Game Balls

Eh, I'll break down the film again when I get home tomorrow, but looking at NFL.com's play by play it sure looks like Jake's completion percentage was boosted by short throws. He had a lot of them today, at least according to this.

 

yeah, a few. Very few compared to the past two weeks. I'm happy with him. The fumbles are a big deal.

There were maybe 4 hitch type plays. Far as I can remember, Colbert's the only one that took one anywhere, Key's and Foster's went nowhere. He didn't have 260 yards of RAC in there.
it's allright to give him a little due for not sucking.

 

He had a lot of RAC, honestly. And according to NFL.com, 26 of Jake's 36 attempts were short, including 19 of his 22 completions. Delhomme was only 3 of 10 deep, which is where most of the high throws have occurred. Criticize me all you want, but I have no history of being biased in my evaluations. Whether I like a guy or don't like him, my accounts of the games are always fair and accurate.

For what it's worth, those three deep completions accounted for 105 of Jake's 272 yards. Everything else came on short passes.

 

The hitches didn't give us a lot this week. Help his %, sure, but that wasn't what was buttering his bread.

Jake missing a wide open Smitty and Key at least once high for firsts, but I didn't see as many overall.

Key went up and made some really nice catches with people draped all over him. He's done that each week, really working in this offense like a Tight End.

 

If you mean where nfl.com says...

There was no RAC on that play. 19 yards is not a short throw. They call the following incompletion, another 20 yard throw over the middle to smitty, that was dropped, was a a "short" as well.

Sometimes, nfl.com is stupid.

 

yeah, 4 catches isn't going to make him look like a worldbeater when he was awful, since he wasn't awful. Missed a couple throws, compared to missing a bunch last week, and made a number of throws. Certainly good enough for me. Hitting 15 yarders at the sideline and being on target, being 61%? I'll take it. As we've said, not his best, probably average. But good enough.

 

About 5 yards actually, but you're still correct, that shouldn't have been classified as short. I'll go over it myself tomorrow, but unless NFL.com's play by play is wrong in many places, I think the point stands.


magnus:
I didn't say Delhomme was "awful." I said he clearly wasn't "good," and he wasn't.

 

I think my point is, in fact, that nlf.com isn't a particuarly good barameter for that. They don't have one "intermediate" pass listing.

A lot of what they called "deep" throws weren't overthrows so much, they just weren't open. I remember those on the crosses and skinny posts and such.

 

even at a generous 5 yards, that's a 13 yard reception with a few steps and falling forward. That's neither short nor a lot of RAC. And to me, he was good. 60%, a score, made his throws. Not "great", not "game ball", but nothing to complain about.

 

he did throw a few away like that. He's prone to throw into double coverage, so seeing a ball sail quickly overhead is a good sign.