Something that goes without saying is that Tom Brady's 2007 and 2010 seasons were among the greatest years by a passer we've ever seen. Something I realized today though was that the pattern of these seasons was somewhat reversed. Brady's best games in 2007 came at the beginning of the year, and the best of 2010 was at the end. While there are outliers (Brady killed the Bengals and Bills in September last year), for the most part the dominance was heavily slanted to one half of the regular season. It got me thinking: what would Brady's statline be like if he had done September and October of 2007 and November / December 2010 all in one calendar year? Well it would look like this
Tom Brady's Super Season
Game |
QBR |
Comp |
Att |
C% |
Y |
Y/A |
Lng |
Int |
TD |
1 |
146.6 |
22 |
28 |
78.6 |
297 |
10.6 |
51 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
123 |
25 |
31 |
80.6 |
279 |
9 |
34 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
150.9 |
23 |
29 |
79.3 |
311 |
10.7 |
45 |
0 |
4 |
4 |
115 |
25 |
32 |
78.1 |
231 |
7.2 |
23 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
105.7 |
22 |
38 |
57.9 |
265 |
7 |
35 |
0 |
3 |
6 |
129.6 |
31 |
46 |
67.4 |
388 |
8.4 |
69 |
0 |
5 |
7 |
158.3 |
21 |
25 |
84 |
354 |
14.2 |
50 |
0 |
6 |
8 |
125.5 |
29 |
38 |
76.3 |
306 |
8.1 |
35 |
0 |
3 |
9 |
117.4 |
30 |
43 |
69.8 |
350 |
8.1 |
45 |
0 |
3 |
10 |
123.1 |
19 |
25 |
76 |
186 |
7.4 |
25 |
0 |
2 |
11 |
158.3 |
21 |
27 |
77.8 |
341 |
12.6 |
79 |
0 |
4 |
12 |
148.9 |
21 |
29 |
72.4 |
326 |
11.2 |
50 |
0 |
4 |
13 |
113.4 |
27 |
40 |
67.5 |
369 |
9.2 |
59 |
0 |
2 |
14 |
110.2 |
15 |
24 |
62.5 |
163 |
6.8 |
35 |
0 |
2 |
15 |
107 |
15 |
27 |
55.6 |
140 |
5.2 |
23 |
0 |
3 |
16 |
145.6 |
10 |
16 |
62.5 |
199 |
12.4 |
40 |
0 |
2 |
Season |
132.5 |
356 |
498 |
71.5 |
4505 |
9.05 |
79 |
2 |
52 |
A few things stand out here. One, the TD total of 52 means that despite Brady's insane total in 07, he was actually a more prolific scorer in late 2010 than in late 2007. Same for the Interceptions - even though the record year was 2010, Brady turned it over less in the beginning of 07 than he did in 10. The rest of the numbers are just gaudy. A rating of 132.5, 4500 yards in under 500 attempts, and a TD:INT ratio of... 26.
Looking at this makes me wonder why the two seasons broke down so symmetrically? Was it strength of competition matching up favorably with the productive half of each season? Is it just variance of performance that sorted so nicely into halves by chance? I think the most likely reason is this: Both offenses were absolutely dominant, but in this league even that level of dominance can only be sustained for a couple months before some opponent figures out how to slow you down.
One more question for readers to ponder - which year was better? Which year did we have a better team, and which year did we have a better QB? My take is our team in 07 was superior, but Brady was better in 2010. Thoughts?
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