Here are Bradford's final season numbers for 15 games.
Comp:395 (5th)
Att:552 (14th)
Pct: 71.6 (1st)
Yds: 3,877 (16th)
Yds/Att: 7.0 (18th among all QBs with 130+ attempts)
Yds/G: 258.5 (15th)
TD: 20 (18th)
INT: 5 (28th among all QBs with 200+ attempts)
Rate: 99.3 (6th among all QBs with 100+ attempts)
I'm impressed with Bradford's abilities and what he accomplished behind a dreadful offensive line. I don't even see how he stayed alive.
It will be tough for a recovering Bridgewater to unseat Bradford. Maybe impossible, given Teddy's injury.
The Vikings are fortunate to have Bradford going into next season. They have a bunch of rebuilding to do on the OL, but they don't have to worry about the QB position.
losperros wrote:I'm impressed with Bradford's abilities and what he accomplished behind a dreadful offensive line. I don't even see how he stayed alive.
It will be tough for a recovering Bridgewater to unseat Bradford. Maybe impossible, given Teddy's injury.
The Vikings are fortunate to have Bradford going into next season. They have a bunch of rebuilding to do on the OL, but they don't have to worry about the QB position.
Exactly. Yeah we gave up a first, but it was well worth it IMO. Especially since we have 2 third round picks and 2 fourth round picks. Although I would still like to draft a developmental guy late. At the same time, I wish I could see more of Heinecke
The saddest thing in life is wasted talent and the choices you make will shape your life forever.
-Chazz Palminteri
Bradford should be starter next year. Teddy can fight for it, but I'm ok with him being behind Sam Bradford for the next 4-5 years.
Like I said, I would be happy if they hired shurmur as our OC because he fits well with Sam. but I don't blame them if they go a different route.
Sam earned alot of respect this year taking all those hits and staying in it.
Jordysghost wrote:The aquisition of Sam Bradford has been, imo, the single most impressive move your current brass has made.
I agree, obviously the outcome this year overshadows it and makes some people say "why bother" but I think it will pay off in a big way in the next couple of seasons.
We did have a dink and dunk offense, but if you look at yards per attempt and yards per game it is very similar. Those two numbers really surprised me. Sam had a #### OL so I give him more credit
Short pass master Bradford finished 17th in first down percentage
Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford set a new NFL record for completion percentage this season, completing 71.6 percent of his passes. Which serves as a good reminder of how meaningless a statistic completion percentage can be.
The problem with completion percentage is that it treats all completions equally, which is obviously ridiculous: A completion for zero yards doesn’t help a team any more than an incompletion. A completion short of the line to gain on third down doesn’t help much more than an incompletion, either. And Bradford had a lot of those short completions that didn’t pick up first downs.
How many? While setting the NFL record for completion percentage, Bradford finished 17th in the NFL in first down percentage, among the 33 quarterbacks who threw at least 200 passes.
Bradford completed so many passes short of the line to gain that he got a first down on just 35.7 percent of his passes. Half the quarterbacks in the league picked up a first down on a higher percentage of their passes, even though none completed as high a percentage of his passes.
Short pass master Bradford finished 17th in first down percentage
That's one of the reasons the Vikes should proceed cautiously with both Bradford and Shurmur and not just automatically give the OC job to the latter or sign the former to a big, lucrative contract extension.
Short pass master Bradford finished 17th in first down percentage
"Half the quarterbacks in the league picked up a first down on a higher percentage of their passes" - WHAT??
That stat is completely meaningless my friend, without the missing piece which of course IS "how many yards did all the QB's need to gain on 3rd down?"
And then there is this:
According to Pro Football Reference’s handy Player Index tool, Thielen led all NFL receivers by grabbing 70.4 percent of his ‘deep targets’ (min. 20 targets). The stat shows Thielen’s reliable hands and improved route running that quickly led to trust with a new quarterback and play caller.
Thielen, who gained the bulk of his career-best 967 receiving yards on passes that traveled at least 15 yards down the field.
His connection with Bradford eased the quarterback’s transition into an offense behind eight different line combinations in 15 starts.
Bradford, the league’s most accurate quarterback (ever) at 71.6 percent completed, was also one of the better downfield passers.
Bradford ranked eighth in the same ‘deep target’ category among quarterbacks, completing 49.4 percent of his passes. He trailed only Matt Ryan, Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Tom Brady and Derek Carr in percentage of downfield passes completed. Though he threw the fewest such attempts among those quarterbacks while taking a career-worst 37 sacks.
RFIP wrote:"Half the quarterbacks in the league picked up a first down on a higher percentage of their passes" - WHAT??
That stat is completely meaningless my friend, without the missing piece which of course IS "how many yards did all the QB's need to gain on 3rd down?"
And then there is this:
According to Pro Football Reference’s handy Player Index tool, Thielen led all NFL receivers by grabbing 70.4 percent of his ‘deep targets’ (min. 20 targets). The stat shows Thielen’s reliable hands and improved route running that quickly led to trust with a new quarterback and play caller.
Thielen, who gained the bulk of his career-best 967 receiving yards on passes that traveled at least 15 yards down the field.
His connection with Bradford eased the quarterback’s transition into an offense behind eight different line combinations in 15 starts.
Bradford, the league’s most accurate quarterback (ever) at 71.6 percent completed, was also one of the better downfield passers.
Bradford ranked eighth in the same ‘deep target’ category among quarterbacks, completing 49.4 percent of his passes. He trailed only Matt Ryan, Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Tom Brady and Derek Carr in percentage of downfield passes completed. Though he threw the fewest such attempts among those quarterbacks while taking a career-worst 37 sacks.
Hmm, I wonder what he could do with an OL??????
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