The reason Brees is so good

So your whole defense against the checkdown is one game in which Ben had no mobility and they used one formation and barely two personnel packages? The 49er's played man cover and once it became clear that Ben couldn't move they put in more LB's and DB's as well as their pass rushing specialists and went after Ben. Why do you think Mendenhall could rattle off 9 and 10 yard gains against the vaunted Niners run defense? Because they were playing pass coverage. Since they didn't have the ability to stretch the field with play action or deeper routes that allowed for more favorable match-ups in the middle or intermediate routes.

That game aside I will say that Ben talks himself out of making many of the checkdowns or the quick slants because he doesn't trust his teammates to make plays. He sees the defender on his guy's back hip and says nope the defender will make a play on it can't throw it there instead of trusting that his guy will make the play instead.

Just as a point of clarification are you guys suggesting that a 9 yard sack is preferable to a checkdown that gains only three yards or at least keeps the ball at the LOS? So the negative play is better than a short gain?[/quote:2jxb35ic]

Most of the time it results as an incompletion. And as I said before, if checking down was all its made out to be then every team should score every time they have the ball, theoretically.

 

Short passing works for Brady in 100% of games, as he rarely throws deep. Short passes work a lot for Brees and Rodgers too, even though they do throw deep as well. The fact is, there's always going to be coverage, and it's on the QB to get the ball between coverage. Brees, Brady and Rodgers do this consistently. Ben does this great sometimes, then other times it seems like he has no accuracy.

Also, the 49'ers were giving up the deep ball because they knew Ben couldn't throw deep well due to his ankle. Not really a good game to use to make your point as not many teams will just let us throw deep the way 49'ers did, considering we do it so often.[/quote:240uk3i5]

And yet NE and NO only have 1 more victory then us. GB is on a different level but may be coming down to earth, they got some issues now.