A few questions about "check downs"

[malak1]

What exactly do people consider a checkdown? Why do people call Tom Brady "the Check Down King" or "Captain Check Down" or whatever else? Why is there a stigma against check downs (i.e. high percentage, low risk throws)?

It's my understanding that a check down is a pass that you throw to your RB or TE when you do not like your other options after going throw your progressions. A safety valve, if you will. However, if the plays is designed to go to the RB in the flat or to your TE on a 5yd crossing route, is that really a checkdown? It seems like Tom Brady gets a lot of flack for not throwing deep and relatively low percentage throws. Why is that a bad thing? 

[Jlowe22]

Check downs there for a reason, nothing wrong with it unless you’re sputtering out your offense because that’s all you can do.

[RandyMossIsBoss]

Not a checkdown if it's designed to go to RB/TE. Whole concept behind check down is that there was nothing there, so the QB "checked it" down to his RB/safety valve that play.

Nothing inherently wrong with it, but as I understand it, when used in a derogatory way, it is suggesting the QB relies too heavily on checkdowns, to the detriment of the offense. In other words, they are too passive and quick to give up on downfield looks in favor for the safe short gains, and it holds the offense back. Key here that it is holding back the offense. Brady often is engineering top ranked offenses, so you cannot really argue he does anything other than takes what the D gives him and has the perfect balance of when to check it down and when to challenge downfield. 

[MikeT14]

48 minutes ago, RandyMossIsBoss said:

Nothing inherently wrong with it, but as I understand it, when used in a derogatory way, it is suggesting the QB relies too heavily on checkdowns, to the detriment of the offense. In other words, they are too passive and quick to give up on downfield looks in favor for the safe short gains, and it holds the offense back. Key here that it is holding back the offense. Brady often is engineering top ranked offenses, so you cannot really argue he does anything other than takes what the D gives him and has the perfect balance of when to check it down and when to challenge downfield. 

[Hunter2_1]

1 hour ago, malak1 said:

What exactly do people consider a checkdown? Why do people call Tom Brady "the Check Down King" or "Captain Check Down" or whatever else? Why is there a stigma against check downs (i.e. high percentage, low risk throws)?

It's my understanding that a check down is a pass that you throw to your RB or TE when you do not like your other options after going throw your progressions. A safety valve, if you will. However, if the plays is designed to go to the RB in the flat or to your TE on a 5yd crossing route, is that really a checkdown? It seems like Tom Brady gets a lot of flack for not throwing deep and relatively low percentage throws. Why is that a bad thing? 

 

Read high to low, nothing open in your first 2 or 3 progressions, so throw it to the option underneath that's been more lightly resourced by the defense

People called (surely they don't still call him that?) TB a checkdown king because they're mistaking designed quick-fire plays with not progressing through reads. 

[malak1]

12 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said:

 

Read high to low, nothing open in your first 2 or 3 progressions, so throw it to the option underneath that's been more lightly resourced by the defense

People called (surely they don't still call him that?) TB a checkdown king because they're mistaking designed quick-fire plays with not progressing through reads. 

People definitely still call him that. 

[Shanedorf]

Brady wants to possess the ball -> when he has it, the other team can't score and his defense is resting.
The best way to possess the ball for long drives are short safe, high completion rate passes that keep the sticks moving.
So there's definitely a strategic component to it for some offenses

The pejorative comments about "Check-down Charlie QBs"  derive in part from the old phrase:

" Good teams take what the defense gives them, Great teams take what they want"
 

[Hunter2_1]

1 minute ago, malak1 said:

People definitely still call him that. 

lol. Well, currently he averages more air yards per pass than Russ. So hopefully this season will dispel the myth. 

[SkippyX]

When you hear terms like Check Down King or Doesn't Read Defenses its really just a sign that you are reading comments from a moron.

Football is Partisan. Logic has little to do with it. People can't handle the success of players or teams they don't like so they make stuff up.

There are people who think Brady's 4th down blunder a few weeks back justifies them saying that "he is done" for the last 8 years.

 

Drew Brees is now 41. Of course he and Payton are going to lean on an offense that relies less on him throwing for 5000 yards every year.

That does not make either of them deficient or evil for adjusting the offense.

 

Its also strange that running 14 times for 80 yards on a drive is dominating the D but passing 14 times for 80 yards on a drive is somehow a sign of weakness.

[Ryan_W]

it's for players that never recover from multiple INT games

1:1 coverage count me out, no way Jose

throw the ball to any place other than an empty chest target??? NO THX

nobody is calling TB12 that.

they call him other things;

[malak1]

35 minutes ago, Ryan_W said:

it's for players that never recover from multiple INT games

1:1 coverage count me out, no way Jose

throw the ball to any place other than an empty chest target??? NO THX

nobody is calling TB12 that.

they call him other things;

Lol, people on this site STILL call him that. 

[FrantikRam]

First, there's a difference between an efficient short passing game and a check down - Brady became such a great QB, and with the personnel in NE it made sense to utilize a short passing game.

Lots of defenses welcome a short passing game (bend but don't break) with the logic that the more plays an offense runs the more unlikely that they'll execute well, or more likely a mistake will be made.

With Brady it became virtually unstoppable and it could essentially be thought of as a run play at times, which I believe was the primary goal of the original West Coast Offense. 

Brees has also done this well at times throughout his career, but not close to Brady IMO.

 

Check downs become a bad thing to fans in some different but related ways: first, the most troubling, is if a QB doesn't want to throw the ball unless a WR is wide open. Second is if a QB is scared of the pressure and checks down too often - Carr had gotten heat for this and Sam Bradford was guilty of this as well. But even as I type this, we as fans really don't know what's going on - it could be on the coaches. For the wide open WRs, watch Russell Wilson play - he's gotten better over the years, but one reason he has always gotten sacked so much is because he tends to only throw to wide open WRs - obviously that's a generalization and I can go find several tight window throws for him - but it's something I noticed watching him so much over the years. In his case he overcomes it with his ability to extend plays.