Buccaneers Season Grade – Quarterbacks
I have made no secret throughout the two years that Jeff Garcia has been our QB of my disdain for him. He has a general propensity to not move efficiently through all of his reads, and look mostly to check downs. He also tends to move his feet to much in the pocket, anticipating rushing defenses that the majority of time, tend to not even be in his general vicinity. The main problem with Mr. Garcia is his general lack of arm strength. I said at the start of the year that there was no way the Bucs could be Super Bowl Champs with Jeff Garcia, no matter how much it hurt me to say so. He is a guy that can get a team to a 9-7 record (which we’ve had the two years that he has been the QB) but not much more.
Garcia’s full season statistics:
244 of 376 for 2,712 yards and 7.2 yds per pass
12 touchdowns and 6 interceptions
35 runs for 148 yards and 1 touchdown to go along with 7 fumbles
For a guy who is supposed to be great because of what he can do with his legs, 148 yards in 12 games isn’t exactly mind boggling. That’s an average of 12.3 yards per game, a number that flat footed QB’s all over the league could strive to attain. He had 4 games where he rushed for over 10 yards, and 3 of them were in losses, so maybe his running isn’t exactly beneficial to the team.
People always point to his QB rating as the true indicator of the effectiveness of Jeff Garcia. 5 of his 12 starts he had a QB rating under 75. The QB’s in the league with sub 80 QB ratings for the year: Kyle Orton, Jamarcus Russell, Tyler Thigpen, Gus Frerotte, Dan Orlovsky, Marc Bulger, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Derek Anderson. I don’t think I need to inform anyone reading this site of the quality of the aforementioned guys.
He had 5 games of plus 100 QB rating as well, one of which was against Detroit, and of which was against Seattle. His largest game of the year was the one against Detroit (137.5 rating). That game should be thrown out, because well….it’s the damned Lions. That gives him two 100+ QB rating games over Carolina, and one over Minnesota. That left Jeff Garcia with 1, count it, 1 road game with a 100+ QB rating (if you take away the lowly Lions game).
Some other interesting stats:
On 20 yds or more plays – 22nd in the league
On 40 yds or more plays – 19th in the league
Total Yards – 22nd in the league
A stat that is widely used in baseball, VORP, has now been formulated for use with NFL players, DPAR, at footballoutsiders.com a premier website for NFL stats that are little different than your standard NFL stats. Jeff Garcia was ranked 18th, ahead of Seneca Wallace, Tavaris Jackson, Dan Orlovsky and Shaun Hill to name a few.
Interception and sack master Brian Griese started 4 games for the Bucs. He was only solid in 1 of those games, against the Falcons in week 2 of the season. We would have won that game with Dan Orlovsky at QB though as the defense dominated the young Falcons in that game. His other 3 games he through more picks than td’s and was sacked 7 times.
This is the most important position heading into the offseason. We are flush with cap space, and there should be a few starting caliber QB’s available on the free agent/trade market. We cannot go into another season with Jeff Garcia or Brian Griese as the signal caller for this team. If we do, suicide is in the mix for me.
Grade – D-