The Toughest QB for Dwight Freeney to Sack? You Might be Surprised

(EDITOR'S NOTE: To listen to Dwight Freeney, click on the following link: Megaphone)

With 125-1/2 career sacks and 47 forced fumbles, former Indianapolis Colts’ star Dwight Freeney was one of the NFL's most disruptive pass rushers. In 2002, he set a rookie record with nine forced fumbles – including three in one game. Two years later, he led the league in sacks with 16. In short, he was an elite player -- the irresistible force who never met an immovable object.

Or so it seemed.

But shortly after Freeney’s election to the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame’s Class of 2024, he revealed that there was one quarterback who frustrated him more than others; one who was so effective that he named him the toughest to sack … and, no, it wasn’t Michael Vick, Cam Newton or Ben Roethlisberger.

It was … Tom Brady?

“Look,” Freeney said on a recent “Eye Test for Two” podcast, “Tom Brady was one of the toughest quarterbacks to sack for me because of the fact that he never wanted to get hit. You could breathe upon Tom, and he would fall. But he would get rid of the ball so quickly, and they were so good with what they did at the Patriots of understanding that.

“They knew who they were. Tom wasn’t going to be scrambling back there running for his life. If that read wasn’t there, he was going to be throwing the ball out of bounds.”

The numbers support Freeney. In 15 of Brady's 23 regular seasons, including the last five, he suffered fewer than 30 sacks … or under two per game.  And in 335 regular-season career games, he was sacked 565 times, an average of 1.69 times per.

Now, let’s look at the playoffs. He was sacked 81 times in 48 starts there, or an average of … you guessed it … 1.69 per contest. As Freeney put it, the Patriots were “good with what they did.

“That’s just what it was,” he said. “It was very frustrating for us up front. I could beat my guy without even touching him … he wouldn’t even touch me … and I still couldn’t even get there because of the system of the Pats and how they worked together as a unit.”

Again, the numbers support him. According to ESPN Stats & Info, in 14 career games vs. Brady, including the playoffs, Freeney produced five sacks – with three occurring the first four times they met. But in the last 10 games,? He had two, including one in Super Bowl LI.

As Freeney reiterated, it wasn’t that Brady was tough to bring down or moved adroitly within the pocket. It was just difficult to reach him before he released the ball, and that, he said, is a tribute to the Patriots’ Way. New England coaches knew how to scheme Freeney and teammate Robert Mathis, another Hall-of-Fame candidate, to minimize the hits on their star quarterback.

“ 'Look,' ” he said, imagining a pre-game conversation within the Patriots, “ 'we’re playing Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney. We’re not holding the ball for more than two and a half seconds. That means we’re throwing the ball in two seconds, and I don’t care if you’re open or not. It’s coming out. Because if it doesn’t come out, then (Freeney’s) going to wreck the game.’ And that’s what the game plan was, nine times out of ten.

“So for us, I would beat me guy … clearly, clearly couldn’t stop me … but could never get there. (Brady) was No. 1 from a system standpoint.”

OK, fair enough. But there had to be a quarterback who was tough to tackle … someone who was difficult to wrap and drop because of his size, his strength or both … and there was. But it wasn’t Pittsburgh’s Roethlisberger, the first quarterback Freeney was asked to consider. Instead, it was another Super Bowl quarterback who played in the Colts’ division.

“If you’re talking about just getting back there,” Freeney said, “I think (Tennessee’s) Steve McNair (was) a strong guy … he was a fast guy … and when you hit him you felt like you hit an oak tree. He would just throw you off, and he would run.

“It wasn’t so much (with) Big Ben. He was a tough guy. But you could get Ben, and you could wrestle with Ben like a little bear … whatever you want to call it. Not with Steve. He was elusive, and he was strong. So you had to figure him out, man. It wasn’t a good time. It was hard to get him down.”