FO says the before and after splits for the Pats are stunning. Not to me.
Brady’s completion percentage, yards per attempt and touchdowns are all way down. (Interceptions are holding steady — Tom Brady is still Tom Brady, after all.) That has led to a 25-point drop in passer rating, but the picture is even bleaker than that — passer rating doesn’t account for sacks, and those are up since Moss left too. Football Outsiders’ DVOA numbers (which do include sacks) give a more accurate picture. After Week 4, the Patriots ranked at the top of the league in our passing offense numbers. But then Moss got traded, and for the five-week period since the trade, the Patriots are 14th, almost literally a middle-of-the-road team.
If Brady’s overall numbers are down despite the rise in his deep numbers, then he must obviously be doing worse on short routes. This is indeed true — pre-trade, he completed 75.5 percent of his short passes for 7.6 yards per attempt, compared to 60.3 percent and 5.6 yards per pass after the deal. New England uses a bevy of short-route receivers, and all of them have suffered without Moss. Witness what has happened to the tight end trio of Aaron Hernandez, Rob Gronkowski and Alge Crumpler:
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