Tom Brady Has Lost the Ability to Throw Deep

Tom Brady looked pretty bad Monday night against the Los Angeles Rams, throwing two bad, key interceptions in a 27-24 loss. If you thought Brady was struggling to throw the ball down the field accurately, your eyes weren't deceiving you. His ability to go deep has completely abandoned him, shrinking the field for his Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The deep ball has been removed from his arsenal.

Ian Rapoport pointed out some of the crazy stats surrounding Brady's deep throws:

You read that right, on deep passes (throws with 20 or more air yards) during Weeks 8, 9 and 10, Brady is 0-for-19 with three interceptions. In fact, he's missed on his last 22 deep throws. The 22 consecutive missed deep throws is the longest streak for a quarterback since 2017.

What's worse, if you go back to Week 5, he's 3-for-36 on deep passes, with all of those completions coming against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 7. So yeah, it's safe to say that at 43 years-old, the deep ball has left Brady's arsenal.

It's not just that he's missing when going deep, it's just how far off the throws are. The game-clinching interception Monday night was a good seven yards over his intended receiver's head:

And his first interception wasn't even in the same area code of receiver Chris Godwin:

I don't know how Brady lost his deep-ball ability so rapidly, or if it's something he can regain, but this is an alarming trend. Bucs coach Bruce Arians runs an offense known for exploiting mismatches down the field. If his quarterback can't do that, the scheme will not be fully utilized. That's a big-time problem.