Heading into the season, it was reasonable to believe that there was only one thing that would possibly hold the New Orleans Saints back: Quarterback Drew Brees having the sort of regression that, frankly, might be expected for a 41-year-old.
Through two games, it sure seems like Brees has fallen off dramatically from even the QB he was in recent years — which was just an echo of who he was in his prime.
Brees, of course, doesn’t believe the growing narrative around him. “Well, my job is to execute the offense,” he told reporters Monday night after the Saints lost 34-24 to the Las Vegas Raiders. “My job’s not to have the most air yards or throw the ball down the field most or anything like that.”
Therein lies the concerning part, though. Brees is mostly throwing short passes in an effort to execute the offense and he has not been nearly as precise as his team requires.
Through two weeks of play, Brees has the third-worst Completion Percentage Over Expectation in the NFL, at -8.4 (some guy named Patrick Mahomes ranks only slightly ahead of him, so it’s fair to question the small sample size here.)
As we point out in our Monday Night Football review above, it’s too early to count out Brees. He’s had rough patches in other years, and there’s certainly some validity to his claim that the offense simply isn’t in sync yet. This is, after all, probably the strangest season in NFL history. Maybe with more live reps Brees will get back to whipping the ball quickly into tight windows while using impeccable timing to complete longer passes, but for now the Saints offense is stalled and Brees is the primary reason why.
