NFL Monday Night Props – Focus on Brady

As we will often do when we analyze the NFL Monday night props, we are going to focus on the quarterbacks in the game between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets.

Here, it’s one quarterback in particular – the veteran and former MVP, both of the league and the Super Bowl, Tom Brady, who may again be having an MVP-caliber season.

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The game begins at 8:30 PM ET at Gillette Stadium (artificial turf) in Foxborough, MA, and in the numbers that have been established for purposes of the NFL Monday night props, the over-under on yards passing for Brady is 270.5 yards, while the total posted on his completions is 23 (Over -135, Under +105).

New York Jets (9-2 SU, 7-4 ATS) at New England Patriots (9-2 SU, 6-4-1 ATS)

Live at Gillette Stadium

Foxborough, MA

Monday, December 6 — 8:30 PM ET

TV: ESPN

NFL Monday Night Props

TOM BRADY – TOTAL PASSING YARDS

Over 270½ Yards -110

Under 270½ Yards -120

TOM BRADY – TOTAL COMPLETIONS

Over 23 Completions -135

Under 23 Completions +105

Brady has started 17 games in his career against the Jets, and for what it’s worth, in those games he has thrown 18 touchdown passes with nine interceptions, and has averaged just under 213 yards a game.

What would be more instructive in terms of analyzing this NFL Monday night prop is to take a look at what he has done since Rex Ryan took over as the Jets’ coach. Last season, in two meetings, Brady completed 51 of 88 passes (58%) and had one TD and one interception, with a total of 526 yards.

This season at the Meadowlands, he threw for 248 yards and two TD’s, and was picked off twice. Brady is having a big year, with 23 TD’s and just four interceptions, so it follows that half of the times he’s been intercepted, it has come in that one game against the Jets (the other two INT’s came against Baltimore).

But even in this big year, he has had 246 yards a game passing. That’s actually down from his averages from 2009 (275 ypg).

I would think that part of the reason is that Brady and the Pats have had to adjust what they have been doing, and these adjustments have to factor into the way we act on this NFL Monday night prop.

Teams had been having at least some success defending against the New England air game by paying special attention to Randy Moss, who was growing more and more disgruntled with not getting the ball.

Of course, he was acting as a pretty effective decoy, but perhaps guys like him don’t look at it that way. he was also unhappy about the situation with his contract, which had not yet been extended, while Brady had signed a very big deal.

So the Pats shipped Moss to Minnesota, and you pretty much know what happened from there.

At that point the Patriots had to take some time to develop a threat to go downfield, to stretch out defenses, and they have been trying to do that with Brandon Tate, the youngster out of North Carolina.

But in the meantime, there has been a tremendous emphasis on the short passing game, sometimes even using it as a substitute for the run, and we can’t ignore this as we write about this NFL Monday night prop.

As it is, Wes Welker is the leading receiver once again for him, with twice as many catches as anyone else. Welker is a possession receiver, and Deion Branch, who was acquired in a trade, is a familiar face, though not the guy to go way downfield. There are three emerging receivers, and two of them are rookies.

Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski were among the best tight ends available in the NFL Draft, and Danny Woodhead, out of Chadron State, was actually in the Jets’ camp this year and featured on the HBO series "Hard Knocks," and after being relegated to the practice squad, he got picked up by New England and has become an integral part of the offense.

The effect of this, against a defense like the one the Jets have, is that Brady will try to go downfield in short bits, and that pushes toward the "under’ in this NFL Monday night prop.

At the same time, however, against a Jets team that has permitted only 50% completions all year, which is best in the NFL, he is probably going to do better than most, because he is going to work on safeties and linebackers.

This might minimize the effect of the two stars in the Jet secondary (Antonio Cromartie, Darelle Revis). We can see a lot of completions, since, frankly, we don’t know how effective that running game is going to be (New York yields just 3.4 ypc).

JAY’S PLAYS – NFL MONDAY NIGHT PROPS:

Under 270.5 yards (-110) **

Over 23 completions (-135) **

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

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