Gabbert statistical comparisons

So, until things change, I’ll stick with the former. QBR is one of the lowest in the league? Guess what, his passer rating is the lowest among qualifying QBs. Or at least it was a week ago. No one saying Gabbert is having a great season. No one saying he doesn’t look bad out there. But so did most rookie quarterbacks over the past decade. That was the point of the post. Unless you saw every game in full of every rookie QB who played over the past decade, you can’t make a reasonable judgement about Gabbert’s prospects without using statistical comparison. Obviously there are a lot of variables involved, and different players have different strengths and weaknesses. But from a statistical perspective, and ultimately sports become statistics, Blaine is middle of the pack in terms of performance. The only players who played over that time period who started younger than him all had worse passer ratings. Alex Smith, Matt Stafford, and Josh Freeman were sleightly younger when they started, and they all had worse passer ratings as rookies. Between the three of them they won five or six games in total in their rookie season. Personal impressions are subjective. On any pass you can fault several different players if it fails, and credit several different players if it succeeds. So you have to depend on stats to give an objective opinion.

Can be affected a lot by a poor offensive line. Sacks/pressures can be held against them. It’s still a working process, and if you’ve followed the QBR, it’s pointing system needs a lot of work before it’s done.

It’s on to something as far as how it compares players, but it’s far from complete. When it’s complete and we have the last 45 years of quarterbacks’ QBRs to compare, then I will qualify it more than a passer rating.

..in a classic pro style offensive system. Callaghan was fired just before Blaine was due to enroll, so he switched to Mizzou. Both teams at that point had similar offensive systems, but Gabbert decided to stay closer to home. He has always been considered a classic pro style QB, and most thought he was out of place playing the spread at Missouri. Almost the opposite of your suggestion. Of course he was there for three years, so he may have become more used to playing in shotgun formation. Gary Pinkel said more than once that they aggressively coached Blaine to avoid sacks and interceptions, which may explain his discomfort in the pocket and inclination to throw the ball away if he is in doubt. I really think that he is still learning the game. He didn’t play a lot of high school ball, and his two years as a college starter were spent in a gimmick offense.

I came upon an article written prior to the 1993 draft regarding Drew Bledsoe. Something to the effect that top drafted quarterbacks were “now” (then) expected to step into the lineup earlier than before. The exact quote from an NFL exec at that time was “the traditional five year learning plan doesn’t exist any more. Look at Aikman he was ready in four years.”. Without getting all retro, the idea that a quarterback should be able to step in and excel as a 21 year old college junior eligible would have seemed preposterous in the past.