The Dude

Looks like he’s 45. Offensive line doesn’t even want to block for him anymore. The locker room is going to crumble from the top down. I see us losing out in our division and missing the playoffs. Need to use this time to see what Teddy or Hill can do when Payton opens the play book.

brees84

lol

CHA_CHING

The whole team looked really off today.

This was the Falcons SB and they showed up for it.

ChrisXVI

Most of that was absurd, but the decline of Brees is painfully obvious.

CHA_CHING

It's been obvious since the Cowboys loss of last year.


As I posted this earlier, will post it again.



Brees is having a very similar decline to the one Peyton Manning had at the end of 2014.

Back in 2014, Manning and the Broncos started out on fire. He led the league in passing yards and TDs and was right there in the MVP conversation. Then in week 12, Denver went to St Louis and were held to 7 points and something was off. They never looked the same again. Aaron Rodgers ran away with the MVP, but Manning's end of the year stats were great enough that he nearly had 5,000 yards and on paper, it looks like a truly monster season until you split it like this.

When Manning declined was when Denver transitioned from an offensive juggernaut (remember, they broke all those records in 2013) to suddenly, relying on their defense to do the heavy lifting, get turnovers and hold down the fort. They limped into the playoffs and lost the divisional round to the Colts in a game where their defense truly played lights out and was doing everything to try and bail out a struggling offense. They ultimately lost cause the offense couldn't convert drives into points when they got down the field.

Sound familiar? That was our story last year. The defense kept us alive in every game after Thanksgiving. They pretty much moved heaven and earth for us to beat the Steelers around Christmas. Remember when the offense needed a PI call on Joe Haden to finally get that TD and win it? The defense got 4th down stops, turnovers and ultimately sealed the game.

In the playoffs, we almost went out like that Denver team - offense put up stats after struggling but couldn't stop shooting themselves in the foot with penalties and screw ups to really put an end to that game. Defense held Philly to less than 90 yards and in the end, got a lucky turnover and prevented us from going one and done.

Against the Rams, everyone focused on the non-call and forgot that we really did not play a good game. Of the 4 teams in the conference title games, we had the worst offensive numbers. Brees also did not play good that day. The long bomb to Ginn was almost intercepted. The infamous non-call play, WOULD'VE been an interception if the corner had been watching the ball instead of trying to murder Tommy Lee Lewis like a moron. That would've been an INT and possibly pick six with all that room to run. The defense tried really hard, but we let the Rams linger around long enough to steal it.

Five Thirty Eight's writers have been saying this for many months now, that Brees has declined. That is the only reason they put Matt Ryan ahead of him in their NFC South quarterback rating. Neil Paine in group chat articles on there brought up how Brees could come back and still declining after his injury, and I think he had a point.

CheramieIII

Come on guys it was one game. Drew didn't do too bad last game. I would agree he's on the downside and they need to be prepared to start another QB next year.

Rell&Gold

Goodness just last week he's praised now he's obviously done....Lls

Danno

I've seen this exact post 2 or 3 times per season for the last 5 years.

subguy

Oh my...a bad day at the office. Move along, nothing to see here

subguy

And generally by The Dude who isn't exactly a ray of sunshine