Patriots Historical Points Per Drive

(H/T to /r/NFL user 2037764943)

We know that Tom Brady is one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history. He's led the best offenses; he's led the best teams; he's brutally efficient; he's terrifyingly intelligent.

Last month we saw how the Patriots 2007 offense was the most impressive in recent memory, with over 40% of their drives resulting in a touchdown. Four of the top nine offenses since 1999 have been led by Tom Brady (07, 10, 11, 12), compared to "just" two by Peyton Manning (04, 13).

Reddit user 2037764943 decided to look at Points per Drive statistics since 1991 to see which teams scored the most consistently over the course of their seasons. It's no surprise that Brady shows up in four of the top ten seasons.

In fact, the Patriots 2007 and 2010 both rank in the top three, while the 2012 Patriots rank 7th. No other quarterback has multiple offenses in the top seven.

To restate, three Brady-led offenses have been in the top seven most efficient offenses of the past 23 seasons. The other quarterbacks (Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Randall Cunningham, Manning) only appear once.

Here's a graph of the league leader for each season and notice the ridiculous spike in 2007. It turns out that the Patriots 2007 offense was 12.8% more efficient than the next best offense of the past near-quarter-century.

It's also worth noting how insane the 2011 season was for the trio of Brady, Brees, and Rodgers (and it's a complete and total shame that Manning was injured this season). The three quarterbacks combined to post three top seven offenses in the same season.

Brady and Brees both broke the passing yardage record, and Brees set the pass completion rate record and that still wasn't good enough to win league MVP (Matt Stafford also broke the 5,000 passing yards barrier).

Tom Brady was the AFC offensive player of the month for the last two months of the season. Aaron Rodgers was the NFC offensive player of the month for the first three months of the season.

Just imagine if a healthy Peyton played that season. Instead, we were able to witness just three of the best offensive seasons of our generation in a single year.

Brady, who's obviously in steep decline, posted three of the most efficient offenses from 2010 to 2012. His 2013 should be how he's regarded and should be considered par for the course- note his production over the prior three seasons.

Great work to the Reddit user for compiling the data. Just some more ammo to show how great Brady has been on offense.