101, 2/10 … Sando

This has me thinking about Bradford. Let’s say he’s like that Carolina LB, Davis, who could play after 3 ACLs.

One of the darker motifs running through the last 25 “back-up qb” Rams games is the bad, game-losing goal-line performances. Clemens v. Seattle, Hill v. SD.

Bradford was good inside the 10. It was a strength. And that was without the New Improved Quick, without Bailey yet, and without Britt.

The 23 games he played in 2012/13, he had 23 TDs on 49 attempts inside 10. That’s 47% (rounded up 0.1%)

To give some perspective on that, last year, if you look at guys with 20 or more attempts, the NFL leaders in percentage of TDs inside the 10 were

Carr (62.5%)
Romo (54.5%)
Ryan (48%)
Luck (47.6%)
Brees (47%)
Brady (46.2%)
Newton (43%)
Eli Manning (40.8%)
Rivers (37.5%)
Rodgers (36%)
Peyton Manning (34.7%)
Cutler (34.3%)
Tannenhill (34.1%)
Smith (33.3%)
Stafford (32.4%)
Flacco (31.3%)
Wilson (28.6%)
Roethlisberger (27.1%)

And in Bradford’s case, that was basically without a running threat inside the 10 half the time….or to be more precise, with a very weak running threat inside the 10 in 2013. Jackson himself in 2012 had 4 TDs on 15 attempts, which is actually a decent 26.7%. Combined with Richardson, though,it’s 4 TDs on 19 attempts, which is 21%. Just to give a point of comparison, Marshawn Lynch alone last year had 11 TDs on 29 attempts inside the 10, for 38%. BUT if you look at Richardson and Stacy in 2013, just for the games SB played, Richardson and Stacy combined had 0 TDs on appx 10 attempts. (You can do the play by plays for Stacy with Bradford because it was just 3 games. Stacy had 0 TDs on 7 attempts inside the 10. Richardson had 4 attempts all year and I think only 1 after Stacy took over. Doesn’t matter because 0 of anything is 0%).

wv wrote:

What would you say Bradford’s biggest weakness is as a QB,
not counting his injury-proneness ?

w
v

Well, he has the long ball. He was getting up there in terms of pre-snap reads and figuring defenses out. He didn’t take sacks. He is hot in the redzone. He was one of PFF’s top-ranked play-action passers for the time he played–and I mean top 2-3. He can roll out some. He is smart. When Fisher and Schott were resurrecting the medium and deep medium pass with Britt, he showed he had the lasers to do it. He’s clutch and was getting very good with comebacks and game-winning drives. He’s tough, he’ll stand in there and make throws. He doesn;t throw INTs.

His flaw? Really? To me? It’s that he doesn’t have “magic.” He works from a strong foundation, but when he has to improvise and make something out of nothing, he doesn’t have the spontaneity of say a Rodgers or a Romo or a Brady.

That doesn’t mean he’s a complete stiff. He has some of that–we’ve seen him do things in the redzone that came from improvising.

Some say his pocket awareness but I think he’s better at that than some give him credit for. Just not tops, a la Brady. I would say he’s “okay” at that.

And, another minor thing…his touch on short passes is a bit iffy.

He has to improve on 3rd down. I don’t think there’s any particular reason he can’t or won’t (if he can play).

To me he’s Flacco and Eli in their best years.