Bradford Doolittle: Chiefs shouldn't discount Thigpen

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Your post got me to looking at career QB completion% (Accuracy). Looks like the standard is about 62.5% give or take .5% for a really good QB. Breese, McNabb, Rothlisberger (sp?), Rivers, and Brady are all about 62%. Payton manning is 64.4% for his career and was only 56.7% his rookie year.

Anyway Thigpen was 54.8% this year. I am not a Thigpen lover nor am I a hater. If he earns a job he earns it, if not he doesn't. We should still draft a QB. I enjoyed his play about 50% of the time this year, 1st half mostly.

My thought is that the difference between 54% and 64% is completing 10 more attempts every 100 or about 3 every game he throws 33 times. Is it really inconceivable that he can't improve that much?

It's not impossible, it's just damn unlikely. That's the point I've been trying to make for awhile now. It's like plate discipline in baseball. One would think it's easy to coach up and work into a player and it just isn't. Guys that don't walk in the minors won't walk in the pros. There are some outliers (Jose Reyes), but not many.

Thigpen may be the outlier, but it's pretty unlikely. And those 3 completions per game are pretty huge when you consider those as 3 more first downs. Additionally, completion % is indicative of more than just how well he completes passes, it also speaks to where he puts them when he does. A QB with a higher completion % is also more likely to put a ball in a position to keep his reciever in full stride for YAC yards. More likely to connect on a deep pass, more likely to keep his guys healthy. It's more than just those 3 completions.

I don't see it happening. I'm still torn on drafting a QB at 3 b/c I'm not in love with either of the options (and Crabtree is a monster). However, there's no way we stop looking for a QB on Tyler Thigpen's account.