowing how to beat it.
As we've learned over the years, there's only one way to keep Brady in check if he's feeling good and has weapons: stop the run, throw different coverage and pressure looks at him, play a lot of man coverage, and selectively double some of his top targets.
Bradley didn't do anything of those things. The Patriots spent the better part of a week listening to how brilliant Bradley was for using seven defensive backs and no linebackers in their wild-card victory over the Ravens. When I brought that up to him in the post-game press conference, Belichick was ready to toss aside the platitudes for Bradley.
"They've been doing it all year. They did it against us last year," Belichick said.
The reality is, the Chargers don't have the personnel to play with more than one linebacker on the field — and their best one, Jatavis Brown, was lost in the final game of the regular season. His available replacements, Kyle Emanuel and Hayes Pullard, are scrapheap-type players. (See: Chargers are a disaster at linebacker – can Patriots ride that to victory?) So the Chargers decided to try and defend the Patriots' running game with zero or one linebacker. Good luck. The Patriots had nine rushes for 43 yards — and there were some additional short passes that were basically runs to James White — in the first quarter alone. Basically, the Chargers couldn't stop the run, which opened up even more for Brady.
Add in the fact that because the scheme has been around and they have a long history with it, Brady and McDaniels know exactly how the defense will react if they put a player in motion to this side, or overload to another side, or run short motion. Bradley didn't try anything new in this game — and his players played worse this time around — and the result was an easy time for Brady. The amazing thing is Bradley thought, obviously, that was a good plan.
"Yeah, play-action, running the ball," said safety Derwin James. "Like I said, when you’re not stopping the run, that’s when the play-action usually gets open. I don’t think we did a good job in the first half of stopping the run, so that’s what kind of got the linebackers up a little bit, and Brady is just putting it in there every time."
A comfortable Brady with good throwing lanes is not a sitting duck for pass rushers like Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram, who wreaked havoc in a close Patriots victory last season.
"I don't know," said Bosa, when I asked him what was different from last season's matchup. "Brady did a really good job getting rid of the ball. Every single time I won, which I won some pass rushes here and there — the ball was gone. We made a joke, we were talking — he was patting me on the back. I said, 'Stop getting rid of the ball so fast.' He said, 'Stop getting to me so fast and then I won't have to get rid of it.' Their o-line, they did a good job. I wasn't getting much in the first half but every time you win a rush and you look up and the ball is gone, it's a little demoralizing."
Combine a zone scheme that doesn't throw anything new at Brady, can't stop the run due to personnel issues, and an unhurried quarterback, and you have a recipe for what coach Anthony Lynn described as, "We got our butt’s kicked today."
"Their whole offense just executed, from the o-line to the receivers to the running backs to the quarterback," said safety Adrian Phillips. "Their offense executed more than out defense did. It really just didn’t happen due to one phase. It wasn’t just because of running the ball, Almost 500 yards of total offense. That’s on the whole defense. We laid an egg today. We didn’t show up how we usually do.”
“We’ll be back. We’ll see them again.
If Brady is still at quarterback for the Patriots, and Bradley's still running that defense, the Chargers may not want that.