LA Chargers: Why signing Tom Brady was never a good idea

Brady’s Decline

Anyone who has watched Brady over the course of the last two years is kidding themselves if they’re claiming he hasn’t been on a steep decline. The numbers bear that out themselves. In 2017, his last MVP season, he had the best QBR in the league. In 2018, that fell to ninth. In 2019, his QBR ranked 23rd.

Philip Rivers, who threw 20 interceptions last year, ranked one spot higher in QBR than Tom Brady. Another big statistic that should scare Chargers fans who wanted him was his completion percentage under pressure. There was a 40 point drop off from 75 to 35% in completion percentage from a clean pocket vs under pressure.

Some will say that Brady’s supporting cast was bad. However, this is a notion that simply doesn’t hold up when looking at the facts. Julian Edelman led as the wide receiver one. James White and Sony Michel were both key pieces of previous Super Bowl runs that racked up 900 and 1000 yards in 2019 respectively.

The Patriots used precious draft capital to trade for Mohamed Sanu and select N’Keal Harry in 2019. Was is the best receiving group in the league? Not really. But it’s pretty hard to describe what the Patriots put around him as bad.

Brady wouldn’t have been significantly better with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. It’s also hard to see him doing dramatically better with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Weapons are important, but there is a pretty obvious decline in his own game that simply is not fixable at this stage of his career.