What Is It With Jaws? (No, not the movie)

I'm talking about ESPN pro football analyst and ex-quarterback Ron Jaworski. First off, since the guy played for the Philadelphia Eagles, rarely does he ever criticize the team, regardless of how well or poorly they're faring. If Philly was 2-13 entering their final game and they had to finish the year going on the road to 14-1 Indianapolis, and there were so many injuries to Philly's squad that they had to start coaches, waterboys, and cheerleaders, Jaws would probably still go with the Eagles. Okay, yeah, he's a bit biased. He also holds a bit of a grudge against dual-threat quarterbacks and since he talks to himself every night claiming that they can't win, the mere-exposure effect has grabbed hold of him and he ultimately believes it. Why do I say this? The all-time leading rusher for quarterbacks (for now), Randall Cunningham, replaced Jaws as starting quarterback for the Eagles and basically made Jaws a back-up the rest of his career. Yeah, so there's some spite there. Jaws appeared in one Super Bowl while he led the Eagles, losing to the Oakland Raiders 27-10. Over their careers, Cunningham threw for more yards than did Jaworski (barely), completed more passes, completed a higher percentage of his passes, had a better average of yards per pass attempt, threw for more touchdowns, threw fewer interceptions, and ran for a record 4,928 yards for a quarterback. In other words, when it comes to statistics, Jaws had no right to jaw about Randall, because Cunningham bested Ronald in every way imaginable.

Now, Jaws is yapping about another dual-threat quarterback, Atlanta Falcons' Michael Vick. It's amazing. On Sunday, Vick led the Falcons to a 32-10 drubbing of the Arizona Cardinals to improve the team to 3-1 with wins over pre-season NFC Champ favorite Carolina, last season's divisional champ Tampa Bay, and pre-season hyped sleeper team Arizona. The only loss they've suffered was at the hands of 3-1 New Orleans on a Monday night which celebrated the first home game at the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, the Steel Curtain would've walked in there with a loss. Joe Montana in his prime would've left the dome with a loss. Jaworski would've gotten hammered for 60 minutes and blown out of the building. So, what did the PTI guys ask Jaws on Monday? "Is Vick limiting the offense in the red zone?" Even though the Falcons are beating up the opposition, they have squandered a few opportunities in the red zone and have had to settle for many field goals because of it. But, is Vick the only one to blame? No, of course not. The play-calling has been atrocious down near the goalline, Warrick Dunn has been less effective near the end zone, players have dropped passes, and Vick has attempted to do too much at times, so blame goes all around. How did Jaws respond? He said, "I think Vick limits the offense on all parts of the field. I've always believed that you need a consistent and steady passing game in order to win a championship. Running the football like they have isn't going to win you a championship."

If Atlanta keeps running the ball the way they have (which is not likely), they will win the Super Bowl. The Falcons have racked up 937 yards on the ground in four games! That's an average of over 234 yards per game! That's incredible! At this rate, they'd rush for 3,748 yards in the regular season. Again, that's not likely, but after the 252 yard performance against Carolina, I said it wouldn't be likely that they'd duplicate that anytime soon and the very next week against Tampa, they ran for 306 yards. This past week against Arizona, they chalked up 262 more yards. Their "off" game was the game in New Orleans when they ran for only 117 yards. What, is Jaws jealous? Does he wish he could be quicker? Donovan McNabb has been a leader and MVP-caliber dual-threat quarterback for the Eagles and he's led Philly to a few NFC Title Games and one Super Bowl. Steve McNair led the Tennessee Titans to within a yard of claiming a Super Bowl Title. Michael Vick has led the Falcons to an NFC Title Game. Randall Cunningham had success. While the dual-threat quarterbacks are few and far between in the NFL, for the most part, they are winners. Aaron Brooks has been the most inconsistent and disappointing of the lot.

So, how does Vick "limit" the Falcons' offense? Is Jaws an idiot? Atlanta is able to run several plays that no other team in the NFL can run and why? Because of Vick. If anything, the guy gives them more options. Around the goalline, numerous pass plays can be called, including bootlegs and rollouts, a spread option is another possibility, a naked bootleg, to go with all the traditional run plays. This isn't just true in the red zone, it's true all over the field. With Ashley Lelie in the lineup, Vick's now more prone to throwing a deep ball or two per game. He's also unafraid to check down and throw it short. There's always the intermediate routes, as well. But, Vick's speed allows the offensive coordinator to call plays he never thought he would in an NFL game. These plays won't be called in Indy, in Cincy, in Pittsburgh, or anywhere else. For some reason, perhaps because Vick led the Falcons to a win over his Eagles last year on a Monday Night, but Jaws seems to cut down Vick as much as possible, but, he can't criticize anyone in the Eagles' organization, and he just gave Vince Young praise after his 14-29, 1 TD, 2 INT, 1 fumble debut against Dallas this past weekend. Chicago Bears' quarterback Rex Grossman has his worst game of the young year two weekends ago against Minnesota, throwing two interceptions, one of those going for a touchdown, and yet Jaws only yapped about his one touchdown. But, the Falcons winning 32-10? Oh, let's criticize Vick some more.

So, for fun, I thought I'd check out Jaws' stats. In his career, Jaws had only one really good season, which came in 1980. He threw for 3,519 yards, 27 touchdowns, while tossing only 12 picks. He completed 57% of his passes, averaging 7.8 per pass attempt, and even ran for 95 total yards and an additional touchdown. But, that was it for Jaworski. While he threw for over 28,000 yards, he completed just 53.1% of his passes, averaged 6.8 per attempt, threw 179 touchdowns, and was picked off 164 times. He also ran for 859 yards and 16 touchdowns. He was worse in the playoffs, where he was 4-5 while leading the Eagles. He completed less than 47% of his passes for 1,669 yards, threw 10 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions, and ran for 49 yards and a touchdown. In his 15 year career, Jaws was selected to 1 Pro Bowl.

Let's compare that to Vick, shall we Jaws? He will surpass the 10,000 yard mark passing this year. He's currently at 9,553. He's completed 53.8% of his passes, for an average of 6.7 yards per attempt, thrown 54 touchdowns while throwing 41 interceptions. He's also run for 3,153 yards and 20 touchdowns. Vick has a 2-2 record in the playoffs and has been selected to 3 Pro Bowls in his three full years of starting. Jaws' touchdown to interception ratio is 1.09, while Vick's is 1.31. Vick's completion percentage is 0.5% better than Jaws'. He's already run for four more touchdowns in an incomplete 5+ years than Jaws' did in 15. He has already been selected to two more Pro Bowls than Jaworski. Jaws has the upper hand when it comes to average yards per attempt, as he leads Vick by 0.1 yards. In 10 less seasons, Vick has 2,300 more rushing yards than Jaws. He also has a better winning percentage in the playoffs, .500 to .444. He has completed a higher percentage of passes in the playoffs, completing over 56% of his passes compared to Jaws' 47%. He has outrushed Jaws 239-89 in those playoff appearances as well. While I cannot find Jaworski's overall record, Vick's winning percentage is currently at .621. While Jaws may like to yap about these dual-threat quarterbacks not winning or being very good, it seems like these quarterbacks could yap right back, because they were and are better than the man they call Jaws.

Links:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/JawoRo00.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Jaworski

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/VickMi00.htm

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/5448