The Era of the Pocket Passer

This past season in the NFL has been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, trials and setbacks, surprises and upsets. We have seen rookies shine and veterans struggle, and the most interesting change I have noticed is at the quarterback position. In today’s game, there are basically two types of QBs: your traditional pocket passers and your read option running QBs. Guy such as Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Tom Brady are all guys who could be considered elite or Top 10 Quarterbacks. These are all basically standard pocket-passers who have great accuracy and a high completion rate. Then you have your scramblers like Cam Newton, Michael Vick and Colin Kaepernick. So the question is: which style of quarterback is most effective?

Robert Griffin III, known as the infamous RG3 had one of the most outstanding rookie seasons the NFL has ever known. Right up until the devastating injury in the playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks, RG3 had over 3,000 passing yards, 7 rushing TDs, and 20 TD completions. He has shown great pocket presence as well as the ability to scramble out and gain a great amount of yardage with his legs. He has tremendous athletic ability and he appears to be the kind of team leader that the Redskins organization has been looking for. This year, Griffin has 12 TDs and a total of 9 interceptions for the season.

The same goes for guys like Michael Vick. In the 2012 season, Vick had eleven turnovers in the first five weeks! Eagles fans began to get discouraged as they witnessed poor decision making along with questionable play calling on offense lead them to release Coach Andy Reid at the end of the season and replace him with Oregon Head Coach Chip Kelly. After the success Andy Reid has been having in Kansas City, it is clear now that Reid was not the problem. Since Vick has become the starting quarterback in Philadelphia, he has been out with an injury at least once in the five seasons he has been with the Eagles, not including his suspension.