Higher in the all-time list:Brees vs Ben?

Now do the rank of defenses Ben had to play against versus the rank of the defenses Brees had the good fortune to play against.

 

My guess is that a lot of this is the result of (1) cap allocation and (2) style.

(1) Cap allocation: My guess is that across Ben's career we spend more on defense than the Saints did with Brees. On average, that probably meant that our defensive talent was better (or at least our guys were older) and our offensive talent (outside of the QBs) was worse (or at least younger). Since the NFL cap makes each season a zero-sum contest re: spending, I think this is essentially arguing that Ben probably played on teams with better defensive talent around him, but worse offensive talent around him. It might be because I'm a Steelers fan, but I think when you have a very good QB you should be spending cap and money on D because the QB should be a force multiplier on the offensive players.

I think that's certainly what we were doing when we were more successful.

We were less successful when we allocated big contracts to a WR (who went crazy) and a RB (who wouldn't even take our money!). But Ben probably had better passing stats. Which is probably some kind of anecdote about this entire argument.

(2) Style: As I'm sure we all know, the Steelers rarely do shootouts. Throughout Ben's career (with Cowher and Tomlin), the focus has been on winning but not driving up the score. We have generally been about trying to win games while avoiding shootouts. I think this is reflected in both (1) the higher defensive rating and (2) the fact that Ben has less gaudy stats than Brees.

Style wasn't just about how we played, but the players we put on the field too. The defensive minded coach loves Heath Miller because he's good at blocking and catching...and they probably think of it in that order. I love Heath too! The offensive coach picks Jimmy Graham because he sees TE1 more as a WR than an old school guy who can block well AND catch. He'll just put someone else in if he needs a guy to block.

Summary (although it's not shorter than the post...dammit!) I doubt anyone is surprised by this difference. The defensive minded coaches made defensive minded teams (especially Cowher because Ben was still young). And the offensive minded coach didn't. The other side of this coin is probably that the average quality of the offensive guys around Brees was better than what Ben played with. Because their focus was more on offense.

I wonder what the difference in their average cap% is across their careers. It's probably similar because they were both very good QBs. But I strongly believe that a big part of why Brady was dominant was because he played below his market value (usually by something like an elite player at a medium value position I think).

 

This is a good point.

I also think teams tend to mirror their opponents.

Part of the reason we had such a great defense in the Mason/Duck/Mason year was that the defense really was very good.

And I think part of it was the opposing teams knew that if they got to 10 points (exaggerating...but probably not by much), it would probably be enough.

My brother is a Chiefs fan (who kind of stopped watching the NFL right before they drafted Mahomes). So I remember this playoff game between the Colts and KC where the opposite was true. These were two incredible offenses going head to head. Both teams went into this game thinking "we've got to score 50 to win this game because the other team is going to score as much as they can no matter what". I don't think anyone has ever said that sentence about a Steelers coached team since I started watching the NFL (right at the end of Noll's tenure).

It's probably possible to test this, but my guess is that generally when you have a high scoring offense teams tend to be more aggressive against you (and score more points). And when you struggle to score, teams probably tend to be less aggressive against you (and score fewer points).