Best scrambling QB?

[southgadawg 52]

I thought this was a very interesting article full of tons of revelations.

 

http://mmqb.si.com/2014/06/05/andrew-luck-russell-wilson-colin-kaepernick-robert-griffin-cam-newtown-running-quarterbacks-analysis/

[RazorStar 4,025]

The Luck slurping in this article is insane.

[.AirMcNair. 1,232]

Andrew Luck isn't even the best scrambling QB in the AFC South, why is he even on this list?

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Imagine the kind of over payment Andrew Luck is going to see... It's going to be insane.

[AL_Royalty 489]

Statistical analysis that says Luck is good at something, and everyone's take away is "LOLAndrewLuckLove?" Wow... The hate force is strong with this group.

 

I figured there would be at least one poster in this thread that didn't use this as a platform to shit on the kid.

[GA_Eagle 595]

The stats are really incomplete. The guy looks like he decided Luck was the best and then went about trying to prove it with half stats. He's the Van Daniken of sports bloggers.

[AL_Royalty 489]

The stats are really incomplete. The guy looks like he decided Luck was the best and then went about trying to prove it with half stats. He's the Van Daniken of sports bloggers.

 

The stats are really incomplete. The guy looks like he decided Luck was the best and then went about trying to prove it with half stats. He's the Van Daniken of sports bloggers.

Looks more to me like he only had an allotted amount of time to research the specific types of plays he wanted to, and he focused on, in his opinion, the most relevant scenarios in judging a scrambling QB. Even if he was already batting for team Luck, though, it doesn't make his findings any less credible.

 

Andrew Luck isn't even the best scrambling QB in the AFC South, why is he even on this list?

If you're talking about Locker, scrambling to get his teammates a towel during time outs doesn't count. Luck isn't a RUNNING quarterback, but he is most certainly a fine SCRAMBLING quarterback. I was always under the impression that a quarterback scrambled to avoid taking shots, extend passing plays, and only if needed to turn a passing situation into a running situation.

 

Maybe the definition has changed. If scrambling is now defined by actually taking hits, running around erratically, and getting injured, then you're probably right. Locker is a beast.

 

Imagine the kind of over payment Andrew Luck is going to see... It's going to be insane.

It's going to be massive. As you know, I'm one of those CRRAAAAAZZZZY lost souls who actually sees talent in the kid, but his contract is going to be soo big that if it were to be paid out in ones, it would probably block out the sun from the entire state of Indianapolis. If he takes what he can get, he could very well hand cuff his organization from reaching out to sign/re-sign guys that they need in other spots.

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Alex Smith should get paid more than Andrew Luck. What are the chances of that...? Hmm.

[AL_Royalty 489]

Alex Smith should get paid more than Andrew Luck. What are the chances of that...? Hmm.

There you go trolling again... ?

 

 

Neither one of them has really done anything, but Luck most likely will do much more. I'd trade Smith for Luck in a heartbeat.

[GA_Eagle 595]

 

Looks more to me like he only had an allotted amount of time to research the specific types of plays he wanted to, and he focused on, in his opinion, the most relevant scenarios in judging a scrambling QB. Even if he was already batting for team Luck, though, it doesn't make his findings any less credible.

 

 

I honestly don't have a dog in this fight. I think Luck is solid and it wouldn't surprise if he was better when he scrambles than some others but the stats are incomplete in a number of ways. How successful were the scrambling plays? Did they make completions, ints, 1st downs, critical conversions, tds? There are some really notable guys missing. Aaron Rodgers and Big Ben are mobile. Heck Pryor and Alex Smith had more yards. Vick and Foles came close despite not playing nearly as many downs. It's not nearly a complete look.

 

I also am not positive I agree with his method or his objectivity when analyzing plays. I have to take his word that certain things happened when it appears that he has a man crush on Luck while kinda hating on all others. He's particularly hard on Kaep in his commentary and I'm not sure I think Luck is all that much better at anything than Kaepernick. When he has a chance to be critical of Luck to lend any amount of credibility to his "objective" opinion he says this instead:

 

• Luck was impressive even on a lot of negative plays. He always tried to keep plays alive, running extremely late in the down and rarely compromising his physical readiness to throw.

[AL_Royalty 489]

 

 

I honestly don't have a dog in this fight. I think Luck is solid and it wouldn't surprise if he was better when he scrambles than some others but the stats are incomplete in a number of ways. How successful were the scrambling plays? Did they make completions, ints, 1st downs, critical conversions, tds? There are some really notable guys missing. Aaron Rodgers and Big Ben are mobile. Heck Pryor and Alex Smith had more yards. Vick and Foles came close despite not playing nearly as many downs. It's not nearly a complete look.

 

I also am not positive I agree with his method or his objectivity when analyzing plays. I have to take his word that certain things happened when it appears that he has a man crush on Luck while kinda hating on all others. He's particularly hard on Kaep in his commentary and I'm not sure I think Luck is all that much better at anything than Kaepernick. When he has a chance to be critical of Luck to lend any amount of credibility to his "objective" opinion he says this instead:

 

• Luck was impressive even on a lot of negative plays. He always tried to keep plays alive, running extremely late in the down and rarely compromising his physical readiness to throw.

 

He was definitely a bit vague with his description of what would qualify as a successful play, but the sack-blame thing was a pretty big stat to me. I thought he covered what he was looking at very well, and Luck's awareness is eye popping, to say the least. I thought the writer covered his big points pretty well.

 

I don't know how much I agree with his labeling Wilson as a good athlete who needs a lot of work to become a good QB, and I feel the same way—albeit to a lesser extent—about $cam. I have watched a fair amount of Luck and Captain Kap though, and I completely his heralding one far above the other.

 

It seemed to me like he was just going with the new crop of QB talent for this "study," and honestly with only 60 hours to watch film, it would be impossible to watch every QB. Not everyone has Jaws' access to 197,000 hours of tape/film. lol

 

As for his quote, it does read a bit like he is carrying a torch for young Andrew, but the line does seem to further illustrate and drive home the point that he was trying to make: this is about scrambling and not rushing.

 

I do see your point though, and after going back and looking at it, he may have gone into this experiment of his looking for evidence of Luck's superiority. That being said, he found said evidence. These are some pretty impressive things that Luck is doing. Luck is easily as good as advertised imo, and this article added to the ammo of Luck supporters.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Charles-in-Charge

[RazorStar 4,025]

Yeah, like sure the running stats are in his favour but how subjective is he being when looking at QB at fault sacks?

 

Here are the total sack numbers for the NFL

Seattle Seahawks 44 sacks

Carolina Panthers 43 sacks

Washington Redskins 43 sacks

San Francisco 49ers 39 sacks

Indianapolis Colts 32 sacks

 

Here are PFF's sack numbers for comparison:

 

Andrew Luck 3 sacks (31 total) 9.68% of sacks on him

Russell Wilson 7 sacks (36 total) 19.44% of sacks on him

Cam Newton 9 sacks (34 total) 26.47% of sacks on him

Colin Kaepernick 9 sacks (31 total) 29.03% of sacks on him

Robert Griffin 10 sacks (28 total (3 in games not played)) 35.71% of sacks on him

 

Now the discrepancy in the total sack numbers can probably be explained by attempted scrambles for negative yardage. The NFL seems to jump back on forth on which are runs and which are passes, PFF seems to treat a lot more sacks as scrambles, and lastly this writer seems to treat all scrambles as pure sacks. And his numbers agree perfectly with Newton and Griffin on QB to blame for sacks, and Kaepernick ain't that far off either, but he takes a dump on Wilson while absolving Luck of all blame according to PFF's numbers. Now both sources are biased, I'll give them that, and Luck is still superior by both measures of blame, but it's a fair point of discussion.

[Dutch 874]

Not surprised.

[.AirMcNair. 1,232]

 

 

 

If you're talking about Locker, scrambling to get his teammates a towel during time outs doesn't count. Luck isn't a RUNNING quarterback, but he is most certainly a fine SCRAMBLING quarterback. I was always under the impression that a quarterback scrambled to avoid taking shots, extend passing plays, and only if needed to turn a passing situation into a running situation.

 

Maybe the definition has changed. If scrambling is now defined by actually taking hits, running around erratically, and getting injured, then you're probably right. Locker is a beast.

 

 

lol @ trying to act as if how injury prone he is has anything to do with his scrambling ability, pls stahp.

 

And Locker is superior at both avoiding in the pocket and running outside of it. I would compare Luck to Ryan Fitzpatrick in terms of evading to get a pass out, both are pretty solid at it, neither are elite. He's exceptionally good at it to be a pocket passer, and he's a far better QB than Locker is..he's just not better at scrambling or running.

 

He should be compared to Romo/Fitzpatrick/Roethlisberger(well, younger Roethlisberger), etc in this regard. He's not in the same league as RG3/Wilson/etc in this regard. I don't think Locker is either...but I do believe Locker is better than Luck.

[Thanatos 2,847]

The best scrambling QB is Newton. No one else does this.

[BradyFan81 404]

The best scrambling QB is Newton. No one else does this.

Against the Patriots defense, not that impressive.

 

I'm not that big a fan of any of these young QBs, Wilson and 2012 RG3 are my 2 favorites of the bunch. I really do not see it with Luck though. The guy gets his tires pumped more than any other QB in the league without really having accomplished anything of significance yet in his career.

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

If I gave anyone the list of all the available QBs, and asked which they'd prefer to run the ball on any given down, the answer would overwhelmingly NOT be Andrew Luck. And for good reason, he isn't the best running QB in the NFL.

 

That article is all over the place, and should be taken with a grain of salt the moment you reach the part where he slips in the "blame the QB for X amount of sacks" rhetoric without explaining how he believes a QB may or may not be at fault. Save for a couple bleeps underneath the second table.

 

His "data" is based on a criteria -that he barely makes clear- making it all opinions. His percentages aren't raw, they are subjective.

 

And honestly this comes off on multiple levels as just a Luck hype bus. He goes as far as criticizing QBs (some very false claims like the one against Newton) for things that has nothing to do with the focus of the article. But nothing against Luck, Not. A. Single. Thing.

 

This is as close as he gets:

Luck was impressive even on a lot of negative plays. He always tried to keep plays alive, running extremely late in the down and rarely compromising his physical readiness to throw.

 

It's breathtaking, he even goes as far as saying that Luck is so superior to his couterparts in terms of running ability that his coaches don't even call designed runs for him for the sake of keeping him and his "10-year veteran in his approach to running with the ball".

 

It's truly an amazing peace of work. Luck's ugly stats sympathizers everywhere should take notes. THIS is how you push an agenda, praise him, and throw cool tables, and percentages that are super subjective.

Edited June 7, 2014 by DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F

[Thanatos 2,847]

Against the Patriots defense, not that impressive.

 

I'm not that big a fan of any of these young QBs, Wilson and 2012 RG3 are my 2 favorites of the bunch. I really do not see it with Luck though. The guy gets his tires pumped more than any other QB in the league without really having accomplished anything of significance yet in his career.

Lol, Idc who its against, that was very impressive.

[Glanvilles Grits 142]

Cam Newton is an absolute freak physical specimen. He's a monster at running the ball.

 

However, I can argue that Russell Wilson is the best scrambling quarterback. Mainly because he's probably the only one, with exception of maybe Luck, that when he takes off he doesn't just write it off as a run. He's constantly looking down field for an option, he never once turns the play into a running play until he crosses the LOS.

[Turry 755]

Rodgers. Dude is lethal at extending plays and is pretty damm accurate throwing it on the run

[Dutch 874]

Alex Smith should get paid more than Andrew Luck. What are the chances of that...? Hmm.

 

[Glanvilles Grits 142]

I'm not sure I really consider guys like Aaron Rodgers and Andrew Luck as "scramblers". They concentrate more on staying in the pocket, while the scramblers (although they may be pass first) don't worry about trying to step up before they move around behind the LOS.

 

My list of starting scramblers is pretty limited I think:

 

Wilson

Kaepernick

RG3

Vick

Newton

EJ Manuel

[Dutch 874]

I definitely believe it's a difference between a "scrambling" Qb and a "mobile" QB. Honestly, I don't think Luck qualifies as a scrambler. However, he is one of the best mobile QBs (behind Aaron Rodgers) who can make plays with his legs as well as his arms. He can throw well on the run and is one of the smartest mobile QBs knowing when to run and when not to.

 

Here is my list of scramblers:

 

Russell Wilson - He's is easily the smartest and most versatile scrambling QB. Very elusive and makes great decisions which is why he tops my list. Ball security is an issue though.

 

Colin Kaepernick - Hands down the most dangerous and explosive scrambling QB.

 

Cam Newton - Doesn't feel right having Cam down here at #3 but these guys are closely matched. Doesn't feel justified especially considering Cam puts up more TDs than any other scrambling QB. I'd take Cam over everyone on this list though.

 

Michael Vick - Taking him over RG3 who isn't healthy. Granted Vick pulled his hammy, he was still making some great plays as a scrambler.

 

RG3 - A healthy RG3 in his rookie season tops this list easily but saw a decline due to his injury.

[FartWaffles 1,857]

Yeah Rodgers doesn't leave the pocket often, but when he does he almost always converts to first down. I also feel that Jay Cutler is a very underrated as a scrambler.

 

Roethlisberger in his prime was seriously the best scrambling quarterback of all time (no joke) in my opinion. Although I would have loved to see Randall Cunningham in today's NFL. The moves he put on defenders back in his days were just simply ridiculous. Dan Marino was also severely underrated in that specific category.

[Thanatos 2,847]

Wilson is good at it, but he doesnt run as much as Cam or Colin. Not sure how that factors in. Of course, idk how Cam might act if he ever has more than one reliable target at WR.