Yesterday, my colleagues Chris Gasper and Charlie Pierce had a spirited debate on the coordinator situation -- or lack of one -- on the Patriots coaching staff.

And one point that was raised was the old "Why don't they just hand control over to Tom Brady?" On the surface, it makes sense. He'll be in his 11th year as a Patriot, and 10th year as a starter, in 2010, and has as good a grasp of the team's offense as anyone could hope.

So why not? I think, and this is just from my own knowledge of the game, it's because the Patriots sub guys in and out far too much, in order to play the matchup game they favor, for the quarterback to have too much control.

See, you can charge the quarterback with running the offense. But you can't charge him with running the sideline.

If you look at the Colts, their personnel groupings are generally stagnant, and they're fairly static formationally as well. On Sunday against the Saints, really, the only substitution the Colts offense made, outside of goal-line and short-yardage situations, was sending second tight end Gijon Robinson in for slot receiver Austin Collie, and vice versa. Conversely, if you look here and here, you can see that the Patriots are much, much different than that.

Maybe best of all, look right here, and you'll see that in November's Colts-Patriots game, New England employed eight different personnel groupings, and Indy employed two.
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It's for the same reason that Drew Brees can't call his own plays in New Orleans -- They substitute wildly, like the Patriots do, and there are just too many moving parts for the quarterback to be running the whole show. The Saints' first three plays in the Super Bowl came from different personnel groupings, indicative of the kind of offense they play.

Now, both Brees and Brady have power to change plays, but it's pretty apparent they don't run the show quite like Peyton Manning does. Hopefully, all this helps you understand that's less about Brees or Brady's ability to do it, and more about the scheme each guy runs.