Quarterback Carousel – Conclusions

by A.J. Coltrane

The 2010 NFL regular season is now over.  How’d the predictions go in this September post?

So, what happened?

Raiders: 

Passes:  Jason Campbell 67% of team attempts, 84.5 rating;  Bruce Gradkowski 31% of team attempts, 66.3 rating.   Aggregate rating 77.5.

“The Raiders will make a big leap forward with Jason Campbell.  Part of that will be due to JaMarcus Russell’s release, simple addition by subtraction.”  [Actual Result — The Raiders scoring went up by 13.3(!) points per game.]

JaMarcus Russell must have been more of a black hole than I could have ever believed.  The Raiders more than doubled their scoring output from 2009, finishing 6th in points scored.   Also:  Jason Campbell is a good quarterback, hopefully more people will see that now.  He’s earned it.

Redskins:

Passes:  Donovan McNabb 78% of team attempts, 77.1 rating; Rex Grossman 22% of team attempts, 81.2 rating.  Aggregate rating 78.0.

“McNabb and new coach Mike Shanahan will score 3-5 more points per game than the 2009 Redskins.  A big part of that will be (or should be) attributed to the upgrade from Zorn to Shanahan.”  [Actual Result — The Redskins scoring went up by 2.3 points per game.  How much of the credit should go to the coach?]

McNabb wasn’t worth the 5-6 points that John Clayton predicted — in reality it wound up being something of a lost season for McNabb.  His status in Washington turned into a very public mess that was handled extremely poorly by McNabb, his agent, and the Redskins.  I think other teams will now think twice before acquiring McNabb — he may be permanently damaged goods.  (What happens if the next team feels the need to bench him?)  Going into the year I felt McNabb was overrated.  Now I think he’s cooked.

Eagles:

Passes:  Michael Vick 66% of team attempts, 100.2 rating;  Kevin Kolb 34% of team attempts, 76.1 rating.  Aggregate rating 92.1.

“The Eagles won’t miss McNabb.  Philadelphia was 5th in the league in scoring last year, so some regression back to the pack is figured in the chart below.  Kevin Kolb will be an All-Pro within three years.”  [Actual Result — Michael Vick miraculously resuscitated his career and the Eagles scoring went up by .6 points per game.]

It looked like I picked the wrong All-Pro, though I still think Kolb may get there eventually.  Vick took almost exactly 2/3rds of the snaps, and I would guess that’s about as many as he *can* take, given his propensity to put himself in harm’s way.  I don’t think Vick will ever get close to repeating his 2010 season;  he had career bests in Completion Percentage, Yards Per Attempt, TD Percentage, and Interception Percentage — everything that went into his career best Passer Rating of 100.2, good for 4th in the league.

The Eagles win the brass ring.