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Any Given Sunday: 49ers over Saints
FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Any Given Sunday: 49ers over Saints

by Andrew Healy

The interceptions have piled up in recent years for a quarterback that most of us (myself included) would put in the class just below Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers. Here's the unfair stat question of the day: How many quarterbacks have thrown more interceptions in the last five years than Drew Brees? While you think about that one, consider the pass that Brees threw at the end of the first half against the 49ers.


While both throws were picked off by lurking zone defenders, the throw from Sunday's game is more representative of the defenses that have led to Brees's interceptions by leaving more men in coverage. No quarterback in football with at least 2,000 attempts since 2010 has faced fewer average pass rushers on his interceptions than Brees, according to ESPN Stats & Information data. On his 77 interceptions, Brees has faced an average of just 4.00 pass rushers. He has been blitzed on just 13 (17 percent) of those interceptions. Rather than blitzing, the better way to get Brees to throw picks has been to sit back.



On his non-interceptions, Brees has faced an average of 4.25 pass rushers. The difference between those two is smaller for Brees than any other quarterback. That negative number indicates that teams hoping to get an interception out of Brees should tend to keep more defenders back in coverage.

When teams do that, Brees has thrown quite a few picks. Only one player (Eli Manning) has thrown more interceptions than Brees' 77 since the start of the 2010 season. I said that was an unfair question before and it is, since Brees has thrown more than 250 more passes than any other quarterback during that time. Still, even his interception rate is roughly league average. For a quarterback who has the highest completion percentage in the league since 2010 and ranks fourth in adjusted net yards per attempt, Brees has thrown a striking number of picks.

Brees ranks just ninth out of the 13 quarterbacks on the list in interception rate, behind Joe Flacco, Matthew Stafford, and Tony Romo. Brees has thrown more interceptions than Brady and Rodgers combined on almost 1,800 fewer attempts. Brees is still great even despite the picks -- he has been in the top five quarterbacks by DVOA in five of the last six seasons, anyway -- but his propensity to make unnecessary throws into traffic is the flaw keeping him below the Rodgers/Manning class.