It's not much of a secret how you beat Brady, it's just far tougher to follow through on executing. However, just like New York did in both of their super bowl wins vs Brady... we've seen Baltimore get to Brady and make him look human as well. The key to beating Brady is being able to pressure the QB with your front four, and without blitzing.
Yes, there are some new variables in this matchup, but Brady has not changed much. When pressured this season he has only completed 45% of his passes. Good for only 24th amongst NFL QB's. With one of the worst pass blocking offensive lines in the league at the moment, Brady has also been hit more than any other QB in the NFL while under pressure.
He certainly struggles more than other elite passers when the opposing front-seven generates pressure without heavy blitzing (as stated above). Per PFF, Brady ranked 21st in 2012 and 19th last season among qualifying quarterbacks (50 percent of snaps) in accuracy percentage under pressure. From Week 12 through Week 16 this season, as the offensive line appeared to take some bumps and declined down the stretch. Brady ranked 18th. In fact, per PFF, New England's pass blocking is one of the worst in all of football. This does not bode well going up against a front four that generated the most sacks in the NFL with 49, and looked like they were in full force last week against Pittsburgh. Not to mention, Ngata sure looked like he had fresh legs, didn't he?
In fact, Brady will face a Ravens front even more equipped to get after the quarterback than two years ago. Timmy Jernigan, Pernell McPhee and Elvis Dumervil each rank among the top 10 at their respective positions in PFF's pass-rush productivity metric, among those with 25 percent of snaps. In 2012, the Ravens ranking top-10 in that metric at DL and 34 OLB through wild-card weekend were Haloti Ngata and edge rusher Paul Kruger.
As mentioned, Ngata looked better for the rest in recording four quarterback hurries and a sack at Pittsburgh. Terrell Suggs typically elevates his game for the postseason. Also unmentioned this week by most… Safety Will Hill and linebacker CJ Mosley are upgrades over the January 2013 versions of Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, when narrowing purely to play.
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