Well this will be the first post I make (A day daddy) and we’re going to look at the Buccaneers and their off-season changes in a new way, no I’m not going to bore you with a thousand words on why Jeff Garcia is better than Chris Simms. I won’t stun you with my extensive history of the past, I will occasionally make a humorous line, I won’t over do it since I’m not that funny to carry my writing based just on that. So what do I bring? Stats! And not just basic stats, but that complicated crap, I am after all; a baseball writer first and foremost.
So today we’ll look at the quarterback position using Football Outsiders ‘DPAR’ statistic. DPAR stands for Defensive-adjusted Points Above Replacement level, and it’s the football counterpart to Baseball Prospectus’ VORP, Victories Over Replacement Player. I won’t get into what they consider replacement level because, well, I’d rather not confuse you too much on my first post, and I’m also going to let Football Outsiders’ website describe the adjusted level:
“This number represents the total number of points scored due to plays where this QB passed or carried the ball, compared to a replacement-level QB in the same game situations.”
In laymen’s terms this stat shows how productive an offense was behind the said quarterback, and is adjusted to the opponent, so if a team played a cupcake schedule you won’t see an advantage over the quarterback on the team that played the hardest schedule in the league. Handy.
Last year Peyton Manning lead the league in DPA, 175, followed closely by Marc Bulger, 108.8, Drew Brees, 106, Carson Palmer and Philip Rivers rounded out the top five, with Tom Brady finishing sixth, all of which makes sense; the consensus top tier of QBs are found at the top of DPAR for a reason; because they’re good, on the flip side, the quarterbacks whose defenses and running backs carried the team, or just didn’t score are on the lower end of the DPAR food chain. Or in other words the bad quarterbacks.
The turnover prone Rex Grossman’s DPAR? 4.1, Michael Vick’s was -6.3, yes negative, Chris Simms’ DPAR was a disappointing -13, but even Simms’ wasn’t as bad as Bruce Gradkowski’s, who finished as the second to last ranked QB, per DPAR, in the league with at least 100 pass attempts, with a -30.4 reading, barely ahead of Andrew Walter and his -30.6.
The Bucs didn’t sit still this past off-season to address the quarterback position, and rightfully so, adding Jake Plummer and Jeff Garcia, two veterans, but only one of whom is a significant upgrade, which one? As previously mentioned Rex Grossman’s 4.1 is amongst the lower tier of QBs, and that’s likely due to his reliance on the Bears’ running game and defense, Jake Plummer finished just slightly ahead at 4.5.
That would mean Jeff Garcia is what I would call a ‘substantial upgrade’ at the QB position; his 27.6 DPAR ranks ahead of Jake Delhomme, J.P. Losman, Trent Green, Matt Hasselbeck, and rookie of the year Vince Young. I know what you’re saying, “But Philadelphia’s offense was easily more talented than what the Bucs have, and Garcia’s great stats are an aberration of his career!”
Absolutely correct! Garcia has always been poor, right? Unt-uh!
In 2000 Garcia’s DPAR of 97.8 was good for second place, right behind Peyton Manning, he’d slip in 2001, down to fourth place with a 67.2 piece, he’d improve his number to 69 in 2002, but slip to seventh, eight points behind Brad Johnson. In 2003 Garcia’s 33.2 would only be good for 16th, the guy in 15th? Donovan McNabb.
Now we reach 2004, Garcia’s lone year in
So if Garcia needs a good supporting cast to be truly successful the question becomes, does he have that here in
Tuesday: Runningbacks / Wide Receivers
Thursday: Tight Ends/ Offensive Line
Hope you enjoyed the first post of the ‘new writers’, MBF will have his first post on Monday, and we’ll rotate every other day.
- R.J.
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