Patriots fans are obviously familiar with the pre-snap reads that Tom Brady does when the offense is on the field, which has become one of the reasons he’s among the NFL’s elite at his position.
On Wednesday Brady talked a little about how he handles certain situations based on how the defenses try and disguise what they’re doing. Brady said that if they appear to be trying to hide who was the “Mike”, they’ll do a quick count and snap the ball to try and catch someone out of position. On the other hand, if they’re not really trying to hide what they’re doing, Brady said that’s when they take their time and try to make sure they’ve got the best personnel match-ups they can to move the chains.
It’s all part of the game, and fortunately they’ve got one of the NFL’s best playing it.
“So they say, ‘Let’s disguise, let’s disguise,’ and I go up and say, ‘Blue go,’ and the ball is snapped and now they have a guy totally out of position,” explained Brady. “There’s a fine line between what you’re doing and if we feel that it’s going to be a big disguise game, then you have a lot of quick counts. Ultimately, if they’re showing what you’re doing, then you take your time.
“That’s just the cat-and-mouse that goes on all day long especially with good defenses and good secondaries. You could have one guy that’s trying to disguise but if nobody else is, that makes no sense. Really it’s a coordinated effort by a defense to try to disguise. Ultimately, it’s about covering guys and being in the right position. You can try to disguise all you want, but if the offense is making plays then ultimately the coach is going to say ‘Screw this, go over and cover your guy.’”
It’s definitely something for fans to keep in mind the next time they play when you watch Brady at the line.
Another area that was discussed was whether or not they go into a game planning on utilizing the no-huddle more, or if it simply comes down to the situations they’re faced with.
“It all depends,” said Brady. “It depends on what we think that we’re going to get. It depends what we think of the other defense – how they’ll be able to handle it. It depends on a lot of factors. I don’t think we go in there and say ‘We’re not going to run no-huddle this week.’ I think there’s times we may say ‘We may run it, we may not, we’ll see how the game goes.’ When you get into two-minute situations, you’re definitely in no-huddle. It’s just part of a carryover from that group for us. Really it’s no-huddle, but you have a little bit more time when you’re not really in a two-minute situation.”
Things like this are always interesting to hear about, and now we know a little bit more about what goes on behind the scenes with the Patriots offense.