blackangold

Brees has had a great stretch of years since MT came on the scene. I still will argue he is bad at throwing the long ball, particularly as the season goes on. Within 20 yds Brees is still the best in the league right now. Outside of 20 yds he is worse than average.

I think now we finally have the WRs that suit his style. Guys like Cooks and Ginn never helped Drew, they are long ball guys that need to run underneath passes. Thomas is a physical possession guy and Sanders is the same. Assuming his arm can hold up through the season it should be extremely productive.

The Saints are 0-42 when running the ball less than 15 times in a game.

AsylumGuido

FYI

The following shows that Drew Brees is still among the very best in the league at the long ball.

Who were the best quarterbacks throwing long passes in 2019?

The Precision Passers

Which quarterbacks are most accurate with their deep throws? The table below shows the players with the highest Catchable Percentage on passes that travel at least 20 yards down the field (minimum 30 attempts). This stat looks at the passes that should be caught by the receiver based on where the pass is placed. Keep track of the players on this list, and compare this list to the “gunslinger” table that follows.

Quarterback Catchable %
Jimmy Garoppolo 72%
Matt Ryan 67%
Gardner Minshew 60%
Drew Brees 60%
Daniel Jones 60%
Kirk Cousins 59%
Carson Wentz/Baker Mayfield 58%

This list shows how dominant Jimmy Garoppolo has been when throwing the deep ball, throwing an accurate pass 72% of the time. Compare that to Jameis Winston’s 54%, and you can see why Winston was prone to interceptions.

In terms of who is completing deep passes most often, Garoppolo leads the league with a 59% completion percentage (19-of-32). He’s followed by Gardner Minshew (22-of-45, 49%), Patrick Mahomes (29-of-62, 47%), Drew Brees (14-of-30, 47%) and Dak Prescott (33-of-74, 45%).

The Touchdown Machines

Touchdown percentage looks at the percentage of deep throws that result in a touchdown. The following list can help determine where negative regression is possible, as a high touchdown percentage is often unsustainable. Here is the table (minimum 30 attempts):

Quarterback TD%
Jimmy Garoppolo 22%
Patrick Mahomes 19%
Daniel Jones 17%
Kirk Cousins 14%
Drew Brees 13%
Lamar Jackson 13%
Dak Prescott 12%
Tom Brady 12%

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill