Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and the NFL’s Scoring Decline

But there’s one potential explanation that doesn’t have to do with rule changes, officiating or Xs and Os. The scoring decline happens to neatly align with down years from two all-time great quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers.

The struggles of Brady in Tampa Bay and Rodgers in Green Bay have been defining themes of this season. The Buccaneers fell to 3-5 with a loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night. The Packers are also now 3-5 after their 27-17 defeat on Sunday night to the Buffalo Bills.. It’s entirely possible that both teams, which entered the year as Super Bowl favorites, miss the playoffs entirely.

Their downturns also happen to account for the bulk of the NFL’s scoring dip.

NFL teams in 2022 are averaging 21.9 points per game entering Monday—down from 23 a year ago. But if the Packers and Bucs were putting up points at the same rate they were last year? Then the average would be 22.6. In other words, the slides of Brady, Rodgers and their respective teams account for most of the league’s scoring decline.

When scoring reached historic levels in recent years—2020 was the all-time high—it wasn’t a coincidence. Several factors, such as the way rules favor offenses more than ever, coalesced to create a new paradigm. One of those was the absurd wealth of talent at the position that dictates scoring more than any other: quarterback.

While a new generation of superstar quarterbacks like the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Bills’ Josh Allen arrived, the older ones hung on and played better than anyone could have imagined. Brady, now 45 years old, became the oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl two years ago and led the league in passing last season. The 38-year-old Rodgers is coming off back-to-back MVP awards. Together, by thriving at points in their careers when most players are scouting retirement homes, they vaporized traditional notions of aging curves in professional football.

Now, 2022 has turned a new page and offered a different story. Dragged down by weaker supporting casts, Brady and Rodgers have fallen short of the lofty standards they set for so long. And in turn, they’re dragging down the league-wide scoring average.

The Buccaneers’ Brady-led offense is now averaging 18.3 points per game, which ranks 25th in the league. That’s a jarring drop from a year ago, when Tampa Bay was second in the NFL with 30.1 points a game. Between the two seasons, it’s a difference of almost two touchdowns a game.

“We’ve got to get better,” coach Todd Bowles said. “We’re still in a dark place right now. We can only grind and get better at it.”

The Packers’ decline has also been sizable, if not as dramatic. They’re down from 26.5 points per game to 18.1, 26th in the league. Green Bay, on Sunday night against Buffalo, had opportunities to capitalize after Bills turnovers but ultimately finished with their fourth consecutive defeat.

To be sure, other teams have gone up and down. Blaming two of the biggest decliners for a league-wide trend isn’t exactly the type of statistical rigor that finds its way into academic journals. But it also demonstrates a broader point about the state of the league: scoring trends will reflect the quality of the quarterbacks, and as Brady and Rodgers seem to enter the sunsets of their careers, the NFL starts losing two of the best quarterbacks ever. It also doesn’t help that another potential Hall of Famer, Russell Wilson, has struggled in his first season with the Denver Broncos, who have one of the NFL’s worst offenses.

The other side of the spectrum is that the last couple of drafts haven’t yet produced the caliber of superstar quarterbacks to replace their waning production. From 2017 to 2020, teams found a number of passers—such as Mahomes, Allen, the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow—who lit up scoreboards. The last two drafts, though, haven’t yielded those types of hits.

Trevor Lawrence, the no. 1 pick a year ago, was hyped as a generational prospect but he has not yet made good on that potential for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Zach Wilson, who the New York Jets selected a pick later, still has big question marks around him—just like the other quarterbacks taken in the first round that year. Then in this year’s draft, a quarterback didn’t go off the board until pick No. 20, when the Pittsburgh Steelers took Kenny Pickett. He has more interceptions than touchdowns so far this season.

As for Brady and Rodgers, they still have more than half the season to turn their respective seasons around. If they do, scoring around the league might just start to feel normal again.

Write to Andrew Beaton at [email protected]