For quite some time now, much has been made about where Tyrod Taylor throws the football.
To many, he simply doesn’t utilize the middle of the field as much as he should, and it’s been one of the few shortcomings of his game.
The other day on Twitter, I randomly came across this tweet from one of my favorite football follows, Rich Hribar of Rotoworld.
He provided this awesome table, which lists quarterback pass attempts thus far in the 2016 regular season by direction.
Take a look:
A few people asked, so here's an updated QB pass attempts by direction outlook. pic.twitter.com/ajhNHex7Oa
— Rich Hribar (@LordReebs) October 14, 2016
There’s so much to take from this table.
What will stand out most to Bills fans is that Taylor has the third-lowest middle-of-the-field percentage, thereby hammering home the point that Buffalo’s signal-caller simply does not throw between the numbers very often at all, especially relative to his contemporaries.
To me, what’s kind of funny — and interesting — about this table is that the two quarterbacks with a lower middle-of-the-field percentage than Taylor are Sam Bradford and Carson Wentz, who are currently 2nd and 6th respectively in quarterback rating and have combined to throw 13 touchdowns to just one interception.
Meanwhile, the signal-callers with the two highest middle-of-the-field percentages are Blake Bortles and Joe Flacco, and they’re currently 26th and 25th in quarterback rating.
Looking back at the table, you’ll notice there’s really no correlation between either; a high middle-of-the-field percentage and successful quarterbacking or balanced directional percentages and successful quarterbacking.
Of course, this data is from one quarter of one season, so the sample size isn’t exactly large.
But it could — or, to me, should — serve as a quick reminder that throwing to the middle of the field automatically equating to quality quarterback play is, for an intents and purposes, a fallacy.