1a. On Sunday in New Orleans, the quarterback matchup will be one old man who leans on a horizontal game and another old man who throws downfield.
Back in November, when the hot summer sun beat relentlessly on our weary backs, the narrative was that Tom Brady couldn’t throw downfield anymore, dooming his marriage with Bruce Arians. At the time, he was in an extended slump and, 12 games into the year (and going into a late-year bye week), hitting 28.1% of attempts that traveled 20-plus yards in the air. Over the final four games of the regular season, he hit 59.1% of those throws—an absurdly high rate—while upping his downfield attempts from 5.30 per game to 5.50 per game, and once every 6.18…
