Former Indianapolis Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney was on Keyshawn Johnson's show called “All Facts No Brakes” and talked about his illustrious career where he played from 2002 all the way to 2017. Having recorded 125.5 sacks in his career, the topic was brought up of the toughest quarterbacks to bring down and he had two answers that might surprise fans.
Freeney's first answer was long-time New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady whom the two have shared the field with each other on a numerous of occasions. Especially in huge games as the Colts and Patriots saw each other in AFC Championship games and even when Freeney was on the Atlanta Falcons in 2016, the year they faced Brady in the Super Bowl and lost in horrible fashion, losing a lead.
Freeney talks about what made Brady hard to sack when he was with Colts
The two no doubt have history, but Freeney would say that Brady could be seen as a “surprising answer” since he is not the most mobile quarterback ever. However, he would talk about the Patriots system as Brady throwing away balls more often so he doesn't get sacked.
“I'm gonna give you two answers to that all right. I think one surprising answer, I think might be two surprising, but I think one Tom Brady wasn't easy, and the reason being because of from a system standpoint they were getting rid of the ball in under two seconds period,” Freeney said.
“They knew the strength of our defense, they knew what was going on and said look, ‘I don't care if you’re open or not receiver this ball is coming out done,'” Freeney continued. “You know so I think when you're playing against a guy like that you better have your best move and even if you have your best move dialed up and you win on your best move, you still may not get there and that becomes very frustrating as a rusher because you understand that this ball won't be on this man's hands since he doesn't want to get sacked. I think he's probably one of the most underrated from that standpoint, people don't talk about it enough.”
Freeney explains how dangerous Steve McNair was as a player
This makes a lot of sense and is one of the many reasons why Brady is considered not just the greatest quarterback of all time, but the smartest. The other signal-caller the Colts legend mentioned as being hard to bring down was former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair, crediting his strength and elusiveness as factors.
“I think Steve McNair, Air McNair, he was country strong and I would come around that corner and I would hit him and I swear I felt like he hit me back,” Freeney said. “I mean he is like hitting a wall, and the thing is about him is he was also mobile, so he could just be elusive make you miss. So when you try to go ad try to tackle that quarterback, you got to figure out what you going to do, because you can go ahead and try to hit him as hard as you possibly can, but he can make you miss. So if you say ‘Ok, you know what? Let me not go as hard as you can and just try to wrap him up, then he going to throw you off.' I think Steve is a beast man.”
Freeney had an exceptional NFL career where he ended up being inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2024. He won the Super Bowl with the Colts in 2007 to go along with three first-team All-Pro appearances, made it to seven Pro Bowls, and was superb in college for Syracuse.
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