In December 2010, Jason Lisk wrote an interesting piece about whether race still matters when it comes to quarterback play in the NFL. That article has stuck with me over the years — I referenced it last year in a piece questioning whether Colin Kaepernick’s political stance impacted his style of play in 2016 — and the key excerpt is below:

Still, one of the things I have observed is that black quarterbacks, as a group, have tended to be better at avoiding interceptions than their white counterparts. …

Interceptions are highly random, subject to game situation, dependent on deflections, tips, the receiver running the correct route, the defender making a good play and not dropping the ball. They can also be somewhat controlled by the quarterback’s behavior. If you try to fit the ball into tight windows, your chances for both a good play and a bad one increase. There is also no other quarterback action that gets criticized as “stupid” or “dumb” like an interception thrown. I can see how black quarterbacks feel they need to be more cautious when it comes to interceptions, to avoid that criticism. I suspect that the difference in interception numbers is a real effect driven by this external pressure.

So, I think that race matters, because the numbers – as well as direct statements from McNabb and Doug Williams as quoted in Hill’s piece – tell me it matters in affecting how the black quarterbacks play the game as far as avoiding interceptions.

[continue reading…]

Former 49ers and Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith has a well-earned reputation for being overly conservative. Smith was known as a low-risk, low-reward passer for years: he avoided interceptions but took a ton of sacks and threw a lot of short, safe passes. In 2011 with the 49ers, he ranked 30th in average pass length; he didn’t have enough passes in 2012 to qualify, but in 2013 with the Chiefs, he ranked 36th in how far his average pass traveled. In 2014, he ranked 33rd, and he repeated that ranking in 2015. In 2016 he ranked 29th, before vaulting to 22nd last year.

From 2011 to 2017, Smith threw 43 interceptions but took an incredible 260 sacks! That means over the last seven seasons, Smith has been sacked over 6 times as often as he’d thrown an interception (6.05 to be precise). Among the 32 quarterbacks who have thrown the most passes since 2011, only three others have even a 4:1 sack:interception ratio. Two of them are two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL in Russell Wilson (4.4 to 1) and Aaron Rodgers (5.20 to 1).  And there are some extenuating circumstances in both cases.

Wilson has played behind terrible offensive lines and scrambles often, which inflates his sack rate. Rodgers has been arguably the best quarterback in the NFL over the last seven years and has a tiny interception rate, although taking too many sacks is a legitimate criticism of his game. But neither passer is a dink-and-dunk type: both rank in the top 8 in yards per completion since 2011 (Rodgers averaged 12.0 yards per completion, Wilson 12.2) while Smith ranked in the bottom 8 with an 11.2 average.

The fourth quarterback is Smith’s old teammate, Colin Kaepernick (5.70 to 1). Even as a young player, Kaepernick always took a lot of sacks, and like Wilson, his scrambling inflated his sack rate a bit. Kaepernick averaged 5.3 sacks for every interception in 2012, then 4.9 in 2013, 5.2 in 2014, 5.6 in 2015, before catapulting to 9.0 in 2016, a year that may have been influenced by his political stance. But even still, Kaepernick wasn’t really a great match for Smith because he averaged 12.1 yards per completion, the 6th-highest rate since 2012.

So over the last 7 years, it’s pretty clear that no quarterback embodied the risk-averse style of player quite like Smith. With a ton of sacks, not many interceptions, and a low yards per completion average, Smith was the most conservative passer in football.

But over the last three years, Tyrod Taylor has taken the crown. In fact, Taylor is more Alex Smith than even Alex Smith! I looked at the 32 quarterbacks with the most pass attempts since the start of the 2015 season. Among that group, Taylor ranks 2nd in interception rate at just 1.29%, but he also ranks last in sack rate at 9.1%! The scramble factor is an issue here — by scrambling when a play breaks down instead of throwing it away, Taylor’s sack rate isn’t quite as bad as it appears — but only two of the other 32 quarterbacks have a sack rate within even two percent of Taylor’s. [continue reading…]

Tyrod Taylor was a sixth round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in 2011. Since then, he’s thrown just 35 passes over four years, before signing with the Bills as a free agent in the 2015 offseason. Now, after beating out Matt Cassel and EJ Manuel in training camp, Taylor will be the Buffalo Bills opening day starter in 2015.

How rare is this? Taylor was in the NFL for at least four seasons and never started a game in his NFL career; now he’s his team’s opening day starter. Since 1970, there are just four other quarterbacks who meet that profile. In reverse order… [continue reading…]