MAQB: How the Saints' Defense Shut Down Tom Brady [View all]

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Add it up, and Brady’s had five games in 34 as a Buc (including playoffs) with a passer rating under 80, and three of them have come against Dennis Allen’s Saints defenses (last season’s NFC title game and this season’s game against the Patriots are the other two). So as New Orleans was leaving Florida on Sunday night, I asked Allen whether there’s some sort of blueprint he and his players drew for defending Brady.

“I don’t know that we’re doing anything crazy or anything that's unbelievable,” Allen said. “I think our guys just played well against these guys. Look, you have to get after Tom with a four-man rush. If you have to bring more than four to get pressure on him, you’re gonna struggle. We tried to be patient with the run game, and play a lot of split-safety and keep guys over the top and try to eliminate the explosive passes as much as we can and make him run the ball. And that’s kinda been the plan against him.

“And when we make him go the long, hard way, we've been fortunate enough that we end up creating some takeaways and getting off the field that way.”

There’s another part of the game, too, where I could see the Saints using a well-worn plan, one that Rex Ryan used to deploy against the Patriots with the Ravens and Jets, and that’s to force the run game inside and flood the middle of the field with coverage—forcing Brady to make throws outside the numbers and down the field. That, of course, isn’t to say Brady can’t make those throws. It’s just that in a pick-your-poison situation, the idea is to make it harder on the quarterback. And with Brady, that’s historically been the way to do it.

https://www.si.com/.amp/nfl/2021/12/20/maqb-saints-shut-out-tom-brady-buccaneers