Failed Completions

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Aaron Schatz, over at football outsiders, released this list today of failed completions, which is designed to measure how frequent a quarterback ineffectively dumps the ball off, and not enough yardage is gained to constitute a "successful" play.

As I'm sure a bunch of people (myself included) suspected, Jason Campbell is on the list of top ten quarterbacks in failed completions. He's actually tied for ninth with Peyton Manning with 79 "unsuccessful" completions (24% of his total completions). What's more interesting, to me at least, is some of the players higher up on the list.

I read the link and without doing some of my own digging onto stats, one thing pops out at me. The analysis counts "failed completions" as plays of less than 4.5 yd on 1st, 60% on second down (obviously this will vary), and 100% on 3rd or 4th (no problem on that). I would like to see the numbers on just the 3rd & 4th down percentages, I think that's much more telling, because if a team is passing on those downs then the QB is in a position to have to "make a play", good ones do, mediocre/poor ones don't.

My first thought on why Orton, Brees, Manning, and Schaub are up there is their style of offense and lack of emphasis on the running game (yes I know the Saints were 6th in rushing, but they are a "pass first" offense), so a 4 yd smoke, bubble, or whatever, would count as an "unsuccessful" completion, yet it's just as good as a 4 yd run. on first down.