Football <\/p>\n
\u201cOh, what, the greatest quarterback of all time, who retired just three years ago, might still be better than some of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL? Please, Oliver, bless us with more of your brilliant insights!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Bullet point summary by AI<\/p>\n Listen. Rather than use Tom Brady\u2019s admittedly glorious<\/a> performance at the Fanatics Flag Football Classic to simply disparage the worst quarterbacks the NFL has to offer, I suggest a more worthy cause: use Brady as the universal solvent for bad quarterback play and figure out what certain teams are missing under center. With great sarcasm comes great responsibility.<\/p>\n Yes, they\u2019d probably all benefit from any version of Brady, but the nuances of bad quarterbacking is a high art \u2014 you don\u2019t just get to walk into a Bad Quarterback Fan Club meeting and throw around some platitudes like \u201clol guys did you see Tua last year?\u201d We have standards around here. And instead of saying something ridiculous like \u201cJustin Fields (not a starter) should be more like Brady (they could not be more stylistically different),\u201d I picked a trio of pocket passers to evaluate with the Brady Scale. Hopefully, we will all learn something valuable from the 48-year-old.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tagovailoa and I have not had the greatest offseason together. We had a falling out in my winners and losers column<\/a> and then didn\u2019t exactly mend things in my power rankings<\/a> a week later. But I\u2019m turning over a new leaf; rather than infinitely question what the heck the Atlanta Falcons are thinking with employing Tua, I\u2019m going to tell you why <\/em>I\u2019m so passionate about this from the perspective of Tom Brady\u2019s \u201cmobility,\u201d better referred to as \u201ctwitchability.\u201d<\/p>\n Brady was not a mobile quarterback, not when he entered the league and not when he left it. But he was successful as a pocket passer not simply because of laser beam accuracy and calm decision-making: he was shockingly <\/em>mobile in the pocket. Look at this clip from the flag football game. He\u2019s 48 years old.<\/em><\/p>\n \ud83d\udc10 @TomBrady<\/a> to Diggs! \ud83d\udd25 pic.twitter.com\/27dzqn84Oa<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 FOX Sports (@FOXSports) March 21, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Those hips don\u2019t lie. When you\u2019re an immobile pocket passer, micro-movements from your shoulders, hips or torso are often the difference between taking a drive-killing sack or having an extra two seconds to throw. Tagovailoa\u2019s biggest weakness, by far, is how when he feels pressure, the play is over. He bails out to one side or the other, often tucking the ball and trying to reset his feet under heavy pressure. But he is not athletic enough to pull off that kind of magic act; neither was Brady most of the time. If Tagovailoa wants to remain a starter in this league, \u201ctwitchability\u201d is the name of the game.<\/p>\n In 2022, Tom Brady had the shortest time to throw<\/a> among starters (and most backups), coming in at 72nd overall among all players to throw a pass in the NFL that year. He was taking 2.32 seconds to get the ball out. In 2025, Shedeur Sanders, albeit in a small sample, took 2.92 seconds<\/a>. In the Time To Throw Community (TTTC), we call a 0.6-second difference \u201can eternity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The number of things that can go wrong in an NFL backfield in 2.32 seconds is still fairly high; your left guard could get obliterated by a stunt and suddenly your running back can\u2019t pick up two free blitzers. But the number of things that can go wrong in an NFL backfield in 2.92 seconds is unsustainably high. <\/em>And that\u2019s 2.92 seconds per dropback on average <\/em>over the course of an entire game. Ipso facto, we\u2019re cooked.<\/p>\n When I watched Sanders at Colorado, he clearly had tons of physical talent and serious poise. That allowed him to dominate <\/a>his less-than-stellar college competition in his two years before going to the NFL. However, he also sometimes suffered from \u201csee it, throw it\u201d syndrome, which is a habit that most young quarterbacks need time to kick: they want to know <\/em>a guy is open before they rifle it in. That worked in the Big 12, it does not <\/em>work in the NFL.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sanders is a player I really enjoyed watching in college, and when he was locked in, he could definitely anticipate throws and get the ball out of his hands. But he hasn\u2019t done that in the NFL yet, when the pass rush and defensive backs are another planet of scary. Channel Brady, and throw the ball quick.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Growing up a Patriots fan, the number of times I said, \u201cjust gotta\u2019 take the sack there,\u201d frankly, doesn\u2019t make sense. You basically never want to take a sack in the NFL, but sometimes the protection breaks down to the point where you just have to. Brady was a fine purveyor of reducing the impact of sacks by always protecting the ball and not trying to be a hero. He was also incredible at throwing the ball away, throwing it at some guys feet, or just generally not turning pressures into sacks. He is among the least-sacked quarterbacks of all time,<\/a> which is one of those qualifications to being an all-time great.\u00a0<\/p>\n Geno Smith was among the most sacked quarterbacks last year, getting sacked on a fairly ridiculous 10.56 percent<\/a> of his dropbacks. His offensive line in Las Vegas was terrible, but the New York Jets do not have a better offensive line<\/a> whatsoever; Smith is going to have to take fewer sacks if he is going to impact winning.\u00a0<\/p>\n Smith has always taken a lot of sacks, but his best season in 2023 is a notable exception<\/a>. I\u2019m not exactly breaking new ground here by saying that a quarterback who takes fewer sacks is going to be better, but \u2026 that\u2019s kind of the long and short of it. To be elite, Smith will basically have to halve that sack rate to around 5 to 6 percent, his figure in 2023. Tom Brady\u2019s late-career sack-avoidance is the blueprint: he was sacked on an astronomically low 2.9 percent of dropbacks<\/a> in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
1. Tua Tagovailoa<\/h2>\n
Most \u201cTom Brady\u201d Thing to Improve On: \u201cTwitchability\u201d<\/h4>\n
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2. Shedeur Sanders<\/h2>\n
Most \u201cTom Brady\u201d Thing to Improve On: Throw the Ball Quickly<\/h4>\n
3. Geno Smith\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Most \u201cTom Brady\u201d Thing to Improve On: Situational Sacks<\/h4>\n
More NFL news and analysis:<\/u><\/h3>\n