How Tom Brady matches up against Andrew Luck

November 15th, 2014

by Dakota Antelman

The New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts will play a huge game Sunday in Indianapolis. The game holds great playoff implications for both teams as the two could very well meet in the playoffs. If such is the case, a win in this game would give a team a vital edge in a potential tie breaker scenario. 

But beyond league logistics, Sunday's game will pit two of the NFL's best players against each other. 

Tom Brady, a 15 year NFL veteran is already destined to become a first ballot hall of famer but has not slowed down at all. Andrew Luck, a young QB out of Stanford has played well enough in his first three years in the NFL to argue his place as the heir to the throne as greatest quarterback in football once Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees all retire in the coming years.

However, with Manning, Brady and Brees each still smashing records at elite rates, it looks like Luck may still have to wait a few years for his coronation. Needless to say though, each time he plays one of these incumbent NFL greats, it provides for a rather spectacular show. Also, each time he starts, it solicits a ritualistic check up on whether or not he may have already eclipsed the greats in some specific aspect of the game. 

Before he and Brady match up in their 3rd ever meeting, we glance at how they have fared in the past and how the two have played for their separate teams this year...

This Season

	Tom Brady	Andrew Luck
Passing yards	2,394	3,085
Touchdowns	22	26
Completion percentage	64.1	63.6
Rush yards	16	129
Interceptions	3	9
Rating	103.5	100.3
Team record	7-2	6-3

Earlier this week, Tom Brady eluded to the fact that Andrew Luck really has been playing brilliant football. Using a superior mobility in the pocket, Luck has scrambled for 129 yards and managed to keep plays alive long enough to actually attempt roughly 180 more passes than Brady. 

Those extra passes have led to 48 more completions by Luck than Brady and almost 700 more yards. Furthermore, Luck's 3,085 passing yards are the most by any quarterback through 9 weeks in the history of the NFL. If he keeps up the torrent pace he will most certainly be able to grab his first 5,000 yard season with ease. 

But in the stat that counts, team record, Luck is unfortunately lacking. At 6-3 the Colts are not in a place where they could get out of Wild Card week without playing. The Patriots who currently sit 1st overall in the AFC with a record of 7-2 are there because of their quarterback who has kept possession of the football like it is his baby.

Brady has thrown just 3 interceptions this year. None of them occurred in moments that catastrophically broke the game they were thrown in. Luck however has at times put his team in a deep hole with the 9 interceptions he has thrown in 9 games this season. 

As good as he is, Luck has made some rookie mistakes this season that have frustrated his coaches.

"My thoughts were, 'I sure am glad they don't let coaches go on the field where you could strangle somebody,'" Colts quarterback coach Clyde Christensen said of Luck "My thoughts were to kill him. So yeah, they're extreme thoughts that go through my mind when that happens." 

As much as his statistics signify is excellence, it takes a long time to build the kind of football intelligence that some of the greats have. Luck's lacking that football IQ per se is shown in his head to head match-ups with the veteran Brady...

All-Time Meetings

	Tom Brady	Tom Brady game average	Andrew Luck	Andrew Luck game average
Passing yards	529	264.5	665	332.5
Touchdowns	3	1.5	4	2
Completion percentage	60.3	60.3	51.4	51.4
Interceptions	0	0	6	3
Team record	2-0	n/a	0-2	n/a

Brady and Luck have played each other twice. Their first meeting was in Week 11 of Luck's 2012 season. In that game, the Patriots wasted no time welcoming the then highly touted rookie to the house of horrors that Gillette Stadium can become with a 59-24 beat down. 

Brady threw for 331 yards and 3 touchdowns in that game. Those were impressive statistics given that the game was all but decided by the end of the 1st half. But what is forgotten is the fact that in the same game, Luck nearly matched Brady by throwing 2 touchdowns of his own. In fact, that game actually featured more passing yards from Luck (334) than Brady. 

But as said previously, it was interceptions that doomed Luck in that game. He tossed a pair of late picks, one of which was returned for a defensive score. 

But in the end, Luck was not bad for his first meeting with Brady.

A little over one year later, he was actually better. 

After not playing in the 2013 NFL Regular season, Luck and Brady met in the divisional round of that year's playoffs. Though the game was once again won by the Patriots, Brady played a historically bad round of football. He threw for just 198 yards and failed to toss a touchdown pass. His team was bailed out by lights out performances by LeGarret Blount and Shane Vereen and clutch kicks from Stephan Goskowski. Even so, the Colts nearly won. 

That was because Luck logged his second 300 yard game vs the Patriots while throwing 2 more touchdowns. 

So how does that all shake out? 

When you average out the raw stats from those two games, it looks like Luck has been consistently better in all the categories he is better in this season. He averaged more yards per game (332.5) than Brady (264.5) as well as more touchdowns per game (2) than Brady (1.5). He threw more passes but once again created a completion percentage that is 8.9 percentage points lower than Brady's. 

Then of course there were the interceptions. Luck's 3 interceptions per game where what really doomed him. 

Going forward, Luck has the skills to beat New England but in this year's game that features one of the best Patriots secondaries in years, his lack of accuracy could also see him ripped apart by Darrele Revis and Brandon Browner. 

"We have to make sure we keep him in the pocket," Revis said. "He does a great job of stepping up in the pocket. He's athletic. People don't recognize he's extending plays and now as a secondary we have to plaster on our man on longer downs.''

*All statistics from ESPN. ESPN gathers its statistics from the Elias Sports Bureau.