List of other Sub 60% college qbs with some NFL success

[Soda Popinski]

I wouldn't call Sam Bradford a failure. Or say he didn't amount to anything.   He's successfully grifted over 100 million dollars from NFL teams in return for barely anything resembling production.  He's been one of the biggest success stories in the NFL from a business standpoint.  He's the NFL equivalent of Bitcoin.  

[Hapless Bills Fan]

7 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

Point being a decent chunk (12% for Wilson) of your completion percentage is directly related to how good of a team you happen to be on. 

 

Yep. 

 

Stats tell you something, but usually you have to think a bit and maybe poke around under the hood to see what they tell you.

 

In Wilson's case, if you look at NC, they had not much run game beyond Wilson.  At ND, Wilson had Montee Ball, an almost 2000 yd rusher that year, and James White with 700 yds behind him.

 

At ND, Wilson's rushing attempts dropped in half, and his passing attempts dropped by ~200, but his yardage did not drop proportionately - he was more productive per attempt.

 

So basically, what that says is Wilson's completion percentage soared when he was on a team that could generate offense in the run game, and he could pick his throws.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

32 minutes ago, Nanker said:

Colt McCoy 70.3

Byron Leftwich 65.1

Geno Smith 67.4

Charlie Frye 63.6

Marcus Mariota 66.8

Brian Brohm 65.8

RG3 67.1

Brett Hundley 67.4

Riley Skinner 66.9

Tim Tebow! 66.4

Rob Johnson 64.6

Tim Couch 67.1

Sam Bradford 67.6

Robbie Bosco 64.0

 

 

I don't see how Sam Bradford and Marcus Mariota belong on that list.

Sam Bradford is still playing and still getting starting ops

Marcus Mariota's decision making is still a work in progress, but he won a playoff game (albeit on a freak play) and has generated offense. 

    (The impact of INTs is overrated, I think I read that here )

[racketmaster]

50 minutes ago, jrober38 said:

If you just look at the names since 2000, it's a really sorry list of quarterbacks.
 

This list does nothing to convince me Allen was the right pick. All this does is show me how rare it is to find a franchise QB who didn't complete more than 59% of their throws in college. 

Vick, Cutler, Stafford and Ryan? Not exactly a sad group. We know the college game has drastically changed over the past 6 years or so. The spread and RPOs have allowed for many easy throws and completions. Thus, it is rare to find a top end NFL prospect that can't hit at least 60%. So on the surface, this seems to be a major red flag but as stated above Allen operated in a more traditional pro style offense. He did not have the same amount of simple throws that most other college qbs had. Add in the fact that Allen had little talent around him in 2017 and you understand the 56.2% does not tell the whole story.

 

I would argue that Allen's offense more resembled what the quarterbacks of the 1990's and early 2000's operated in as opposed to the spread offenses we see most college teams run.  And if that is the case, then comparisons that go back to Bledsoe and Favre make a little more sense. 

[formerlyofCtown]

13 hours ago, Seanbillsfan2206 said:

You forgot to add the greatest QB in Buffalo Bills history to this list.....

Tyrod Taylor is on the list.

[Nanker]

24 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I don't see how Sam Bradford and Marcus Mariota belong on that list.

Sam Bradford is still playing and still getting starting ops

Marcus Mariota's decision making is still a work in progress, but he won a playoff game (albeit on a freak play) and has generated offense. 

    (The impact of INTs is overrated, I think I read that here )

So did Tebow!

 

 

[SoTier]

13 hours ago, racketmaster said:

When discussing Josh Allen, inevitably his career  college completion percentage (56.2%) comes up in the conversation. Most analysts seem to be in agreement that there are very few examples in recent history of quarterbacks who have had sub 60% completion percentage and still had NFL success. Favre and Stafford seem to be the most cited examples of the anomalies. Therefore, Allen will have to be an “outlier” in order to have any measure of NFL. Allen is thought to end up being the next Jake Locker or Kyle Boller.  I tend to believe that completion percentage does not necessarily equal accuracy (many other factors come into play). But that discussion has been had many times before and I was just interested in seeing what other quarterbacks may be out there that had a sub 60% completion percentage and also a decent amount of NFL success. I went back to quarterbacks drafted 1990 and forward. I know the game has evolved since then and completion percentages tend to be much higher today because of the types of schemes teams tend to run at the college level. But I still think it was worth looking into especially since Allen has not run a gimmicky college offense but rather  he has operated in a pro style passing offense where he has been asked to make a higher percentage of difficult downfield throws (more like what quarterbacks were asked to do in the 1980’s and 1990’s).

 

Below is a list of other quarterbacks who have had at least a decent career and also had a less than 60% completion percentage in college. I know “decent” is subjective but I was looking at quarterbacks who have at least stuck around a long time as high end backups or at least had brief periods of solid success as a starter. This is not a complete list but I think it covers most if not all of the quality starters drafted from 1990 to the Present.

 

Brett Favre 52.4% Southern Miss. 1990

Mark Brunell 52.0% Washington 1993

Kerry Collins 56.3% Penn State 1995

Drew Bledsoe 54.3% Washington State 1993

Brian Griese 59.5% Michigan 1998

Jeff George 58.8% Illinois 1990

Jake Plummer 55.4% Arizona State 1996

Jeff Garcia 56.8% San Jose State 1994

Donovan McNabb 58.4% Syracuse 1999

Neil O’Donnell 58.8% Maryland 1990

Trent Dilfer 59.1% Fresno State 1994

Trent Green 55.8% Indiana 1993

Jake Delhomme 52.6% Louisiana 1997

Matt Hasselbeck 55.6% Boston College 1998

Mike Vick 56.0% Va Tech 2000

Tyrod Taylor 57.2% Va Tech 2011

Colin Kaepenick 58.2% 2011

Matthew Stafford 57.1% Georgia 2009

Josh McCown 51.2% SMU 2002

Carson Palmer 59.1% USC 2003

Kyle Orton 58.8% Purdue 2005

David Garrard 57.0% East Carolina 2002

Jay Cutler 57.2% Vanderbilt 2006

Matt Ryan 59.9% Boston College 2008

Brian Hoyer 55.8% Michigan State 2009

Derek Anderson 50.7% Oregon State 2005

Chad Henne 59.7% Michigan 2008

 

After looking back at the quarterbacks, I was surprised to find so many that were sub 60% since 1990. I was under the impression that there were only a handful since Brett Favre came out but there were at least 6-7 high quality starters in the group. Hopefully, this gives those stuck on Allen’s lower completion percentage a little more hope. And the positive thing for Allen is that he has some rare physical traits that can help him overcome the perceived inaccuracy issue.

 

IMO, you're scrambling to find examples so you've used the meaningless phrase, "some success".   I would use a stricter standard: only QBs who were considered franchise QBs for the bulk of their careers. That's Favre, Brunell, Bledsoe, Plummer, Garcia, Hasselbeck, and McNabb pre 2000.  Maybe Green and Delhomme, too.  That's 7 franchise QBs in about a decade.  Post 2000, which is almost twice as long as the first time frame, there's only half as many franchise QBs: Vick, Palmer, Ryan, and Stafford.  That's a reflection of how much the game has changed over the last twenty years.

 

Given that Allen was a top ten draft pick for whom the Bills expended additional draft capital beyond the #7 pick, I think if he's fails to develop into a franchise QB, he will be a major disappointment at best, and that's even if he performs at about Jay Cutler's level.   If he does no better than a McCown or Orton or have a meteoric career like Anderson or Kaepernick, he'll be considered a bust.

 

 

 

 

 

[JackKemp]

14 hours ago, racketmaster said:

I really like his accuracy on intermediate throws. His wrs rarely had much separation and he frequently fit the ball into tight windows even while on the move. Allen's accuracy seemed to be off on the "easier" throws such as a bubble screen or rb checkdown in the flat. 

Good then he won't be a mister check down. :-)

[jrober38]

9 hours ago, racketmaster said:

Vick, Cutler, Stafford and Ryan? Not exactly a sad group. We know the college game has drastically changed over the past 6 years or so. The spread and RPOs have allowed for many easy throws and completions. Thus, it is rare to find a top end NFL prospect that can't hit at least 60%. So on the surface, this seems to be a major red flag but as stated above Allen operated in a more traditional pro style offense. He did not have the same amount of simple throws that most other college qbs had. Add in the fact that Allen had little talent around him in 2017 and you understand the 56.2% does not tell the whole story.

 

I would argue that Allen's offense more resembled what the quarterbacks of the 1990's and early 2000's operated in as opposed to the spread offenses we see most college teams run.  And if that is the case, then comparisons that go back to Bledsoe and Favre make a little more sense. 

 

You need to put down the Kool Aide and stop making excuses for the guy. His college stats sucked.

 

Hopefully he gets better in the NFL and bucks the glaring trend that guys like him rarely succeed at the pro level. 

[Elite Poster]

Let's try a list of people sometime this millennia 

On 5/6/2018 at 8:33 PM, Seanbillsfan2206 said:

You forgot to add the greatest QB in Buffalo Bills history to this list.....

 

Kelly does not work as a good example. His % IMPROVED every single year in college and he finished over 60% his senior year. 

 

The amount of times I have to bring this up...

 

I count 3 maybe 4 guys on this list I would want. How is this thread proving anything positive...

Edited May 8, 2018 by Elite Poster