Dan Pompei

The greatness of Tom Brady is taken for granted, kind of like the love of a mother. Of course he’s great. What else could he be?

It’s almost easy to gloss over what has been either the best season by a quarterback in NFL history, or the second-best season by a quarterback in NFL history (to Peyton Manning’s 2004 year).

Brady has been great for so long. There isn’t anything he has done different this year. No part of his game has changed dramatically. There isn’t any specific improvement we can put a finger on and say — look at how he is better.

Earlier in the season, when I asked Patriots coach Bill Belichick what Brady was doing better this year, he said, “Not much. He’s won a lot of games in the past and made a lot of good plays. We threw the ball pretty well the second half of last year. People are talking like we never completed a pass around here. Tom always works hard to improve. But he was pretty good. He makes good decisions. Throws the ball accurately. He throws it to the open guy. He manages the clock. Manages the team. Handles the protections. He’s pretty good, and he’s been pretty good.”

But something is definitely different. Brady’s passer rating of 117.2 was 28.8 points higher than his previous career passer rating of 88.4. His completion percentage of 68.9 was significantly better than his previous career completion percentage of 61.9.

He is more efficient, certainly, because he has made fewer mistakes. He has thrown one interception for 72 passes this season. Over the rest of his career, he had thrown one for every 24 passes.

I asked Brady’s former teammate Deion Branch about Brady’s increased efficiency this year. He said, “It’s nothing new. It’s nothing different.  He’s been in the same offense six, seven years now, so you’re seeing the experience of him playing in coach Belichick’s system.”

Clearly familiarity has bred efficiency for Brady.

But his performance this season isn’t just about efficiency. He also has been more spectacular than ever before. 

His yards per attempt average of 8.3 is more than a yard per pass better than his previous career yards per attempt average of 7.04. His 50 touchdown passes are 22 more than his previous best.

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Some of this is because Brady has the best set of receivers to throw to that he ever has had. Clearly, Randy Moss has enhanced Brady’s greatness. And Wes Welker has made it shine.

Even Belichick allows as much. “We have had a lot of short passes that we’ve gotten good run after catch, receivers going up and making some good catches,” the coach said. “Moss has made some outstanding plays.  It’s a combination of things.”

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But it’s not like Brady has thrown a ton of dump offs that Moss and Welker have turned into long touchdowns. Here is a statistical oddity. According to Stats, Inc., 42 percent of Brady’s passing yards this year have come after the catch. But last year, 49 percent of his passing yards came after the catch. So Brady’s receivers a year ago — an unspectacular group that featured Reche Caldwell and Troy Brown — actually padded Brady’s passing yardage total more than his receivers this year.

Brady is throwing downfield more this year — mostly because he has the receivers to throw to.  His passes have averaged 7 yards in the air this season. Last season, his passes averaged 5.6 yards in the air.

Really, we can break down Brady’s numbers until our calculators blow gaskets, but the numbers don’t capture the complete essence of what he means to the Patriots.

Welker came close this week when speaking to New England reporters. “The guy — in everything he does, it’s to perfection and he kind of holds everybody else to that standard just by the way he works hard and the way he goes and prepares for games,” Welker said. “He makes sure that everybody else is pulling their own weight and he does a great job of pulling everybody together and making sure we’re all doing the right things out there.”

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