An Opening With Brees?

Drew Brees epitomizes the heady, game-managing quarterback style.  This season, he carried a young Saints team to a 10-6 record and the playoffs, and even finished (a distant) second in the league MVP race.  He doesn't have overwhelming physical gifts, but he makes good reads, he stays away from killer mistakes and he knows how to win ballgames. 

So why isn't he very good in the red zone?

I'm a fan of Brees.  I like the way he plays the game and I respect how well he's bounced back this year after he was unceremoniously shown the door by the Chargers in the off-season.  But as I was reviewing his performances this season, I noticed something about his situational numbers.  Namely, for some reason he hasn't been very good in the red zone this year:   

• For the season, he's completing 64.3 percent of his passes and has a 96.2 passer rating.  He's thrown for 26 touchdowns and has thrown just about one interception for every 50 pass attempts. 
• In the red zone, he's completing only 44.6 percent of his passes with a 76.5 passer rating.  He has 10 touchdowns, but also two interceptions in only 56 attempts. 

In fact, Brees has the worst red-zone numbers of any starting quarterback still in the playoffs (yes, even Rex Grossman):

	Att	Comp	Pct	TD	Int	Sac	Rate	INT%
Garcia	22	15	68.2%	7	0	0	115.2	0.0%
Rivers	45	29	64.4%	12	0	2	113.4	0.0%
Brady	74	41	55.4%	18	0	2	103.9	0.0%
Grossman	50	29	58.0%	12	1	3	97.7	2.0%
Manning	81	46	56.8%	24	2	1	95.2	2.5%
Hasselbeck	40	15	37.5%	11	0	2	85.4	0.0%
McNair	58	29	50.0%	9	2	2	81.5	3.4%
Brees	56	25	44.6%	10	2	2	76.5	3.6%

Obviously, these are all pretty small sample sizes (especially for -- ahem -- the league's "best" red-zone QB, Jeff Garcia), but they are interesting on a few levels.  For example, Rivers has great numbers down by the end zone, but his coaches sure don't call many pass plays down there.  Peyton Manning, not surprisingly, is much more prone to chucking it around when he's in close.

But the facts do suggest that Brees hasn't been great down in the scoring zone this year.  So the next question is if that's a career pattern for him, or something new.  That leads us to this table:

	Att	Comp	Pct	TD	Int	INT%
Red Zone	275	152	55.3%	61	12	4.36%
NOT Red Zone	2061	1314	63.8%	44	52	2.52%

(I left out passer rating because, while it's lower in the red zone, it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, since quarterbacks will throw far more touchdown passes when they're close to the end zone, but will also have a corresponding drop in their yards-per-attempt figure as well.)   

This table shows that Brees' "struggles" in the red zone are not a new thing for him.  He throws a lot more interceptions down there (per attempt) and his completion percentage goes down significantly.  Of course, I couldn't leave it at that, so here are his year-by-year numbers:

	Att	Comp	Pct	TD	Int	INT%	Rate
2002	63	38	60.3%	13	3	4.76%	85.5
2003	47	19	40.4%	4	3	6.38%	50.0
2004	60	40	66.7%	20	1	1.67%	114.7
2005	49	30	61.2%	14	3	6.12%	88.9
2006	56	25	44.6%	10	2	3.57%	76.5

So what was different about 2004?  That was the year Antonio Gates first burst on the scene in San Diego.  Of those 20 red-zone touchdown passes, a full 12 went to Gates, before the rest of the league's defensive coordinators caught up with the former basketball player.  (In 2005, half of Brees' red-zone TDs went to Gates.)

This year, it's no surprise who Brees' favorite red-zone target is.  Rookie Marques Colston -- who goes 6-4, 231 pounds -- has four red-zone TDs.  Fullback Mike Karney has two, both against Dallas.  No one else has more than one.   

Given his size, my guess is the Eagles are going to treat Colston more like a Shockey-type tight end if the Saints are down near the end zone.  That would mean matching him up with Dawkins or Lewis, rather than one of our smaller cornerbacks. 

Finally, the NFL's situational stats only go back to 2002, but here's one last table:

	Att	Comp	Pct	TD	Int	INT%
Brees	275	152	55.3%	61	12	4.36%
Garcia	187	102	54.5%	40	4	2.14%
McNabb	239	141	59.0%	62	3	1.26%

Looky-looky who the best red-zone QB happens to be...

Comments

[meanguy]

nice work!

meanwhile, i just watched sal paolantonio say on comcast sports net that jeff garcia is a better QB than mcnabb because garcia won't kill you with mistakes/interceptions like mcnabb.

you know, the mcnabb that holds the second lowest interception rate of any QB ever.

[whoismariowilliams]

Nice research. I thought I remembered Brees as a poor playoff QB because of the Chargers' struggles when he was there. But then I looked it up and he's only played one playoff game. His rating was around 114, I think. Nice to see you found a chink in the armor. Although, lack of experience could also be a factor.