Saints vs Backup QBs (1 Viewer)

Optimus Prime

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Usually if your opponent’s starting quarterback is out the defense is licking their chops

Not the Saints

And when I say the saints I don’t mean the recent saints or Sean Payton’s Saints

I mean as long as I’ve been watching since early 90s

Why do we struggle so against backups???

And it doesn’t matter the flavor of backup

A team’s long time back up who hadn’t played in years

Veteran journeyman on his fourth or fifth team

Backup who’s never taken a regular season snap

A rookie

They all seem to look like world beaters against us

It’s happened to us with the Bucs before, can’t recall his name, shaved head huge eyebrows (something-oski?)

I was worried playing Brett Huntley last year

I’m terrified that Baker Mayfield gets in the game on Sunday for whatever reason and plays lights out

I’d be curious what our record against backups is just under Payton
 
Well, you have to be careful. It certainly SEEMS like we have trouble with rookies and backups, but whether that's actually the case is not definite. Losses tend to be magnified on our minds, and we may be a better against them than we think. But, for all I know, it may be true. There's just no stats on this, so I will take it with a grain of salt.
 
i


Bruce Gradkowski
 
A.J Feeley Rams 2011 - If the Saints won this game the playoff game against the 49ers would have been in the Dome
 
Hoyer when we lost to Cleveland. I know he was technically their Starter at the time but it is because they had nobody else. Guys always been backup quality and yet he dissected us with ease.
 
Winston sucks. Who says Fitzpatrick wasn’t gonna beat him out for the starting job?
 
Well, you have to be careful. It certainly SEEMS like we have trouble with rookies and backups, but whether that's actually the case is not definite. Losses tend to be magnified on our minds, and we may be a better against them than we think. But, for all I know, it may be true. There's just no stats on this, so I will take it with a grain of salt.

I posted this in the "Fitzmagic" thread and it fits here too, this only covers the rookie QB's we have played and not backups I haven't had time to try and figure those out yet:

I was thinking the same thing and was curious if it was just because we remember the times they beat us and conveniently forget the times we whipped them. Using Pro-Football reference I pulled all games were a Rookie QB played against the Saints and then deleted those with fewer than 15 attempts in the game (because for some reason it doesn't have a feild denoting started using their play index tool, at least not one that I found). And in 39 games all time where Rookie QB's have thrown more than 15 passes in a game against us we are 26-13.

Sean Payton Era? 19-9.

On average Rookie QB's playing us go 16-29 for 196.6 yards per game with 1.07 TD's and 0.82 Int's in the Sean Payton Era:


Also here are the rookie QB's who had their first game action vs the Saints (most coming in mop up duty):

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I’d be curious what our record against backups is just under Payton


Alright. I'm going to play around and figure out just how we do against "back ups". My question is how are we going to define "backups" because this dude:





i


Bruce Gradkowski

Actually started 11 games for the Bucs in 2006 when we played him (We went 2-0 against him by the way) so for that season I would actually consider him a starter more than a back up. However if we wanted to say OK this guy has been a back up most of his career so lets designate him a back up. Which do you guys think?
 
Don't forget the rookie QBs!

RGIII had the greatest first start performance of a rookie all time against us.

To be fair, it's not so much backups and rookies. We've always made mediocre and bad QBs look like pro bowlers. Go through the 2009 team's list of QBs we faced and look at the numbers Jason Campbell, Kevin Kolb and Marc Bulger had on us. Jake Locker also had probably the best game of his career against us in 2011.

It's a habit that goes back a long ways.
 
Ok so real quick I went through and pulled QB's that played against us that started 8 or less games that year in the Sean Payton era. Here are the results.

We went 16-4 in those games. The average score was 30.6 to 19.4. QB's went 18.5 - 32.05 with 222 yards and .95 TD's and 1.2 INTS.

1536933235575.png
 
Ok so real quick I went through and pulled QB's that played against us that started 8 or less games that year in the Sean Payton era. Here are the results.

We went 16-4 in those games. The average score was 30.6 to 19.4. QB's went 18.5 - 32.05 with 222 yards and .95 TD's and 1.2 INTS.


Ah ha!!!

Thanks for all the work.
 
We've always made mediocre and bad QBs look like pro bowlers.

Alright in the Payton era the average QB rating in the league (excluding 2018) is around 83.58 (yeah I know taking an average of an average isn't the best but it's the quickest and easiest way at the moment)

1536936985095.png

So I pulled all of the QB's we have played against career passer ratings and pulled in everyone below the average (Oddly the first guy just below "average" is Eli Manning at 83.4 ouch, on the plus side for Eli he's easily had one of the best games a QB has ever had against us going for 350 yards and 6 td's with 0 ints, unfortunately for him his defense gave up 52 points that day, again ouch).

I included QB's that threw 15 or more passes because oddly enough even with all these stats Pro-Football reference doesn't have a field denoting starts, Madening!!! Here are the results against "below average" QB's in the Payton Era.

78 total games 49 wins 29 losses 62.8 win % (Sean Payton's overall win % is 71.08, it's 74.85% if you back out these "below average" games. Hmmmmm...)


The "below average" QB's went for 18.8-32 58.7% 216 YPG and 1.23 TD's and 0.83 INTS and sacked 2.1 times.
All QB's during the Sean Payton era avearge 20.7-34 60.9% 252.4 YPD and 1.6 TD's and 0.83 INTS with 2.1 sacks.

So while it does look like those "below average" guys win more often than the above average guys they aren't "tearing us up" while they do it like we think.


Notable guys that fall into that "below average" range. Eli Manning, Jake Delhomme, Matt Hasselbeck, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Michael Vick.
 
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