Quote:Yeah the pick sixes are a huge problem.

 

Are they? Are they really? Or are they just somewhat overblown?


Modal average for pick sixes by starting QBs is 2. So Blake had two more pick sixes than the average QB. Worst case scenario, each pick six loses the team a game. It can't be any worse than that, and in reality isn't that bad - one of the games where Blake threw a pick six we won, and one of the others was such a one-sided loss that not throwing the pick six would have made no difference - it was thrown in desperation in the last minutes of a game where we were already down by 23 points. So half the pick sixes thrown don't even alter the result of the game.


So compared to an average QB, Blake's allegedly terrible habit of throwing pick sixes would have lost us approximately one game. Huge problem? Apparently not. Obviously you want to cut down on them. But just how much do they hurt the team? Again, look at the worst case scenario; the drive would have resulted in a touchdown and the opposition's next drive wouldn't. Boom. 14-point differential per pick 6. Blake Bortles just cost us 28 points over the average QB with his pick six tendencies.


But that same median QB threw 23 touchdown passes. Blake threw what, 35? That's 12 more, or 84 points. So we're trading off 28 points through this 'huge problem' against 84 points by being better at scoring. I'll take that trade.


And again, those four pick sixes weren't actually all cases where Blake hurt the team. Two were in the fourth quarter while down by more than 14 points; classic case of too many desperate plays trying to dig the team out of a hole, where playing conservatively wouldn't have resulted in a win. One was on a deep pass, and while it may have been an ill advised pass, it's not entirely on Blake that it went back for a touchdown.

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