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Tom Brady, Cam Newton, and the Elevation of Scrubs

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to Part Two of the Kizzle Khronicles, boys and girls! This article will be related to, but much shorter than, my first article.

One of the reoccurring themes of the ongoing debate surrounding Cam Newton is Cam Newton's play with "scrubs" in relation to other top QBs when surrounded by "scrubs". "Scrubs", an obviously subjective pejorative, in this sense means "guys that aren't that good on their own who are made better by their QB and coaching scheme"....at least, that is how I'm choosing to define it in my article so deal with it.

The extent to which QBs make their players look better is something that we can debate for another five years and not even get close to a resolution, so that isn't the point of this article. However, one of the most common names that is thrown around is 3x Super Bowl Champion and future first ballot Hall of Fame QB Tom Brady in the pre-Randy Moss era. Basically, the 2001-2006 seasons.

As much as I am loathe to say it, Tom Brady is one of the greatest QBs to play the game....arguably the greatest, though Montana might have something to say about that. Anyway, I wanted to do a similar analysis of Brady's offensive supporting cast from 2001-2006 and compare it to Cam Newton's 2014 offensive supporting cast, which is what was discussed in my last article.

Many fans argue that Brady took a lackluster offensive supporting cast full of "scrubs" and won three Super Bowls with them, as opposed to QBs like Peyton Manning who has been surrounded by studs for his entire career (the latter of which is true, IMO). I wanted to see what Football Outsiders numbers looked like for those select years. I won't do too much personal analysis in this one, I'm pretty much just going to post the charts and let you come to your own conclusions.

One thing to keep in mind is that over the last 5-7 years the NFL has changed quite a bit...it is much easier to throw the ball now with the new flag-happy refs in today's NFL. This fact won't be reflected in the charts below, but it is something that you should keep in mind while looking at them.

Wide Receivers

Year QB WR Name WR Rank WR Name WR Rank WR Rank Average
2005 Tom Brady D.Branch 11 T.Brown 29 20
2001 Tom Brady T.Brown 12 D.Patten 29 20.5
2004 Tom Brady D.Patten 28 D.Givens 30 29
2003 Tom Brady D.Givens 27 D.Branch 41 34
2006 Tom Brady R.Caldwell 24 D.Gabriel 50 37
2014 Cam Newton J.Cotchery 40 K.Benjamin 46 43
2002 Tom Brady D.Patten 40 D.Branch 59 49.5

Tight Ends

Year QB TE Name TE Rank TE Rank Weighted
2002 Tom Brady C.Fauria 7 14
2004 Tom Brady D.Graham 8 16
2014 Cam Newton G. Olsen 9 18
2005 Tom Brady B.Watson 12 24
2003 Tom Brady D.Graham 15 30
2006 Tom Brady B.Watson 24 48
2001 Tom Brady J.Wiggins 38 76

Running Backs

Year QB RB Name RB Rank RB Rank Weighted
2004 Tom Brady C.Dillon 2 4
2005 Tom Brady C.Dillon 15 30
2001 Tom Brady A.Smith 17 34
2006 Tom Brady C.Dillon 17 34
2002 Tom Brady A.Smith 21 42
2003 Tom Brady A.Smith 34 68
2014 Cam Newton J.Stewart 42 84

Offensive Line

Year QB Oline Run Blocking Rank Oline Pass Blocking Rank Oline Rank Average Oline Rank Weighted
2004 Tom Brady 5 5 5 10
2002 Tom Brady 9 7 8 16
2006 Tom Brady 12 8 10 20
2005 Tom Brady 27 6 16.5 33
2001 Tom Brady 10 26 18 36
2003 Tom Brady 23 13 18 36
2014 Cam Newton 31 22 26.5 53

Offense Total

Year QB Offense Rank Total Defensive Rank QB Rating Result
2004 Tom Brady 15 7 92.6 Won Super Bowl
2005 Tom Brady 27 27 92.3
2002 Tom Brady 30 14 85.7
2006 Tom Brady 35 7 87.9
2001 Tom Brady 42 13 86.5 Won Super Bowl
2003 Tom Brady 42 2 85.9 Won Super Bowl
2014 Cam Newton 50 24 81.4 PANIC

So there you go. I used the same criteria and sources from the first article. Thanks again for reading!

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