Fourth Quarter/Overtime Game-Winning Passing Touchdowns

April 13, 2013 Checkdowns

Yesterday, I looked at the career leaders in 4th quarter (and overtime) game-winning touchdowns from scrimmage. Today I will do the same thing for passing touchdowns. As a reminder: tracking things like game-winning touchdowns is only interesting in a trivial sort way. I looked at all games, regular and postseason, in all leagues, from 1940 [...]

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Interceptions are much more likely to be returned for touchdowns now

March 28, 2013 History

Good bit of trivia from my buddy Scott Kacsmar: there were 71 interceptions returned for touchdowns in 2012, the highest number in NFL history. Another interesting fact about the 2012 season: just 2.6 interceptions were thrown per 100 attempts, the lowest figure in NFL history. We already know that the league-wide interception rate has been [...]

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Comparing rookie quarterbacks to their team’s prior year’s stats

February 21, 2013 Passing

Since 1990, there have been 48 rookie quarterbacks that threw at least 224 pass attempts, the necessary amount to qualify for the league’s efficiency ratings. There are many conventional ways to measure rookie quarterbacks, but the off-season lets us play around with more obscure measures. For example, have you ever considered how rookie quarterbacks performed [...]

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Trivia of the Day – Sunday, February 17th

February 17, 2013 Passing

We all know that Tom Brady set the single-season passing touchdowns record in 2007, when he threw 50 touchdowns as the New England Patriots went 16-0. That broke Peyton Manning‘s mark of 49 touchdowns in 2004. And I think most of us know that prior to Manning, Dan Marino had set the NFL record with [...]

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Happy Valentine’s Day to The Quarterback in Your Life

February 14, 2013 Passing

There have been 35 quarterbacks in NFL history to throw for at least 30,000 yards. Given enough time, you could probably guess that Drew Bledsoe, Jim Kelly, and Steve McNair are three of them. All three have something else in common: they were all born on February 14th. If we drop the cut-off to 16,000 [...]

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The predictive value of target data

February 11, 2013 Passing

In 2007, Doug Drinen and I wrote a pair of articles discussing our views on targets. I’m working on a wide receiver project this off-season, and a complete discussion of receiving statistics includes a discussion of targets. Let me start with the prevailing few: targets are important, and if two receivers have the same production [...]

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Is good luck driving the low interception rates of Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick?

January 28, 2013 History

In September, I started a post by asking you to make this assumption: Assume that it is within a quarterback’s control as to whether or not he throws a completed pass on any given pass attempt. However, if he throws an incomplete pass, then he has no control over whether or not that pass is [...]

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NFL Passing since 1950 (in graphic form)

January 25, 2013 Checkdowns

Want to see how passing has changed in the NFL over the last 63 years? A picture is worth at least 1,000 words in this case. The graph below shows the number of interceptions per dropback (red), sacks per dropback (purple), non-INT incomplete passes per dropback (yellow) and completions per dropback (green). Of course, a [...]

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Charting Eli Manning’s career, in five and ten game increments

January 25, 2013 Passing

In October 2009, Neil Paine wrote that Eli Manning had seemingly turned the corner, starting with the five-game stretch from week 17 of the 2007 season that ended in the Super Bowl. And since that post, Manning has been even better, with his 2011 season standing out as the best year of his career. I [...]

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Is Joe Flacco elite?

January 22, 2013 History

Just a guess, but I think that question will be asked quite a few times over the next couple of weeks. While the inanity of the discussion that usually follows that question is not something I wish to emulate, there’s no particular reason not to take an in-depth look at Flacco’s career. The table below [...]

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