Gabbert’s Numbers Show Little Promise
Blaine Gabbert has been awful for the Jacksonville Jaguars this year. His struggles go beyond playing for a bad team – certain elements of his performance can be analyzed separately from his team’s performance. Gabbert lacks pocket presence or composure, doesn’t attack downfield and throws the ball with such a high arc defensive players have time to get to the ball before it gets to its intended receiver.
Plenty of great quarterbacks have rebounded from bad rookie years, but Gabbert is at the point where he is beyond just having a bad season. His future in the NFL is legitimately questionable, and Jason Lisk of the Big Lead compiled data suggesting Gabbert’s rookie season is historically bad.Lisk examined Gabbert’s completion percentage, yards per attempt and sack rate. Only six quarterbacks in NFL history other than Gabbert were at least one standard deviation below the league average in all three categories. Lisk said Gabbert shares extremely uninspiring company:
"Donovan McNabbJimmy ClausenDavid CarrJeff KomloJoe PisarcikAndrew WalterMcNabb was more of a runner and overcame a poor rookie season by immediately taking Philadelphia to the playoffs in year two. The rest is not pretty. The fact that he is taking so many sacks (which means he is holding the ball and not getting rid of it early) while still having a low completion percentage is not good. If he was throwing balls away rather than holding it too long, his completion percentage would be even lower. Add in his low yards per attempt, and the combination of those things is a bad sign for what may be a short future.More than half of first round picks ultimately fail at quarterback. If you gave me that list of players as similar to how he has played, I would now put Gabbert’s chances even lower.…If I’m Jacksonville, I’m not giving up on him after 10 starts. I’m also not necessarily avoiding bringing in competition if an alternative is available next year."
Lisk’s assessments provide statistical backing to what I’ve said about Gabbert since well before he was drafted – whether by the eye test or by the numbers, Gabbert is not a good NFL quarterback. His problems go beyond typical rookie struggles – aside from dumping the ball off on checkdowns, he cannot consistently make other NFL throws. His NFL career will likely serve as a cautionary tale to NFL teams who fall in love with a quarterback’s arm strength and overlook everything else when drafting him.