Interesting post from the stat obsessed geeks over at Football Outsiders. (And I use ‘geek’ in the best possible way). Part way through, we see our own beloved Brett Favre mentioned and read the following:
Favre was terrible last year when it came to completing long-distance throws. His completion percentage was just 34.4 percent on passes of 16-25 yards, and just 20.4 percent on passes over 25 yards. It makes sense that an older Favre may have lost arm strength and the ability to be accurate when throwing deep. Perhaps the Packers want to dial down on those long passes and put more mid range throws into the playbook to take advantage of Favre’s remaining strengths and hide his weaknesses.
As this is taken from an article regarding dropped passes, it’s fun to note that the whole premise of the talent (or lack thereof) of the receivers running those deep routes is disregarded for the chance to rip on Favre. What people don’t understand is that Brett has never been a great long-ball thrower. He’s always been able to get it there, but his ‘accuracy’ on long throws has always been dependent on the player he was throwing to. So no wonder when he was bombing away to Sterling, Jackson, Bradford (whose one talent was catching the bomb), and (for one statistical bonanza of a season) Walker, his ‘accuracy’ was perceived to be much greater than it actually was. Now that he’s heaving it up to the heavens for guys like Holiday, Driver (yes, Driver is terrible on deep throws - the one exception being that catch in Miami last year in the middle of double coverage - would that were the norm…) and Ruvell Martin - well, it’s perhaps a bit premature to say Favre’s touch on the deep ball has gotten away from him.
