Tom Brady is off to one of the best four-game starts to a season we have ever seen. Usually in this space we'd explore exactly what Brady is doing well from a QBR perspective, but when that answer is "just about everything", we need to take a different approach. Instead, let's put Brady's first four games into context: Since returning from his four-game suspension in Week 5, Brady has had the highest weekly Total QBR three times -- nobody else has led a week more than once so far in 2016.
Historically, only Aaron Rodgers in 2011 has managed to be a weekly Total QBR leader on three occasions through Week 8. Rodgers actually did it three times in the first six weeks of that season. Impressive, but it doesn't beat Brady doing it three times in four games.
What about putting up a 90+ QBR figure three times in a player's first four games to start a season? Only Peyton Manning in his 55 touchdown campaign of 2013 can match that start.
There is some luck involved in leading a week, as quarterbacks don't have control over how others around the league perform. But this isn't a case of Brady playing in a highly efficient manner on a small number of plays. Using our Points Added metric, which measures the number of points a quarterback has added to his team in comparison to the hypothetical "average" quarterback, given the same number of plays, nobody is close to Brady since his return.
Even when we extend out to capture the first four weeks of the season when Brady was suspended, only Matt Ryan (35.8 points added) has added more points to his team, relative to an average QB, than Brady.
To put this number into some context, it comes out to just over 7.5 points per game, which would be by far be the highest per-game number since 2006, the first year we recorded QBR. If Brady could somehow maintain this lofty pace, he'd end up with 90.5 points added, which would rank second behind Brady's own historic 2007 season, where he played in all 16 games and ended with 96.2 points added.
The road ahead
There are a few challenges on the Patriots' remaining schedule, as they host Seattle (seventh-best opponent QBR allowed) in Week 10 and are on the road against Denver (ninth-best), but outside of that, they play a fairly easy remaining set of defenses, including the Jets (27th) twice, the 49ers (22nd) and the Rams (20th).
Those circumstances should give Brady a chance challenge his already lofty QBR standards. A look at his week-by-week numbers to date in 2016.