Not every NFL team can have a Tom Brady or an Aaron Rodgers under center. Even, for the start of this season, the team with Tom Brady.
So, in an era defined by passing, what's a team to do with a less-than-elite passer? For Bill Belichick and the Patriots, that’s been a very real question this year with Brady serving a suspension. For many other teams, it’s been a way of life for decades as franchise passers have eluded them.
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Yet, teams find ways to win without stellar quarterback play or engineer what looks like stellar quarterback play from young passers, journeymen or otherwise lightly regarded backups.
How does this happen? We turned to two undefeated teams with very different quarterback situations — Belichick's Brady-less Patriots and the Eagles with rookie Carson Wentz — to provide a model.
Simplicity gets complicated
Jimmy Garoppolo was drafted to one day replace Brady, and he has made many wonder if that day is coming soon.
The backup is 50/50 to play in Week 4 with an injury of his own, but has lead the league in passer rating and is ranked No. 4 overall in yards per passing attempt. He’s accomplished this running a Patriots offense that doesn’t look much different from when Brady is at the helm.
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This play is a pretty normal look for a Patriots offense.
Garoppolo is in shotgun, with five eligible receivers, but the innermost receiver to his right is tight end Martellus Bennett, while the split end all the way to the bottom of the screen in running back James White. Personnel groupings like that are becoming more common, but no one runs quite the same combination with quite the same aplomb as the Patriots.
Now, here’s what the play looked like:
Again, this is standard for the Patriots. Defenses approach them with the same question every single play: Who’s taking us deep this time? Whether an outside receiver or tight end Rob Gronkowski (when healthy) up the seam, there’s always one significant deep route and a mish-mash of seemingly nonsensical crossing routes that leaves defenders dizzy.
On this play, Bennett collects a lot of attention in the middle of the field, and the two slot receivers run shallow out routes to freeze the cornerbacks. The single-high safety is frozen, reading Garoppolo’s eyes and understanding he can’t even begin to mix it up until the pass has left the quarterback’s hands because if he gets stuck in the traffic of those natural pick plays, he’s toast.
Understand that while the defense is confused by all of these crossing routes and natural pick plays, Garoppolo is not asked to read every single route. Instead, he makes the throw the second he sees White seperate from the defensive back.
It would’ve been entirely usual to see the pass go to either of the shallow out routes instead. We’ve seen that a couple of dozen times from Garoppolo this season, like the hundreds from Brady over the years.
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When the Patriots have needed to use rookie Jacoby Brissett this season, things have been even more simplistic from a read perspective. While Garoppolo is at the stage where one read’s failings might lead him to dump the ball off, Brissett is running the same exact plays but from a read-then-run mindset. The play is the same, but the results are different because he’ll immediately get rid of the ball or take off with his legs.
Less is not always more
Another young passer seemingly wise beyond his years with the Eagles’ Carson Wentz. We also find another team that is making life exceedingly more simple for their quarterback.
This is going to be a touchdown to the slot receiver toward the top of the formation (Jordan Matthews). On the surface, this is a difficult throw. Wentz starts the play by moving the running back over from the left to account for the potential of an unblocked rusher. He also completes the pass with pinpoint accuracy, perfectly timed as Matthews cuts in — and in the middle of the field no less.
Yet it’s worth noting all the little things that the Eagles offense does to help Wentz along in situations just like this one.
Out of the five routes on the diagram above, the play essentially boils down to some pretty simplistic code—IF a, THEN b.
The route combo between the slot receiver (Matthews) and the tight end (Trey Burton). If the defender lined up with Burton had sat on the underneath route, Burton would’ve been one-on-one with the safety and likely would’ve been the beneficiary of a touchdown. Every other route on that field is in service to that combination of routes, and Wentz is looking that way the entire time, and makes his decision the second he sees who the defender is sticking with—touchdown Matthews.
It’s still a difficult throw, but in terms of NFL quarterback decision making and progressions: this is simple math, not advanced calculus. Add in the fact that Wentz is typically in shotgun (not uncommon in today’s NFL, but can make life easier for a young passer) and that the Eagles were fifth in rushing attempts heading into Week 4, and it’s pretty clear that while Wentz is succeeding wildly, he’s doing so with some crutches that he’ll need to eventually do without.
Look around the league at quarterbacks in similar situations, and you’ll find much of the same. In Minnesota, Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford is typically playing with four or five receivers sets. Yet, while the throws he’s being asked to make might have a high degree of difficulty, the decision making is rudimentary.
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Much the same could be said for Trevor Siemian in Denver, who has the comfort not only of a simplistic offense that rarely asks him to read more than half the field, but also in one of the most talented receiving corps in the league.
The old wisdom about younger or less-talented passers was that teams should protect them with a lot of heavy sets, less receivers, more max protect, less passing overall. Nowadays, teams like the Patriots and Eagles are leading the way showing that maintaining a solid run-pass ratio and spreading the field—while keeping reads simple for the quarterback—is a much wiser option.