Cam Newton and Jay Cutler are two of the league's better passers. Or are they? When their teams were inside the 10 last year, the successfully got the ball into the end zone on only 8 of 52 pass plays.
Jay Cutler and Cam Newton are good quarterbacks, but when it comes time to convert in a key situation, they’re just not in the same league with guys like Rodgers, Brady, Brees and Manning.
If you look solely at how quarterbacks perform around the goal line – inside the 10 – year in and year out, you tend to see the great quarterbacks up at the top. Rodgers successfully got the ball in the end zone on 19 of 35 plays last year when he was inside the 10. (And he actually had kind of an off year.)
Cutler has been just the opposite (every year), and Newton looks like one of those guys as well. They’re the kind of quarterbacks that when the defense throws a different look at them, they tend to lock up, throwing the ball away, taking a sack or whatever.
The Bears ran 21 pass plays inside the 10 last year, and only 3 of those resulted in touchdowns. Newton went only 5 of 31 down there. Those are game-losers (I remember, for example, Newton had the ball inside the 10 against Seattle early in the year with a chance to win and couldn’t get it done).
Because of space considerations, I’m not showing all of the numbers here. “Plays” means all pass plays, including completions, incompletions and sacks. “TD” includes not only touchdown passes but also successful throws on 2-point conversions.
| PASSING INSIDE 10, 2013 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TD | Plays | Pct | ||
| A.Rodgers | 19 | 35 | 54.3% | |
| R.Fitzpatrick | 11 | 21 | 52.4% | |
| S.Bradford | 16 | 34 | 47.1% | |
| M.Schaub | 11 | 25 | 44.0% | |
| D.Brees | 24 | 56 | 42.9% | |
| C.Ponder | 16 | 38 | 42.1% | |
| B.Roethlisberger | 16 | 38 | 42.1% | |
| R.Wilson | 12 | 29 | 41.4% | |
| P.Manning | 19 | 46 | 41.3% | |
| C.Palmer | 13 | 32 | 40.6% | |
| B.Gabbert | 8 | 20 | 40.0% | |
| C.Henne | 6 | 16 | 37.5% | |
| J.Freeman | 13 | 35 | 37.1% | |
| R.Griffin | 8 | 22 | 36.4% | |
| T.Brady | 18 | 50 | 36.0% | |
| T.Romo | 10 | 28 | 35.7% | |
| M.Ryan | 17 | 48 | 35.4% | |
| A.Dalton | 14 | 40 | 35.0% | |
| R.Tannehill | 7 | 22 | 31.8% | |
| M.Sanchez | 6 | 19 | 31.6% | |
| E.Manning | 12 | 40 | 30.0% | |
| A.Luck | 11 | 37 | 29.7% | |
| P.Rivers | 8 | 28 | 28.6% | |
| J.Flacco | 6 | 25 | 24.0% | |
| M.Vick | 6 | 26 | 23.1% | |
| M.Stafford | 11 | 49 | 22.4% | |
| B.Weeden | 3 | 18 | 16.7% | |
| C.Newton | 5 | 31 | 16.1% | |
| J.Cutler | 3 | 21 | 14.3% | |
--Ian Allan