Commentary

Quick Reads: Tom Brady stands out

The Pats' QB sits atop Football Outsiders' list of Week 10's top performers

Updated: November 15, 2010, 12:47 PM ET
By Bill Barnwell | Football Outsiders

On Sunday night, Tom Brady carved the Pittsburgh Steelers' pass defense apart. The same guy who struggled last week to complete simple passes against the Cleveland Browns, of all teams, went 31-of-43 for 350 yards with three scores and no picks. He wasn't sacked once, and outside of an intentional grounding penalty in the fourth quarter, it's hard to find a single Brady misstep all game. He even pulled off a 3-yard sneak for a touchdown.

What makes the performance even more remarkable, though, is that Brady did all this against the Steelers. In Pittsburgh! Those Steelers have the league's second-best defense, fourth-best pass defense and second-best sack rate. Factor that in, and Brady accrued 269 DYAR on Sunday night. It was the best performance of the year by a quarterback per DYAR, beating out the 245 DYAR Carson Palmer picked up against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 7.

It's not the first big day for Brady, of course, but the combination of the impressive numbers and difficult opposing defense leads to a question DYAR can answer: Was this the best performance of Brady's career?


To find out where Brady's game against the Steelers ranks among his best performances all time, plus a look at Football Outsiders' list of the best, worst and most surprising performances of NFL Week 10 -- including a radical suggestion for the Vikings and a strategic error by the Giants -- you must be an ESPN Insider.

Bill Barnwell

Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) is a staff writer for Grantland.

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