Did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers make the right choice signing Tom Brady?

Is Tom Brady a good fit for Bruce Arians and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a choice to make this offseason to start new with Tom Brady or continue with Jameis Winston. Although they do have the opportunity to bring Winston back they took a massive leap in signing Brady. After 20 years of football in New England, he is headed to a new city, new team, and most importantly a new system.

Bruce Arians’ offense is well known around the league as the “No Risk it, No Biscuit” offense. It is one that is known for its spectacular fireworks which could be seen during his times in Indianapolis with Andrew Luck, Arizona with Carson Palmer, and most recently with Winston in Tampa Bay. In all these situations he was paired with great arm talent and the ability to attack deep throws continuously.

Arians, Palmer and the Arizona Cardinals

After hiring Arians, the Cardinals sought out Palmer to fill their needs at starting quarterback after watching multiple players fail to take over the position including Derek Anderson, John Skelton, Max Hall, Kevin Kolb, Ryan Lindley and Brian Hoyer. This put fans and national critics up in arms as Palmer was coming off a less than spectacular season where he led the Raiders to a 4-11 season.

However, Arians saw something in Palmer and did not want to start all over in developing a draftee. This is where my red flags begin to raise for Brady. During Palmer’s first season in Arizona, Palmer and his offensive teammates struggled with inconsistencies due to the complexity of the offense.

In 2013, he threw for 24 touchdowns and 22 interceptions which was often related to lack of understanding of the offense by the offensive line, receivers and the quarterback. In 2014 and 2015, Palmer and the offense grew more comfortable and his TD-INT ratio dropped significantly to 46-14.

This offense takes time to understand, implement and compete at a high level. I know that Brady is one of the most cerebral quarterbacks to ever take the field but it has taken time for players to understand this offense including all offensive positions, not just the quarterback. One positive is he will enter the system in year two of implementation, not during the inaugural year but we all know his time is limited in this league and he must get the most out of his offense now.

Arians, Winston and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Arians era started with a quarterback in his final year of a rookie deal attempting to solidify himself as the franchise signal-caller of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Comparing his first season in Tampa Bay to his first in Arizona, it seemed like Arians was still focused on the same high power offense as before sticking to his motto of “No Risk it, No Biscuit.” But, it did seem like he had learned from the first attempt and scaled it back.

Also, Byron Leftwich had taken over play-calling duties which may have led to a few stagnant play-calling periods which Arizona saw during Leftwich’s time there.

As for Winston, he led the Buccaneers to a 7-9 season while leading the league in passing yards, passing attempts, interceptions, and pick 6s. He was also only one passing touchdown behind league leader Lamar Jackson and was sacked only one fewer time than the quarterbacks who were sacked the most in the league. All this is trying to put in perspective that this offensive can be extremely productive but also can quickly become your team’s worst nightmare as well.

I think Brady will significantly reduce the number of turnovers in the offense but he will be forced to hold the ball longer and create more with a lack of a run game than he is accustomed to. He will take more hits than ever before which will also be a new challenge for him but are part of this system shown by both Winston and Palmer’s sack history.

Comparing quarterbacks in the Bruce Arians system

Carson Palmer:

2015 Average Depth of Throw (aDoT): 11.3 yards (led the league)
2016 Deep Throw Percentage (DT%): 16.9%

2016/2017 ((Average Attempts/Distance)/Game):
10+ yards: 18.4 Attempts
15+ yards: 10 Attempts
20+ yards:  5.3 Attempts

Jameis Winston:

2019 aDoT: 10.9 yards
2019 DT%: 15.8%

2019 ((Average Attempts/Distance)/Game):
10+ yards: 17.5 Attempts
15+ yards:  9.8 Attempts
20+ yards:  6.0 Attempts

Tom Brady:

2019 aDoT: 8.0 yards  (2018: 8.3 yards)
2019 DT%: 10.1% (2018: 11.4%)

2019 ((Average Attempts/Distance)/Game):
10+ yards: 10.9 Attempts (2018: 11.7)
15+ yards:  6.3 Attempts (2018: 5.2)
20+ yards:  3.4 Attempts (2018: 2.3)

The data for these comparisons were collected from Pro Football Focus and Next Gen Stats.

Evaluating the Numbers

Brady has only exceeded an aDoT of 9.0 and a DT% of 11.5 once in his career both occurring in 2017 where his top two targets were split between a tight end (Rob Gronkowski) and deep-ball threat Brandin Cooks. Although Arians typically does not use a tight end as a top target, this is something that needs to change for his system to take shape with Tom Brady. He did this some in Arizona with Ricky Seals-Jones but it is typically not a huge part of his system.

The biggest eye-popping stat that I saw while sorting through all this information was Tom Brady’s aDoT being significantly lower than that of Winston and Palmer in Arians’ system. I searched further through the data and saw the discrepancy show up the most in his passes over 15+ and 20+ yards which is where the Arians’ system lives and dies.

Brady has the accuracy on the deep ball to make this system work however it hasn’t ever been deployed at the rate Arians will ask.

According to Pro Football Focus, Brady’s On Target % and Big Time Throw Percentage (BTT%) have both been regressing over the past four years. These two numbers show that he has lost some arm strength/talent over his time in the league, which should be expected. However, those are things he will need an abundance of to put together the circus show that is the Bruce Arians offense.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers moving forward with TB12 at QB

If Arians shapes his system to something less aggressive that works to Brady’s strengths, less deep passes and more accurate short to mid-range passes with a deep ball or two sprinkled in, this could be a match made in heaven.

That being said, Arians has typically run the system the same no matter who is at quarterback and hasn’t been overly caring about shaping it to their strengths. He has a philosophy and hasn’t seemed like one that is ready to abandon that for a single player.

Moving forward we will have to see what other changes Tampa Bay does to help out Brady but it should start with evaluating if they have the proper tight ends in place as well as going after a quality offensive tackle either in the draft or pairing Brady with someone like Jason Peters, previously of the Philadelphia Eagles.

After free agency and the draft we will all be left waiting to evaluate the $50 million question, did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers make the right choice of pairing Bruce Arians and Tom Brady?