The Truth About Playoff Tom Brady in the 2010s

The definitive statement on Tom Brady's playoff career from 2011 onwards.

Welcome to part two of my series going over every one of Tom Brady’s playoff starts in order to discuss the Tom Brady playoff narrative. If you’ve missed part one, which goes over Tom’s playoff career up until the finish of 2010, and explains my methodology for grading a playoff game, I recommend going back to it for better understanding, but here is Tom’s running tally of individual playoff performances so far in his 20 games of action:

All-Time Great: 1 (2007 Jacksonville)

Great: 1 (2004 Pittsburgh)

Good: 4

Okay: 6

Not Good Enough: 8

As you can see, Tom’s playoff performance through the 2000s was less than inspiring, to put it mildly. To put it less mildly, Tom played well only six out of 20 starts. That’s just 30% of them. He was an overall help to his team’s Super Bowl chances once (2004). He also played okay in the 2003 and 2005 postseasons, but hurt the Patriots’ chances to win the Super Bowl in each of the 2001, 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010 postseasons.

As we start in 2011, that’s now been seven years since Tom has played well through a playoff run, and six years since he’s not played badly. If not for the three Super Bowls (that at this point are getting pretty far into the past), Tom would have a very healthy reputation as a playoff loser built up by this point, and it would not be undeserved. However, at the end of the first installment, I suggested that something was coming to get the playoff monkey off of Tom’s back, and here it is:

---

2011 Divisional vs Denver Broncos

Tom stats: 26-34, 363 Yards, 6TD, 1 INT, 0.73 EPA/Play

I know these Broncos were a really bad team (their 5.45 Expected Wins are the second worst playoff team ever), but the Steelers showed the week before what happens if you took them lightly. In addition, the Patriots hadn’t won a playoff game since the 2007 AFC Championship four years ago. It’d been even longer than that since Tom had played well individually.

0.73 EPA/Play is a really nice way to get all that off your back.

Unlike prior years where Tom let inferior teams stay in the game by missing chance after chance to stick the dagger in, this time he put his foot on the Broncos’ throat and never took it off. This is a very weak opponent, but it’s still extremely impressive.

Verdict: All-Time Great

Game Outcome: Patriots W 45-10

---

2011 AFC Championship vs Baltimore Ravens

Tom stats: 22-36, 229 Yards, 0 TD, 2 INT, 0.11 EPA/Play

This was a very interesting game, with each team seemingly only able to score in response to the other, resulting in a game featuring long spurts of scoring interspersed by long stretches of punting.

Once again Tom (with his vaunted fourth quarter reputation) missed chance after chance in the fourth to put the dagger in, but on the infamous Billy Cundiff missed field goal (‘It’s not even close!’) the Patriots win and move onto the Super Bowl.

This performance is right on the border between okay and good, but considering the 2011 Ravens were the best defence in the NFL, and Tom did respond in some clutch situations (always immediately retaking the lead if the Ravens lead or tied), I like this one. I think it’s underrated.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 23-20

---

2011 Super Bowl vs New York Giants

Tom stats: 27-41, 276 Yards, 2 TD, 1 INT, 0.26 EPA/Play

People like to link the two Giants vs Patriots Super Bowls together as if they’re anything alike, but they not. The first one featured Tom going against vastly inferior opposition at the head of the second best offence of the new millennium, and failing time after time to score.

This was not that.

Aside from the wacky intentional grounding penalty enforced in the end zone for a safety, Tom played very well, even in the absence of the best Tight End ever, 2011 Rob Gronkowski. People understate just how big a deal Rob breaking his ankle in the 2011 AFC Championship game really was. I think without that, the Patriots could’ve found five more points in this game.

Did Tom fail some chances that could’ve won this game? Yes. He got outdueled and lost a game that he could’ve won, but if he’d played this well in 2007, the Patriots would’ve won by 20 points, and he did it without his most reliable weapon.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots L 17-21

---

2012 Divisional vs Houston Texans

Tom stats: 25-40, 344 Yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 0.36 EPA/Play

Did I catch you underrating the 2012 Houston Texans?

This was a really tough opponent, with a great (4th) defence, and a very good (11th) offence to boot, who at one point in the season were 11-1. A first round game for a team with a bye should not be as tough as this one.

This game is the reason why people underrate the 2012 Houston Texans, because although people forget that the Patriots went into half with just a 17-13 lead, Tom made the second half look like light work. Beating a 12 win team in a playoff game should not look this easy. Tom gets big time credit from me.

Verdict: Great

Game Outcome: Patriots W 41-28

---

2012 AFC Championship vs Baltimore Ravens

Tom stats: 29-54, 320 Yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, -0.04 EPA/Play

Did I catch you overrating the 2012 Baltimore Ravens?

These Ravens were a much more acceptable opponent to play a close game with when Tom did it last year, which is why I bumped a performance that was Okay statistically into the Good category. The Ravens have regressed in 2012. Their defence ranks only 13th, and their offence is not any better. They got lucky to beat the Broncos last week, and they came up to Tom’s stadium and destroyed him.

This game is like the dying breath of 2000s Tom Brady. It’s the last game you will see following the traditional pattern of Tom allowing an opponent that isn’t in his league to stick around by failing to capitalise on the Ravens scoring just seven points in the first half, and it comes back to bite him as Baltimore pulls away and wins in the second half, while Tom can’t do anything to respond at any point.

Not as bad as some games Tom’s played, but I kind of thought we were done with this.

Verdict: Not Good Enough

Game Outcome: Patriots L 13-28

---

2013 Divisional vs Indianapolis Colts

Tom stats: 13-25, 198 Yards, 0 TD, 0 INT, 0.31 EPA/Play

Nothing to see here. An easy win over an overmatched 2013 Indianapolis Colts.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 43-22

---

2013 AFC Championship vs Denver Broncos

Tom stats: 24-38, 277 Yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 0.19 EPA/Play

Remember what I said about avoiding Peyton Manning?

Tom played well in this game, quite good actually. He just got slapped in the face with what the rest of the league felt like playing against Peyton Manning. The Patriot defence could not keep the lid on, so despite Tom trying his best, the closest he could get to Peyton in the second half is ten points.

Let’s not succumb to outcome bias ourselves. The Patriots lost this game, and did not put up much of a fight, but they were large underdogs. Just as I did not credit Tom Brady for the abilities of his teammates, I can’t punish him for them either. Tom individually did well enough, and that’s what we’re grading.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots L 16-26

---

2014 Divisional vs Baltimore Ravens

Tom stats: 33-50, 367 Yards, 3 TD, 1 INT, 0.31 EPA/Play

These damn Ravens. They’re back again, much better than their Super Bowl winning 2012 version, and they’ve put Tom into a situation we’ve only ever seen him in one time (against David Garrard in 2007).

A playoff shootout.

Once again it’s with an unlikely dance partner in Joe Flacco, but it does not matter who was on the other side. Tom had to score points, and lots of them.

Immediately going down a quick 14-0 meant Tom had to play catch up the whole game, against a 2014 Baltimore defence you really didn’t want to have to play catch up against. A chance to take the lead, tied with the ball, is thwarted by an interception, and the Patriots drop 14 points behind again, 28-14, but Tom keeps grinding as the defence finally shores up, and it’s a close but solid four point win.

I’d love to give this game a Great rating, but the stats above really can’t support it. Plus, it was Tom’s interception that dropped the Patriots back into the hole that they had to dig out of a second time. Without that, there would’ve been no further catching up required. As a result, this is likely the best game you’ll see that can go into the Good category.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 35-31

---

2014 AFC Championship vs Indianapolis Colts

Tom stats: 23-35, 226 Yards, 3 TD, 1 INT, 0.28 EPA/Play

Oh boy. Deflategate. What do I have to say about it?

Nothing, because in the context of what we’re doing here it doesn’t matter. Tom didn’t have a game as good this week as he did the week before. Perhaps he should’ve kept the balls properly inflated. He would’ve played better against a Colts team that was hopelessly outmatched. Again.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 45-7

---

2014 Super Bowl vs Seattle Seahawks

Tom stats: 37-50, 328 Yards, 4 TD, 2 INT, 0.28 EPA/Play

What to say about the 2014 Super Bowl?

For once in Tom’s career, the story of this game has very little to do with him. By this point in NFL history, the Seahawks had become so unlikeable that the NFL world was actually rooting for the Patriots (something that would never happen before or afterwards), who had developed into a weird form of lovable losers despite still being thought of as winners. Needless to say, the Patriots (and by extension Tom Brady himself) were in a weird place in the NFL culture at the time.

Everybody remembers the end zone interception, but without the other end zone interception (thrown by Tom) this game could’ve been a wider spread than it was. Because of that one interception, the Patriots spend the whole second half behind, and at one point got behind two possessions, and as they missed one chance to narrow that deficit, and then they missed a second, things were starting to get really uncomfortable, but thanks to a bit of luck to get two straight defensive stops, Tom was able to get two quick fourth quarter touchdowns and sneak out of town with a Super Bowl trophy.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 28-24

---

That’s an additional ten games explored, and as we can see, Tom has clearly turned the corner from the playoff struggles he’d been having for the whole of his career up to 2011. This is Tom’s running tally in the most recent ten games, and it indicates an entirely different player:

All-Time Great: 1 (2011 Denver)

Great: 1

Good: 7

Okay: 0

Not Good Enough: 1 (2012 Baltimore)

Recall from part one that when Tom played Good or better in a playoff game, he never lost. That changed in the 2011 Super Bowl, where Tom got outdone by Eli Manning, and also in the 2013 AFC Championship, where he got outdone by Peyton Manning, but the point is that 14 of Tom’s first 20 playoff games were Okay or worse, compared to just one of his next ten.

The switch has clearly flipped.

This is an extreme amount of middle skew, meaning Tom is often not doing anything exceptional in these games, but being a lock to put up between 0.2 and 0.3 EPA/Play every game is exceptional in its own way. As we’ve just seen in 2014, it’s good enough to win a Super Bowl as long as nobody puts up a great performance on the other side.

Tom has rebounded from being a serious playoff hinderance before 2011 to being one of the better playoff performers in the NFL from 2011-2014. By EPA/Play (min. 3 starts), only notorious playoff risers Colin Kaepernick, Joe Flacco, and Eli Manning have been better than Tom in this stretch.

I’m starting to see where Tom gets this elite playoff reputation from.

---

2015 Divisional vs Kansas City Chiefs

Tom stats: 28-42, 302 Yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 0.29 EPA/Play

In 2015, the turnaround of the Kansas City Chiefs has already happened, but it’s not complete yet. These 2015 Chiefs are underrated, but still not much of a match for the Patriots.

They did manage to stick within one possession for a while, but at no point after the two minute warning of the first half did they have the ball with the chance to take the lead. Tom didn’t do anything exceptional in this game either, perfectly content to nurse an eight point lead through the whole game, but he didn’t have to do anything exceptional. The Patriots were never in any danger.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 27-20

---

2015 AFC Championship vs Denver Broncos

Tom stats: 27-56, 310 Yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, -0.10 EPA/Play

Tom vs Peyton one more time, for old times’ sake, but this is still a bad matchup for Tom.

In a game that feels like it was written by a script writer, the two old legends fight each other to a dead draw (-0.1 EPA/Play for Peyton, -0.1 EPA/Play for Tom). The Patriot offence isn’t able to do anything all day against the suffocating, but not all time great (barely even the best in the NFL), 2015 Bronco defence.

Tom has beaten better defences than this one before, but on this day it isn’t happening, as the Patriots get one touchdown off of a Peyton Manning fumble, but almost nothing else, as Tom fails on not one, not two, but three tries in the fourth quarter facing a 20-12 deficit to tie the game, and the Patriots lose.

It feels harsh to give this game a ‘Not Good Enough’ rating, but there were QBs in 2015 who could score on the Bronco defence. Tom wasn’t one of them. It just can’t be anything else.

Verdict: Not Good Enough

Game Outcome: Patriots L 18-20

---

2016 Divisional vs Houston Texans

Tom stats: 18-38, 287 Yards, 2 TD, 2 INT, 0.01 EPA/Play

The 2016 Texan defence was good, but not top of the league or anything. It shouldn’t have been able to hold Tom to those numbers.

The Patriot offence deserved to lose this, allowing a Houston Texan team hellbent on continuing to shoot themselves in the foot to stay within one possession until 35 minutes into the game. If they were playing a real team this easily would’ve been another humiliating loss. Only because their opponents were the 2016 Houston Texans the Patriots won easily. Tom gets no credit for that.

This is really iffy between Okay and Not Good Enough, but given the quality of the opposition, there’s no benefit of the doubt here.

Verdict: Not Good Enough

Game Outcome: Patriots W 34-16

---

2016 AFC Championship vs Pittsburgh Steelers

Tom stats: 32-42, 384 Yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 0.44 EPA/Play

From the outhouse to the penthouse.

The 2016 Pittsburgh Steelers were not a particularly good team either, but they had the offence to win a shootout if Tom let them hang around like he did for the Texans last week.

He didn’t.

Scores on five of the first seven possessions meant this game was over quickly, and the Steelers never had a chance to come back. This is what I want to see out of a great playoff performance.

Verdict: Great

Game Outcome: Patriots W 36-17

---

2016 Super Bowl vs Atlanta Falcons

Tom stats: 43-62, 466 Yards, 2 TD, 1 INT, 0.24 EPA/Play

I’ve talked about this game before. It’s perhaps the ultimate personal preference game when evaluating QB performance.

If you don’t mind QBs leaning on their defence for a whole half to keep them even as close as the Patriots were so they can finally get it together, and make an attempt at a comeback, this is the game for you. You’ll put it in the all-time great category.

I am substantially less impressed.

The main reason for this is that the Patriot defence did an otherworldly job keeping the lid on one of the best offences of the 2010s in the 2016 Atlanta Falcons. With the Patriots scoring no points until the last play of the first half, and not scoring a touchdown until 2:12 of the third quarter, in addition to a pick six thrown by Tom deep in Atlanta territory, it was a miracle to come out of this sequence behind only 28-3.

That part of the story is not remembered enough.

This is not a normal level of help. This was a herculean effort by a defence that shouldn’t have been relied on to give one, ranking only seventh in the NFL in 2016. I was not in the meetings, but I can almost guarantee that holding the 2016 Atlanta Falcons to just 21 offensive points was not in the game plan.

In addition, Tom’s scoring drives in the second half were much too slow. If not for an extremely fortuitous (and due in no part to Tom Brady) Matt Ryan fumble on his own 25 yard line to cut one of the scoring drives down to only two minutes, the realistic outcome is that the Patriot offence runs out of time just a few points short.

In the end, Tom Brady touched the ball 12 times in this game, and scored on six of those touches. That’s not a bad performance, but people like to pretend it’s a great one, when it just isn’t.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 34-28

---

2017 Divisional vs Tennessee Titans

Tom stats: 35-53, 337 Yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 0.31 EPA/Play

Does anybody even remember this game happened?

Like clockwork, Tom put in a good but not great performance against an overmatched 2010s AFC opponent.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 35-14

---

2017 AFC Championship vs Jacksonville Jaguars

Tom stats: 26-38, 348 Yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, 0.30 EPA/Play

To those who have heard me speak about this game before, this is what you’ve been waiting this whole chronology for.

To fully understand my opinion of this game, one must understand that the 2017 Jacksonville Jaguars are my pick for the best defence in NFL history. I’ve written an entire article explaining why, so you can either look at it for detail or take it as given, but that’s what Tom was going against here.

People forget this game, because LOL Jaguars, but this team had just got finished humiliating the Pittsburgh Steelers in their home stadium for the second time just in 2017. They were for real.

In my opinion, the Tom Brady stans should be screaming about this game from atop the highest mountain in the land. It’s not Tom’s best playoff performance statistically, but Tom did what nobody else was able to do. He took on the best defence in NFL history, with the Jacksonville offence having a pretty good day themselves, and beat them.

Did Tom struggle some along the way? Yes. How couldn’t he have given the quality of opponent he was facing? All season, two (and only two) people were able to generate positive EPA/Play against the 2017 Jacksonville Jaguars. One of those occasions was in an early season divisional game. We know how wild they can be, and the other was Jimmy Garoppolo in the Kyle Shanahan offence.

Tom Brady had none of those advantages, and went out there and generated 0.3 EPA/Play against the best defence of all time, something nobody was able to do, all without any help from the rush offence at all. Much like the game ten years before against the Jaguars, this game gets forgotten because it did not come en route to a Super Bowl win, but I just cannot overstate how legendary this performance was.

Falling behind two possessions against this Jacksonville team is as close to an auto loss as one can find in the NFL. This is not like the Patriots lollygagging with all the poor teams that they’ve done over the years. It took Tom all the way until the end of the game to make up this deficit, and in so doing he validated the reputation that he’s had all along, because I don’t think any other QB in the 2017 NFL season could’ve done what Tom did in this AFC Championship.

Remember when I said the tiers were not purely statistical? Good.

Verdict: All-Time Great

Game Outcome: Patriots W 24-20

---

2017 Super Bowl vs Philadelphia Eagles

Tom stats: 28-48, 505 Yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 0.44 EPA/Play

No rest for the weary, as the Patriots have to play a second seriously difficult opponent in a row, something they haven’t had to do very often in this 15 year run they’ve had.

What people think the 2016 Super Bowl was is what the 2017 Super Bowl actually is.

Tom played much better in this Super Bowl than he did the year before against Atlanta, missing just two opportunities in this game (one in the first half, one in the second) compared to the countless he missed last season. However, Nick Foles this year played like Matt Ryan should’ve played last year, taking advantage of Tom’s missed opportunities to just barely edge out the win in what is indisputably Tom’s best Super Bowl performance.

Verdict: Great

Game Outcome: Patriots L 33-41

---

2018 Divisional vs Los Angeles Chargers

Tom stats: 34-44, 343 Yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 0.37 EPA/Play

This was an effort to exorcise Tom’s final playoff demon. Remember how badly he always used to play against the Chargers?

Not anymore.

35-7 by halftime. Game over.

Verdict: Great

Game Outcome: Patriots W 41-28

---

2018 AFC Championship vs Kansas City Chiefs

Tom stats: 30-46, 348 Yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, 0.27 EPA/Play

I’ve spoken about this performance before also, and those who heard me talk about it back then may be surprised to know that I’ve softened on this game a little bit. I used to think this was a seriously unimpressive performance from Tom. Now I don’t, and here’s why.

In a throwback to the 2000s, the Chiefs could not score all first half, but the Patriots could only come out of it with a 14-0 lead. This is not enough, but the main reason for it is some goal line failure on a drive that eventually ends in an end zone interception from Tom that could’ve easily been a 21-0 lead, in addition to Bill Belichick being a chicken and punting on fourth and one from the KC 42.

It wouldn’t have taken all that much going right to have gone into the half with a 21-0 or a 24-0 lead, in which case there would’ve been none of the second half worries that pop up at the end of this game. While I would’ve liked those worries not to happen at all, Tom did end up in a fourth quarter battle against Patrick Mahomes on mostly even terms, and did enough to at least come out of it with a draw.

I understand. Dee Ford’s fingers, but the Chiefs had plenty of chances beforehand and afterwards to stop Tom and couldn’t do so.

Did this game come down to the OT coin toss? Probably. Did it have to? No, but is that Tom’s fault this time? I don’t think so. Most of the time I have blamed Tom for these unnecessarily close games, but I don’t think that’s the case here.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Patriots W 37-31

---

2018 Super Bowl vs Los Angeles Rams

Tom stats: 21-35, 262 Yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 0.11 EPA/Play

It’s the 2001 Super Bowl all over, right down to the teams involved.

The Rams had nothing to give today, but Tom’s ineptitude left them hanging around for chance after chance after chance for something to go right.

It never did for them, and Tom did finally convert a fourth quarter touchdown drive to put the dagger in the heart of the LA Rams, but it probably didn’t have to be this difficult.

Verdict: Okay

Game Outcome: Patriots W 13-3

---

2019 Wild Card vs Tennessee Titans

Tom stats: 20-37, 209 Yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, -0.07 EPA/Play

We’ve reached the game that forced the Patriots and Tom Brady to move on from each other.

In both 2018 and 2019, something was happening to Tom Brady. The falloff was finally here. The rosters around him were getting better, but individually he was getting worse. 2018 was his worst season in years, and by 2019 he’d fallen all the way to 17th on my QB tier list, and spent the whole season holding back what was (in my opinion) the best Patriot roster since 2007, and the second best Patriot roster he ever had.

I do say holding back, because the Patriots were (by far) the NFL’s best defence in 2019, but Tom had regressed to such an extent it was becoming seriously difficult to win games. It felt a lot like it’d felt from 2001-2003. This playoff game is no different.

From the second the Patriots go up 10-7 on the first play of the second quarter, there’s nothing. A bad punt and starting from the 47 does net them three more offensive points, but coming out of the half with a 14-13 deficit there’s nothing, and nothing, and more nothing. The Patriots got across midfield once in the second half.

No fourth quarter magic. Nothing done for old times sake. Just emptiness and nothing. This feels like 2001 without all the special teams touchdowns. The Titans were held to 14 offensive points, and the Patriots still couldn’t win.

Verdict: Not Good Enough

Game Outcome: Patriots L 13-20

---

So ends the Patriots career of Tom Brady. This gives us another chance to stop and look at Tom’s individual playoff results. This is the running tally for Tom’s final years in a Patriot uniform:

All-Time Great: 2

Great: 4

Good: 11

Okay: 1

Not Good Enough: 4

This is an extreme amount of middle skew. 11 games in the Good category is not a number I was expecting to see, but the key thing here is that only five of these games were Okay or worse. That’s a lot less like 2000s Tom Brady, and a lot more like Aaron Rodgers. It’s leaps and bounds better than the 14 such performances in his first 20 games, but what does this mean about Tom Brady as a playoff player? To see that, we’ll have to get his tally for his whole Patriot career, which you can see below:

All-Time Great: 3

Great: 5

Good: 15

Okay: 7

Not Good Enough: 12

Taking Tom’s career as a Patriot holistically, I’m still not sure this amounts to an elite playoff performer. You can still see the amount of negative skew towards the bottom three slots, even when tempering the negativity with the ten years of solid playoff play we’ve just witnessed.

Specifically the Great category is where Tom comes up a little weak. We saw last time with the Patrick Mahomes comparison that Pat has six Great playoff performances already. That’s more than Tom Brady’s entire Patriot career. We can tell by now that the Patrick Mahomes comparison is out of Tom’s league, but I do wish to use the end of Tom’s Patriots career to make the one comparison that everybody insisted on making throughout almost its entire duration.

Brady, or Manning?

Is Tom as much better than Peyton as you remember?

There is no apples to apples comparison with Tom Brady because he played so many games, but Peyton Manning has played the second most postseason QB games of anybody in NFL history, so it’s as close as we’re going to get. Here’s the tally for Peyton:

All-Time Great: 3

Great: 2

Good: 7

Okay: 4

Not Good Enough: 11 (mind the 2015 influence)

What’s interesting me to me is just how similar the playoff careers of these two look. Throwing the 2015 falloff season out, Peyton played okay or worse 12 times in 24 playoff games. Tom played Okay or worse in 19 out of 42 playoff games as a Patriot. That’s half of Peyton’s playoff games and almost half of Tom’s.

To be frank, all this comparison makes clear is that both these men excel in the regular season environment. If I could have only Tom Brady or Peyton Manning for a playoff game for a team with a 20th place defence, I may just say ‘better luck next year’ and pick neither man. Patriots Tom likely wins this comparison, but a comparison to playoff Peyton Manning (asterisk 2003) is not exactly the highest honour.

Onto the Buccaneers.

---

2020 Wild Card vs Washington Name Redacted

Tom stats: 22-40, 381 Yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 0.45 EPA/Play

We’ve seen Tom beat up on some overmatched teams in his day, but the WFT were really overmatched, and Tom really beat up on them.

Verdict: Great

Game Outcome: Bucs W 31-23

---

2020 Divisional vs New Orleans Saints

Tom stats: 18-33, 199 Yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 0.19 EPA/Play

Yet another Tom Brady game that takes an odd path to get to the correct ending. These Bucs were better than the Saints, but this win was more difficult than it had to be.

The Buccaneers score 13 first half points against a good Saints defence, but have to go just three yards to get seven of them. There are penalties all over the place, and even a touchdown pass thrown by Jameis Winston against his old team.

Two New Orleans turnovers in the second half mean the Bucs have to go just 40 and 20 yards respectively to get their second and third of their touchdowns, and that’s too much for Drew Brees to handle.

I don’t want to say Tom Brady was a passenger here, but look at those stats up there. They look pretty pedestrian to me.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Bucs W 30-20

---

2020 NFC Championship vs Green Bay Packers

Tom stats: 20-36, 280 Yards, 3 TD, 3 INT, 0.28 EPA/Play

One last Tom Brady luck game.

It’s not so much this way in the first half, as a deep shot in the last seconds to steal a 21-10 lead out of a pretty even half is not luck, and is something Tom deserves credit for. The luck comes in the second half. As soon as the Buccaneers took a 28-10 lead, everything went wrong.

Each of their next two drives end in Tom Brady interceptions, which the Packers are able to parlay into just a 28-23 deficit going into the fourth, and in that fourth quarter Tom gives Aaron Rodgers the ball not once, but twice with a chance to take the lead. Aaron is not able to convert on either, and even after giving GB the ball back with just a 31-23 lead, the Packers get all the way to the eight, but no further.

As always seems to happen with Tom Brady, this game was much closer than it had to be, especially with a 28-10 third quarter lead. It wouldn’t have taken much going wrong to flip this from a win to a loss.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Bucs W 31-26

---

2020 Super Bowl vs Kansas City Chiefs

Tom stats: 21-29, 201 Yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 0.31 EPA/Play

Foot on the throat.

The Chiefs were never going to beat this Buccaneer team when struggling so badly in the first half, because Tom Brady scored 21 points to ensure that this game was over before the break.

Verdict: Great

Game Outcome: Bucs W 31-9

---

2021 Wild Card vs Philadelphia Eagles

Tom stats: 29-37, 271 Yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 0.23 EPA/Play

This game looks suspiciously like the 2020 Super Bowl.

The Eagles have a poor first half, Tom builds a three possession lead, and coasts from there.

Verdict: Good

Game Outcome: Bucs W 31-15

---

2021 Divisional vs Los Angeles Rams

Tom stats: 30-54, 329 Yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, -0.223 EPA/Play

Almost.

This could’ve been the ultimate Tom Brady comeback game. As we’ve figured out by this point, I don’t respect comebacks, so I still wouldn’t have been impressed. You would’ve though, but instead the comeback fell just short, so this game goes into the history books where it belongs, as one of the worst playoff games Tom Brady ever played.

Tom did not have a successful play (a play making his team more likely to score) in this game until he was already down 10-0. It was 17-3 before the Buccaneer offence was able to truly accomplish anything, and it was only an extremely lucky goal line stand that got the Bucs into half facing just a 20-3 deficit.

From here, Tom continued to do nothing until the Buccaneers found themselves behind 27-6 at 2:45 of the third quarter, an eerily similar time to when Tom turned it on against Atlanta way back when.

Tom Brady got every fortuitous circumstance in this game. Three extremely key Rams turnovers, plus a missed field goal, explain why this game was able to get back to a 27-27 tie much more than anything Tom did, and it didn’t matter in the end, as when the Rams quit shooting their own toes off, they drove down the field and won anyway.

Complacency will be the death of you folks. Tom made this comeback, but he made what in truth was an easy comeback (due to Ram incompetence) look very difficult. With a better QB, the Bucs easily could’ve completed this comeback. With a better QB the Bucs could’ve been even at half and just won by 20 points when the Rams started choking it in the fourth quarter.

This is perhaps the final of only a few times in Tom’s career where an opposing team tried to choke a game to him, and he just wasn’t good enough to take it.

Verdict: Not Good Enough

Game Outcome: Bucs L 27-30

---

2022 Week 17 vs Carolina Panthers

Tom stats: 34-45, 432 Yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 0.35 EPA/Play

Two games to go. I’m getting a little sentimental

We’re back in the regular season, because for the first time since 2002 Tom Brady has to play a win-and-in playoff game, against an opponent that should not be underestimated. I’m perfectly aware that the Carolina Panthers were 6-9 going into this game, but I’ve written an article on how hot this team got once they inserted Sam Darnold as their starting QB.

Tom’s Bucs were just 7-8 themselves going in, but because of the terribly weak NFC South these were the two teams fighting for the division title. Over the course of this season, it’d again become clear that the great Tom Brady was gone. Whatever boost he got from changing teams was gone. Tom was not what he once was, and he’d been struggling all year.

However, on this day, against a very game Carolina Panthers team, he showed that greatness was still in there.

The Buccaneer defence did not make it very hard for Sam Darnold to go take a 14-0 second quarter lead before Tom could get much of anything going, so he had to play this whole game from behind. As soon as half time he had the deficit down to 14-10, but fell behind 21-10 on the first play of the fourth quarter.

This was the moment of truth. Down 21-10 with his playoff life on the line, Tom was either going to show he was washed up, or he was going to come up big one last time.

I love how easy Tom makes it look. Before you know it the Bucs are up 24-21, and when the clock strikes zero, and Tom has outdueled a very game Sam Darnold, and the Bucs are in the playoffs, I think everybody pretty much knows we’ve seen the last bit of greatness Tom Brady had in him.

This is another performance that Tom does not get the credit for, and likely never will, because it happened in the regular season, but this was big time stuff out of a man who we’ve figured out did not make a habit of being great in the big games.

Verdict: Great

Game Outcome: Bucs W 30-24

---

2022 Wild Card vs Dallas Cowboys

Tom stats: 35-66, 351 Yards, 2 TD, 1 INT, -0.05 EPA/Play

I wish the Carolina game could’ve been the ending, because this is sad.

What do you want me to say? Tom can only watch as Dak Prescott puts up an All-Time Great game on the other side.

It’s overkill. Even an Okay game would’ve beaten Tom today. He simply had nothing left to give.

Verdict: Not Good Enough

Game Outcome: Bucs L 14-31

---

We have reached the end of the line. Every single one of Tom Brady’s 50 playoff performances have been gone over and catalogued, and here are the final results:

All-Time Great: 3

Great: 8

Good: 18

Okay: 7

Not Good Enough: 14

The best thing Tom did was put a few more Great performances next to his name in Tampa Bay. Just three more games may not seem like many, but his Great performance column looked really empty before, and it’s a bit better now.

Additionally, a key happening in Tampa was that Tom’s playoff record when playing Okay or worse finally dropped below .500. In 21 such games, Tom for a career went 10-11. Does this lift him from the ‘outcome bias’ category? Likely not, but it keeps me from bringing that point up every time I talk about Tom Brady forever.

I think the key point of this whole analysis is that even when factoring in all of Tom’s career, he played Okay or worse in 21 of his 50 playoff or playoff-adjacent games. That’s 42% of all games. As we went over above, Peyton Manning ended his career at 56%, but even somebody with a poor playoff reputation like Aaron Rodgers played Okay or worse in just five out of his 21 playoff games. That’s 24%, and Patrick Mahomes has played that badly in only three of his 18 playoff starts. That’s 17%.

Tom also tempers this with only 11 games that are Great or better. That’s only 22%. Compared to Mahomes’ nine such games in only 18 starts (50%), it becomes pretty clear that as a playoff performer Patrick is out of Tom’s league, and the comparisons between the two must cease immediately. Even Aaron Rodgers had seven games of Great or better, or one third of all his playoff starts, and that’s after a full career. He will not fall down to Tom’s level.

For one final exercise, let’s take a really innocuous playoff performer and compare him to Tom Brady. Someone with no reputation as a loser, but no reputation as a winner either. For this purpose, I’m going to use the 11 playoff starts of Matt Hasselbeck. Here is his career tally:

All-Time Great: 0

Great: 1

Good: 4

Okay: 3

Not Good Enough: 3

This exercise reassured my confidence that my system works, because it does reveal that Tom Brady was a better playoff performer than Matt Hasselbeck, although the downward skew in Hasselbeck’s career performance tally is very similar to the one that existed in Tom’s for most of his career before he evened it out near the end.

I’ve heard the argument before (not exact, but in general) that 14 of Tom Brady’s worst 21 playoff performances came in his first 20 playoff games. If you were to just cut those games off, Tom’s playoff tallies would look a lot better, and that’s true they would, but in order to cut out those first 20 games, Tom would lose out on three Super Bowls, 14 playoff wins, 20 playoff starts. He would lose his best playoff performance (2007 Jacksonville), and all of his playoff records would go from untouchable to either already broken or in serious jeopardy.

Are the Tom Brady stans sure they want me to think of their guy as a guy with four Super Bowl championships in 30 playoff starts, seven of which (23%. Roughly the same as Aaron Rodgers) are still nothing to write home about, instead of what they have now? Then we can talk about how Joe Montana only took 23 playoff starts to win that many.

Please don’t talk to me about segmenting careers. I don’t wish to hear it.

---

So what have we learned here?

We’ve gone over every single playoff game of Tom Brady’s NFL career, and found that Tom’s 2001, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2019, 2021, and 2022 playoff runs were all thoroughly uninspiring. 2003, 2005, 2012, 2013 and 2015 were all okay, with Tom doing things I think several other NFL QBs could’ve done, but in 2004, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020 I think Tom elevated his team’s odds of winning the Super Bowl, with the biggest standout being 2017, ironically a season the Patriots did not win the Super Bowl.

In all, Tom had seven impressive playoff runs, and won the championship in five of them. This is a very fortunate rate, demonstrated by the fact that in his best playoff run he didn’t even win the championship. There’s only so much ground QB performance can cover.

You may think seven strong playoff runs is impressive, but with Patrick Mahomes already having had four (all seasons except 2020 and 2021), he only needs three more (in a career that likely has ten more years at least) to pull even, and then Tom will have no more arguments left to being the best playoff player. This is the only argument Tom has left, because on a per start basis, he’s already behind several people.

This is not to say I don’t think Tom is a great playoff player. Far from actually. I think that prior to 2011 Tom was a subpar playoff player, but from 2011 onwards Tom took off into being a very good playoff player, although still not the best.

To put in perspective the level of playoff futility Tom was able to come back from, Tom was 34 by the time he got his playoff struggles righted. Dak Prescott will turn 34 on July 29, 2027. He’s got plenty of time. Your favourite player has plenty of time. It’s already too late for them to be the best playoff player ever, just like it was for Tom Brady, but it’s not too late for them to have some championship level success, like Tom Brady did post-2011.

If you’re to take away anything from this analysis, let it be this. Tom Brady is not the best playoff (or clutch, or last two minutes, or however it may be phrased. They all mean the same thing) player of all time, no matter how much the media try to spin that narrative to you. He’s not in the top five, unless you put an extreme emphasis on volume. Don’t do that, because playoff starts only come from playoff wins, and unless a QB’s performance is Great or above, the result of the game isn’t really determined by them. Volume is a team statistic.

Using individual statistics to avoid outcome bias reveals Tom Brady as a QB in the top 4-7 range in his era as far as playoff performance, just like he’s in the 4-7 range in his era for regular season performance.

Imagine that.

Thanks so much for reading.