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USA TODAY: What's wrong with Drew Brees?

After a torrid start to the season, New Orleans Saints Quarterback Drew Brees has seen an unusual regression over the last few weeks.

Wait. Whaddya mean, what’s wrong with Drew Brees?!?!?

It’s not often that one gets to ask this question, as the Saints quarterback is obviously one of the best at his position in NFL history and a lead-pipe lock as a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. But after a torrid start to the season in which he completed 76.9% of his passes for 2,964 yards, 25 touchdowns and just one interception in the first 11 weeks of the 2018 season, Brees has seen an unusual regression over the last few weeks.

In Weeks 12 and 13—a 31-17 win over the Falcons and a 16-10 loss to the Cowboys—Brees completed just 66% of his passes for 298 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions. His yards per attempt average dropped from to 8.9 to 6.0, and his quarterback rating plummeted from 126.9 to 98.6.

New Orleans’ offensive performance against Dallas was especially atypical—Brees completed 18 of 28 passes for just 128 yards, one touchdown and one interception. The Cowboys play a lot of man coverage and pattern-matching throughout the field (you can read more about pattern-matching here), and that, combined with interior pressure that forced Brees off his spot, made life very difficult for the Saints’ franchise guy.

“A little bit of it was execution on my part,” Brees said after the Cowboys loss. “We got some opportunities to capitalize on some plays early and we didn’t. First drive I knew we got a couple of things going. We are thinking complimentary football. Let’s put together another drive, let’s keep our defense off the field. Let’s control the game, the clock, the ball. It just felt like we never did that as an offense like we’ve done this year.”

And against the Buccaneers on Sunday, Brees continued to struggle in a relative sense. Though the Saints came up on top with a 28-14 win, clinching the franchise’s second straight division title for the first time in team history, Brees threw for just 201 yards on 31 attempts and 24 completions, throwing a touchdown pass, but also putting up his third interception in as many weeks, and looking rather mortal against a Bucs defense that has been a free pass for every offense it’s faced all season.

The pick against the Bucs was especially distressing because the throw was so far off from the desired result on a fairly simple play. Here, facing pressure from both ends, Brees tries to hit running back Mark Ingram (No. 22) on a simple screen, but linebacker Adarius Taylor (no. 53) jumps it, and the result is a rather embarrassing turnover. It was a hurried throw to be sure, but one expects more from a quarterback of Brees’ caliber.

The Cowboys really frustrated Brees with aggressive tight coverage and the ability to generate pressure without sending extra pass-rushers. Brees’ interception here was suppsed to be a quick pass to running back Alvin Kamara (No. 41), but Brees is confounded by the dual twists run by defensive tackles Maliek Collins (No. 96) and Tyrone Crawford (No. 98). It’s Collins who breaks through for the hurry, and cornerback Jourdan Lewis (No. 27) comes up with the errant throw.

Brees’ pick against the Falcons was a bit more complicated, but no less discouraging. Here, he’s trying to hit receiver Keith Kirkwood (No. 18), who gets tripped up with cornerback Brian Poole (No. 34), and safety Damontae Kazee (No. 27) high-points the ball for the interception. Had Kirkwood been able to run his route unobstructed, given the flight and velocity of the ball, it’s hard to say that the result would have been different–Kazee had the thing jumped, and unless the officials wanted to call interference here, this probably would have been the result.

In looking to discover what’s ailed Brees in recent games, I reached out to Keegan Abdoo of NFL NextGen Stats, to see if Brees had been struggling against man coverage as much as he seemed to against Dallas. No dice there–per NextGen’s charting, Brees came into Sunday’s game with a 70.1 completion percentage, 9.0 yards per attempt, and an 18-1 TD/INT ratio versus man coverage. Against zone? Just nine touchdowns, but a 78.5 completion rate and 8.5 yards per attempt. Not bad either way, and the Dallas game seemed to be an outlier of outstanding coverage and personnel deployment.

Perhaps the Achilles’ heel is pressure, especially interior pressure. Of course, every quarterback sees his efficiency suffer under pressure, but the recent trend for Brees is not at all good. When throwing under pressure in Weeks 1-11, per Pro Football Focus’ metrics, Brees completed 61.6% of his passes for 528 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. In Weeks 12 and 13, he completed 58.3% of his passes under pressure for 69 yards, one touchdown and two picks. Judging from his performance against the Bucs, those pressure stats aren’t trending up in a big way.

Yes, the Saints are missing tackle Terron Armstead, who was ruled out for 3-4 weeks in mid-November with a shoulder injury. And yes, New Orleans’ receiver situation has been less than optimal outside of Kamara and Michael Thomas. But when it comes to legitimate franchise-defining quarterbacks, it is the task behind the name to transcend as many of those personnel liabilities as possible. Though Drew Brees has done this throughout his storied career, and though this may be just a blip on the radar, he’s not doing it now, and that has to be a major concern for head coach Sean Payton.

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