Brady Is Good From The Neck Up & Not Just His Brain

By Will Cinelli, The Scouting Academy

On most Thursdays FirstDown PlayBook brings you a special treat here on the Coaches Community website. We feature a breakdown of personnel and technique provided by our friends over at The Scouting Academy who are our go to experts in this field

When you boil it down to the most fundamental level, a quarterback needs to throw the ball to the open guy. But at the highest level, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Here, we can take a look at the greatest to ever do it, Tom Brady, and can watch how anticipation and manipulation come into play.

The first thing Brady does here is to force the defense to play their coverage honestly. He puts his eyes down the middle of the field and avoids staring down his target. This way, the defense can’t overplay his eyes and work toward Brady’s intended receiver.

Now he snaps his eyes to the vertical on the outside by Scotty Miller. But here’s where anticipation and mental processing come into play. Brady knows he’s throwing this ball to Miller, who is still 5 yards away from the DB! But the corner’s body positioning tells Brady all he needs to know. There is no way the defender will be able to flip his hips and accelerate fast enough to match Miller running by at full speed.

Devin White’s Ceiling Is Very High

Then the final piece of the puzzle is for Brady to make the right throw. Because of the positioning of the defender, he can’t just rip a low line drive to Miller. Instead, he has to opt for the pitching wedge, delivering a high, arcing ball with lots of touch. With the ball coming from such height, the angle and perfect location of the throw make it impossible for the DB to make a play on the ball. All Miller has to do is make the catch and keep his feet in.