Dan Fouts: Tom Brady gets special treatment from refs

Here are some stats for Dan Fouts. I took the time to investigate just a little bit about the topic to realize that TB doesn't get as over-protected as many people think.

2010-12 Patriots offense
Over the last 3 seasons (2010-12), the Patriots have enjoyed the best offensive peak ever by a team: 1588 points, breaking the record held by the 1999-01 Rams. In that span, Brady had a 109/24 TD-INT ratio, with an 1.4 INT% and the 2nd most passing yds with 13,962. Now that's "effective", right?

Referees "protecting" Brady
Over the same period, the Pats were beneficiated with only 5 roughing the passer penalties on their favor. That is the 4th (tied) least amount in the league. NFL teams averaged 3 per season from 2010-12, while we only had 5.

Breaking down the RTP penalties
How about those penalties? Many might argue that he gets his way at home, or any kind of ridiculous theory, but the fact is that out of those 5 flags, only 2 came at home. The 1st was on MIA Paul Soliai on 2010 in a blowout win by NE. It was already a blowout when they called. Bad call or not, it did nothing for Brady have a better game given that it was over by the time of the call.
The 2nd one was a little bit more controversial. It was on DAL Anthony Spencer on 2011 in a close win by NE. Many fans, and the media, argued about the severity of the ruling, but Spencer clearly hit Brady late on the play. In fact, Brady has been hit like this many times this season, and no referee threw a flag. So 24 home games, and only 2 RTP calls? That doesn't sound like home cooking.

QB hits
But let's get deeper. NE's opponents had a total of 190 QB hits (as FootballOutsiders.com explains: "These are plays knocking down the quarterback after a pass, not sacks.") in this 3-year span. While that is the 5th best total for a team (thanks O linemen), the relationship between the RTP penalties called, which could have been many if TB was actually "being protected by the refs", is very low. TB gets a RTP flag every 38 times he gets hit (statistically hit). That, Mr Fouts, is the 7th worst in the league. By this, we can safely say that TB is the 4th least referee-protected QB in the league in the past 3 years, just behind Tony Romo, Joe Flacco and Josh Freeman (the 3 remaining teams ahead of NE have had several QBs since 2010). If we add sacks, Brady gets a RTP flag every 54.8 hits+sacks, 8th worst.

2010-12 NE Offensive Line
And what about the O line? According to PFF, these were the pass block/protection rankings for our OL since 2010:
2010 - 10th
2011 - 8th
2012 - 16th
I'm not taking PFF as the last word, but they have a much less biased analysis than most of the "analysts" when it comes to football. As you see, we had an above average line over these 3 years, regarding pass blocking. Good, but not superb. Given that his criticism comes this year, I'm not sure what kind of games he watched. Not only our OL was average in PB, but we had only 2 OL healthy all year.

Conclusion
TB has guided the most prolific offense in any 3-year span ever, while not getting as much protection from the referees as everyone wants to think. Once again, BB, TB and NE haters fail to make a valid point in what they think is a good argument to pick on the Pats.
Fouts' isn't just wrong, he is completely lost. While he claims that TB "needs to be protected to succeed", it is completely the opposite:

In a 3-year span, Tom Brady led the best offense in the history of NFL, while being the 4th least referee-protected QB in the league, and behind a good-but-not-great pass blocking O line.

Next time, try to hate with actual facts that can back up your statements.

[Added on]

QB hits: NFL Stats: by Team Category
OL stats since 2009

RTP penalties: NFL Penalties - 2012 League Penalty Stats - NFL Penalty Stats Tracker - List/Statistics/Data of NFL Penalties - 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
NFL penalties breakdown since 2009. By team, season, player, type of penalty, etc.

Patriots offensive stats: Pro-Football-Reference.com - Pro Football Statistics and History

OL rankings:
2012 - https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2012/10/24/offensive-line-rankings/
2011 - Part 1 & part 2
2010 - Part 1 & part 2

That's all of them.

josh24 said:

Here are some stats for Dan Fouts. I took the time to investigate just a little bit about the topic to realize that TB doesn't get as over-protected as many people think.

2010-12 Patriots offense
Over the last 3 seasons (2010-12), the Patriots have enjoyed the best offensive peak ever by a team: 1588 points, breaking the record held by the 1999-01 Rams. In that span, Brady had a 109/24 TD-INT ratio, with an 1.4 INT% and the 2nd most passing yds with 13,962. Now that's "effective", right?

Referees "protecting" Brady
Over the same period, the Pats were beneficiated with only 5 roughing the passer penalties on their favor. That is the 4th (tied) least amount in the league. NFL teams averaged 3 per season from 2010-12, while we only had 5.

Breaking down the RTP penalties
How about those penalties? Many might argue that he gets his way at home, or any kind of ridiculous theory, but the fact is that out of those 5 flags, only 2 came at home. The 1st was on MIA Paul Soliai on 2010 in a blowout win by NE. It was already a blowout when they called. Bad call or not, it did nothing for Brady have a better game given that it was over by the time of the call.
The 2nd one was a little bit more controversial. It was on DAL Anthony Spencer on 2011 in a close win by NE. Many fans, and the media, argued about the severity of the ruling, but Spencer clearly hit Brady late on the play. In fact, Brady has been hit like this many times this season, and no referee threw a flag. So 24 home games, and only 2 RTP calls? That doesn't sound like home cooking.

QB hits
But let's get deeper. NE's opponents had a total of 190 QB hits (as FootballOutsiders.com explains: "These are plays knocking down the quarterback after a pass, not sacks.") in this 3-year span. While that is the 5th best total for a team (thanks O linemen), the relationship between the RTP penalties called, which could have been many if TB was actually "being protected by the refs", is very low. TB gets a RTP flag every 38 times he gets hit (statistically hit). That, Mr Fouts, is the 7th worst in the league. By this, we can safely say that TB is the 4th least referee-protected QB in the league in the past 3 years, just behind Tony Romo, Joe Flacco and Josh Freeman (the 3 remaining teams ahead of NE have had several QBs since 2010). If we add sacks, Brady gets a RTP flag every 54.8 hits+sacks, 8th worst.

2010-12 NE Offensive Line
And what about the O line? According to PFF, these were the pass block/protection rankings for our OL since 2010:
2010 - 10th
2011 - 8th
2012 - 16th
I'm not taking PFF as the last word, but they have a much less biased analysis than most of the "analysts" when it comes to football. As you see, we had an above average line over these 3 years, regarding pass blocking. Good, but not superb. Given that his criticism comes this year, I'm not sure what kind of games he watched. Not only our OL was average in PB, but we had only 2 OL healthy all year.

Conclusion
TB has guided the most prolific offense in any 3-year span ever, while not getting as much protection from the referees as everyone wants to think. Once again, BB, TB and NE haters fail to make a valid point in what they think is a good argument to pick on the Pats.
Fouts' isn't just wrong, he is completely lost. While he claims that TB "needs to be protected to succeed", it is completely the opposite:

In a 3-year span, Tom Brady led the best offense in the history of NFL, while being the 4th least referee-protected QB in the league, and behind a good-but-not-great pass blocking O line.

Next time, try to hate with actual facts that can back up your statements.

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Well done. A total refute of Fouts.

It's sad that it can be that easy to refute someone who is well paid to publish nationally recognized writing. Yet another sad commentary on the industry itself.
You should email this to his boss and ask for his job

I hate when people who say things like this don't have twitter so I cant give them a piece of my mind! The slander continues...

Dan Fouts was Peyton Manning before Peton Manning was.
One epic choke artist deserves another.

ausbacker said:

What is it about the playoffs that causes people to say incredibly stupid things?

If Fouts is going to make such a comment, I'd like him to reference the specific plays/moments where Brady was protected by the stripes and the outcome of said protection.

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Maybe it is not about what you say, and more that you say something the may increase your profile and get free facetime....

This is the same method as our local contrarians.. Felger, Borges et al.

DarrylS said:

Maybe it is not about what you say, and more that you say something the may increase your profile and get free facetime....

This is the same method as our local contrarians.. Felger, Borges et al.

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Of that I have no doubt DarrylS. Is the trade off really worth it? I may hold a contentious position but I damn well wouldn't be pleased to have idiotic comments with no factual basis to them. Those sorts of things are best left to Tomase.

Offices of Dan Fouts
1806 Watermere Lane
Winter Garden, FL 34786

office 888.550.6672
fax 407.909.6202

Dan Fouts Speaker - Official Website of Former San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame Quarterback

At 3:25pm yesterday on Sportsradio 980 in DC, Doc Walker casually stated that the Patriots had been found guilty by the league in 2007 for videotaping opponents' practices.

It is what it is. The Patriots never fight back.

Fouts is 3-4 in the playoffs.

NFL starting quarterback playoff records - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The man is a Black Hole in the knowledge department. Any facts or insights within his gravitational field are sucked into the void that is Dan Fouts at an increasing velocity until they no longer exist.

I just tweeted a link to josh24's post to the account of the new show CBS is attempting to launch he spewed this garbage on. Not that it will do any good. It's just a real pet peeve of mine when national football mediots/commentators spew ignorant, uninformed crap as if it's fact. And that they do so on shows that surround them with talent too equally uninformed to refute them.

That this prolific empty yardage stiff with a career .500 winning pct. and almost as many INT's as TD's was a first ballot HOF inductee is an indictment of the media driven process. It's no wonder so many deserving players never had a shot...

Fouts is just angry that Brady booted him out of the top 10 for career passing yardage, and took 3 fewer seasons to do it.

shmessy said:

At 3:25pm yesterday on Sportsradio 980 in DC, Doc Walker casually stated that the Patriots had been found guilty by the league in 2007 for videotaping opponents' practices.

It is what it is. The Patriots never fight back.

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Guys, keep in mind what's really going on here: the Patriots continued success is simply blowing the minds of many non-Pats fan NFL followers. You know how it is when there is another team, not the one you love, that has been there at the top for more than a few years. After a while you just get so sick of seeing them succeed, you just start hating everything about them. I know I felt that way eventually about the Chicago Bulls, the 49ers, the Canadiens, the Pinstripes, etc. You feel like, OK, I respected them at first, but its enough already! The Patriots have been at or near championship level for 11 years - 7 of those years making it at least to the Conference Championship game. I don't know if any franchise has ever sustained the level of excellence the Patriots have for this long. Even if "camera on the sidelines instead of where it was allowed to be"-gate hadn't happened, people would have invented other reasons to despise the Pats; hence Ayanbadejo's and Fouts' absurdities these past couple of days. Let's just take it as a perverse version of respect for our guys, and accept it will not end until well after the Patriots Reign ends.

Great post josh24!

Do you have links to some of your numbers?

Dan Fouts, the dellusional over-rated has-been.

We all have to forgive Dan as he is still haunted in his dreams by the face of Don Coryell standing an inch from his grill screaming PASS PASS PASS, don't run that ball. PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

It's nice Dan has been able to fill his post NFL career with the lucrative position of being a football commentator. It's not like he has any rings he needs to polish.

:blahblah::blahblah::blahblah:

Some great stats posters brought up on this topic. I was aware that Brady was not even close to being the benefactor of many roughing the passer penalties, but had no idea it is as low as it is.

I wish someone had called in while DF was on and pointed out that the facts did not mesh with his argument. Then I would have loved to hear his stuttering rebuke of an attempt to save that smug bearded face.

mgcolby said:

Brady has received two roughing the passer calls this season. In comparison Schaub received 4.

He's tied for 14th with 11 other teams/QB's as beneficiary's of Roughing the passer.

Its one thing when moronic fans spew this stuff. But a guy who has ready access to any stat he wants should take the minute to look it up.

Tannenhill received 7, Newton 6, Oak/Philly as a team both received 6, Fitzpatrick/Luck and Rodgers all received 5.

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Which if you think about how much these other QBs scramble the list really suggests it's being called evenly across the league. The only name you don't see is Rapelessburger but he missed a lot of games this year keeping his total down but I bet it's high in other years.

Modest said:

Fouts gets special treatment from his employers by being able to say something so incredulously stupid without being publicly *****slapped and fired.

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Damn man made me spill my coffee

This is just one of those things that has become a "truth" in the NFL by jealous haters repeating it over and over in a nazi-esque propaganda campaign against the Patriots, and more specifically Belichick and Brady. It used to annoy me, strike that it still annoys me but I don't get defensive and start yelling back anymore. I just laugh with the knowledge that to them saying we haven't won a Superbowl since 2004 is actually an insult when they're fans of teams like the Jets. Tom Brady has more playoff wins than half the franchises in this league and he's continually performed at a higher level than their chosen one since he became the Patriots starter plus he's married to a super model and together they have more money than god, it's not surprising that they're jealous

Me to Dan Fouts:



Moving on.

Fouts + abandejo = ticked off Brady = win (hopefully )