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Clayton
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I've seen a few articles and done a fantasy draft now and I've seen a wide discrepancy of opinions on Amendola and Bradford. Here is an excerpt from Bill Barnwell's 'Bottom 8 teams in the NFL for 2013' which leads with a picture of Bradford:
"The difference between Sam Bradford throwing to Danny Amendola and Sam Bradford throwing to anybody else has been very stark during Bradford's brief NFL career. He gets about as much on each throw regardless — 6.1 yards per attempt to Amendola, 6.3 yards per attempt to all the others. Where he's differed has been in completion percentage. Bradford has completed 66.5 percent of his passes to Amendola, which has helped make his numbers look better and left him with a safety valve during those times when Amendola and Bradford were both healthy. When throwing to other receivers, Bradford has completed just 56.8 percent of his passes. In other words, he turns from an efficient-if-conservative checkdown artist with Amendola into the 2012 version of Blaine Gabbert without him.
At this point, Bradford is basically a ruthless checkdown artist; the Rams are the ones paying millions of dollars to put something they don't really understand or have any use for up on their wall right now, and since they've already done it once, they keep doing it. Bradford routinely doesn't see open receivers downfield or doesn't see them until the window is already closing. Just 6.8 percent of his passes since joining the league have gone for 20 yards or more, which is the lowest rate in the league for passers with 1,000 attempts or more over that time frame. The average rate for those quarterbacks is 9.3 percent, which tells you just how little of an impact Bradford has had. You can be a good quarterback in this league by checking down a lot — Matt Ryan is at only 7.6 percent, and Peyton Manning is barely ahead of him at 8.4 percent — but you need to complete 65 percent of your passes in doing so to repeatedly move the chains. Bradford is at 58 percent. If you want to succeed while completing 58 percent of your passes, you have to be like Cam Newton, who leads the league in this stat by turning 12.2 percent of his pass attempts into 20-plus-yard gains. If you're not completing a lot of passes and those passes aren't going very far, you're not pushing your team in the right direction."
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Lies, darn lies and statistics, I say. Year 1 was with Shurmur and year 2 was a waste so I feel that using those statistics to tell us anything about what Bradford will do this year is pointless.
His completion percentage last year was .5% lower than his Pat Shurmur rookie year when he was Captain checkdown but his yards per attempt went from 6.0 yards to 6.7 yards while doubling the number of passes over 40 yards and increasing his touchdowns by 3 and lowering his Interceptions by 2 all while taking only 1 more sack. As a result, his QB rating went from 76.5 in his rookie year to 82.6 in his 3rd year. Thats notable improvement especially when you pair it with the fact that the NFC West defenses he has been playing have gotten A LOT better.
I also thinks its important to note that a lot of stats that deal with Bradford's life without Amendola come in that dreadful Year 2 when everything went wrong.
So I think there is hope that Bradford is good enough to use the weapons around him. Givens really did help take the top off the defense on more than one occasion. Tavon Austin might be the first YAC receiver that Bradford has ever had. Bradford has only had 1 player in the top 40 of YAC in his career and that was Amendola in his rookie year (likely because Bradford was feeding him the ball right at the line of scrimmage)
Brandon Gibson and Danny Amendola had catch rates of 62% last year. Austin Pettis had a catch rate of 63% last year. The sky isn't falling. Bradford is an ok QB and he should be a little better this year.
"The difference between Sam Bradford throwing to Danny Amendola and Sam Bradford throwing to anybody else has been very stark during Bradford's brief NFL career. He gets about as much on each throw regardless — 6.1 yards per attempt to Amendola, 6.3 yards per attempt to all the others. Where he's differed has been in completion percentage. Bradford has completed 66.5 percent of his passes to Amendola, which has helped make his numbers look better and left him with a safety valve during those times when Amendola and Bradford were both healthy. When throwing to other receivers, Bradford has completed just 56.8 percent of his passes. In other words, he turns from an efficient-if-conservative checkdown artist with Amendola into the 2012 version of Blaine Gabbert without him.
At this point, Bradford is basically a ruthless checkdown artist; the Rams are the ones paying millions of dollars to put something they don't really understand or have any use for up on their wall right now, and since they've already done it once, they keep doing it. Bradford routinely doesn't see open receivers downfield or doesn't see them until the window is already closing. Just 6.8 percent of his passes since joining the league have gone for 20 yards or more, which is the lowest rate in the league for passers with 1,000 attempts or more over that time frame. The average rate for those quarterbacks is 9.3 percent, which tells you just how little of an impact Bradford has had. You can be a good quarterback in this league by checking down a lot — Matt Ryan is at only 7.6 percent, and Peyton Manning is barely ahead of him at 8.4 percent — but you need to complete 65 percent of your passes in doing so to repeatedly move the chains. Bradford is at 58 percent. If you want to succeed while completing 58 percent of your passes, you have to be like Cam Newton, who leads the league in this stat by turning 12.2 percent of his pass attempts into 20-plus-yard gains. If you're not completing a lot of passes and those passes aren't going very far, you're not pushing your team in the right direction."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lies, darn lies and statistics, I say. Year 1 was with Shurmur and year 2 was a waste so I feel that using those statistics to tell us anything about what Bradford will do this year is pointless.
His completion percentage last year was .5% lower than his Pat Shurmur rookie year when he was Captain checkdown but his yards per attempt went from 6.0 yards to 6.7 yards while doubling the number of passes over 40 yards and increasing his touchdowns by 3 and lowering his Interceptions by 2 all while taking only 1 more sack. As a result, his QB rating went from 76.5 in his rookie year to 82.6 in his 3rd year. Thats notable improvement especially when you pair it with the fact that the NFC West defenses he has been playing have gotten A LOT better.
I also thinks its important to note that a lot of stats that deal with Bradford's life without Amendola come in that dreadful Year 2 when everything went wrong.
So I think there is hope that Bradford is good enough to use the weapons around him. Givens really did help take the top off the defense on more than one occasion. Tavon Austin might be the first YAC receiver that Bradford has ever had. Bradford has only had 1 player in the top 40 of YAC in his career and that was Amendola in his rookie year (likely because Bradford was feeding him the ball right at the line of scrimmage)
Brandon Gibson and Danny Amendola had catch rates of 62% last year. Austin Pettis had a catch rate of 63% last year. The sky isn't falling. Bradford is an ok QB and he should be a little better this year.
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