Please Stop Giving Quarterbacks a Win-Loss Record
By Randy Gurzi
The NFL is much too complicated of a sport to try and analyze a quarterbacks effectiveness simply by quoting their number of wins and losses as a starter
It’s never made any sense. The NFL is considered the ultimate team sport, yet analysts try and dumb things down to the level of assigning wins and losses to just one player: the quarterback. This narrative is outdated yet keeps popping up during game broadcasts.
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At one point during the game in Week 10, the announcing team pointed out that criticism against Denver Broncos quarterback Trevor Siemian was unwarranted because the first-year starter was 6-2 as the starter.
That notion is awful. The Broncos aren’t winning because of Siemian. They are winning because they’re a great football team who happens to be masking some awful quarterback play. The reason Siemian is playing is because their coach, Gary Kubiak, is too stubborn to turn to a rookie with higher upside in Paxton Lynch.
Speaking of stubborn coaches, Los Angeles Rams coach Jeff Fisher keeps trotting Case Keenum out as a starter despite having the first-overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft on the bench. Not only is he keeping Jared Goff on the sidelines, but he had the audacity to say Keenum played well because they won. Because they won 9-6. On a game that Keenum threw for 165 yards and the team scored touchdowns.
Never has the idea of a “quarterback win” made less sense, and Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk finally spoke out against the “quarterback win” on Monday morning following a game of bad quarterback play happening by the winning team.
"In New Orleans, we saw Broncos quarterback Trevor Siemian “win” a game in which he averaged 6.4 yards a pass against a lousy Saints pass defense, and we saw Drew Brees “lose” a game in which he averaged 10.4 yards a pass against an excellent Broncos pass defense. Brees played far better than Siemian, but the game-changing play happened while both Brees and Siemian were standing on the sideline: As the Saints lined up for a game-winning extra point, the Broncos blocked it and returned it to the end zone for a two-point return score. Why would we call one quarterback a winner and the other quarterback a loser when the game hinged on a play that happened with both players on the sideline?"
Smith also mentioned the porous game by Houston Texans quarterback Brock Osweiler who threw a sad 99 yards, but his team won. He mentioned how Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith played miserably, but somehow beat reigning MVP Cam Newton who was better in all phases of the game.
He then went on to blast the idea that a playoff win and loss going for or against a certain quarterback is even worse to do. Yet, that’s the narrative among many analysts who crucify quarterbacks for a playoff loss as if they were the only one of 53 players responsible for their team’s outcome.
Again, the brilliant broadcast crews simply don’t get this. During the Dallas Cowboys improbable comeback on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman started discussing the future of quarterback Tony Romo.
Buck immediately turned to Romo’s career record and then highlighted the veterans 2-4 playoff record as a blemish on his resume. That same playoff record included a loss on an incredibly controversial call following the 2014 season.
Most people remember this play. Romo threw a fourth-down pass to receiver Dez Bryant, who caught the ball, switched hands with it, and dove for the end zone during which the ball bounced out for a second on the dive. The play was eventually called an incomplete pass and started a movement for the league to define what a catch is.
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Still, according to Joe Buck’s neanderthal-like assessment of quarterbacking play, Romo would be a better player if Bryant never bobbled that ball and they wound up winning? It’s beyond time to call for an end to this outdated line of thinking. Please consider joining the movement started by Michael David Smith and help us kill the “quarterback win.”