[Elvis]

Things not going well for Ryan Mallett:

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... rd-string/

Ryan Mallett back to practice, with the third string

Posted by Darin Gantt on August 28, 2015, 11:25 AM EDT

It wasn’t that long ago when Ryan Mallett was competing for the Texans’ starting quarterback job.

Now, he’s working his way up the depth chart from the bottom.

According to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle, Mallett was back in practice today after missing yesterday because he pulled a Jean-Paul, but he was running third in drills, behind starter Brian Hoyer and second-year quarterback Tom Savage.

If that’s not a message, nothing is, though Texans coach Bill O’Brien didn’t get into details yesterday when asked where Mallett was.

Mallett apparently threw a few touchdown passes in practice, and that’s going to be the only way for him to climb the ladder again — by performing.

Of course, they say biggest part of ability is availability (God I’ve heard a lot of coach cliches in my life), and that’s something Mallett obviously still needs to work on.

[Elvis]

[kayfabe]

That's nothing compared to what's going on in San Diego with backup QB and ex-Ram Kellen Clemens...

http://www.boltsfromtheblue.com/2015/8/ ... rgers-hero

Here's the thing: Kellen Clemens is awful.

I don't mean to constantly berate the guy. From all intents and purposes, Kellen Clemens is a great guy. However, the prospect of him ever playing in a meaningful regular-season game as the San Diego Chargers' QB terrifies me and it should terrify you.

Let's start with the excuse.... "Kellen Clemens has starting experience."

This is the reason that is always given, by fans and coaches and front office members, as to why Clemens is Philip Rivers' backup on the depth chart.

Yes, that is true. Of Clemens' 42 appearances in (non-preseason) NFL games, he was the starter in half of them (21). To add in another oddly-satisfying statistic, Clemens has never started (or not started) games in consecutive seasons. Including his rookie season, the number of starts he has had per year go: 0, 8 0, 1, 0, 3, 0, 9, 0.

Now, I could use common logic and tell you that every time Clemens starts, NFL teams are eager to throw him back on the bench the following season. However, we're going to go deeper than that.

Here is Clemens' QBR each year he has started an NFL game: 22.3, 10.7, 32.9, 35.5. To put that into perspective, his best season would've still made him the 3rd worst starting QB in the league in 2014, above only Josh McCown and Blake Bortles....and he didn't edge out McCown by much. That season, 2013 with the Rams after Sam Bradford was injured, landed Clemens directly behind Chad Henne (JAX) and Matt Schaub (HOU), and among the worst QBRs in the league.

Kellen Clemens has starting experience because Chad Pennington got hurt. He got more starting experience because other head coaches wanted a backup QB that had starting experience, and he continually landed places where the guy in front of him got injured.

Basically, in a nut shell, Clemens got starting experience because he had starting experience. He got that original starting experience because he was second on the depth chart behind Pennington, who had a shoulder muscle made out of hopes and dreams. He was second on the depth chart because...."He was a second round draft pick!"

Indeed he was.

Clemens was the successor to Joey Harrington in Oregon, placed into an offense that created big stats for the starting QB in a conference that didn't much care for defense at the time. Compared to Harrington, Clemens put up similar, although not quite as good, numbers with the Ducks.

By 2005, Harrington had almost already washed out of the league, but many attributed that to the fact that he was soft spoken and played piano. Surely, if you could throw 19 TDs against 4 INTs (as Clemens did his senior season), you could play NFL-level QB....right?

Well, either Clemens has a hidden hobby of playing piano and speaking softly, or that Oregon offense is still waiting to produce an NFL-caliber QB (hi, Marcus Mariota!). For his NFL career, Clemens has thrown 15 TDs against 20 INTs and has a sad 6.3 yards-per-attempt rate (compare to Rivers' 7.8 Y/A).

All you have to do is watch the group of QBs at Chargers practice to see that Clemens has the weakest, most inaccurate arm of the bunch. Watch a preseason game in which he's playing with the first-string offense to see that he has no command over his line or his receivers. Plainly put, Kellen Clemens is a 3rd string QB at best.
...

predictionmachine.com has actually tried to quantify the difference between backup QBs, including that between Foles and Austin Davis (yeah I know there's a better chance that Mannion is the guy, but still...). And the results are interesting, to say the least --

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/new ... -krasovic/

Kellen Clemens ranks among the NFL's better backup quarterbacks in a computer simulation of teams' playoff chances.

The PredictionMachine simulated the regular season and playoffs 50,000 times, once with the No. 1 quarterback and again for his backup.

The Chargers have a 27.5 percent chance of making the playoffs if Philip Rivers starts every game and a 15.5 percent chance with Clemens all 16.

The Rivers-Clemens gap of 12 points is among the five smallest between franchise quarterback (as I defined them) and backup.

By the same numbers, the gap is much larger between other top-15 quarterbacks and their backups, such as Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo (54.4), Aaron Rodgers and Scott Tolzien (48.0), Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler (46.5), Ben Roethlisberger and Bruce Gradkowski (36.3), Tony Romo and Brandon Weeden (32.7), Drew Brees and Luke McNown (20.0) and Joe Flacco and Matt Schaub (14.8)...

Here's the predictionmachine.com chart -- which simulates 50000 game results. Note that there's just not that much difference between
Foles and Davis in terms of the Rams playoff chances. And also note (hilariously) that Jax would actually be better off using their backup QB,
or Henne over Bortles.

And they give the Rams a 27.4% chance of making the playoffs with Foles, but only down to 23.8% with Austin Davis. I'll chalk that up to
the Rams being much more of a run-first squad than say, the Steelers (which give them a 42.9% chance with Roethlisberger but only a
6.6% chance with Gradkowsi).

[Elvis]

There are certain backup QB's that coaches seem to like a lot more than the fans do.

Jamie Martin comes to mind.

In another week or so SD should be able to swap out Clemens for Austin Davis if they want...

[BuiltRamTough]

The reality is that there's a lot of good qbs to go around. Just look at the Bills and Jets situation and look at the back up qbs around league. Matt Hassalback is the back up to Andrew Luck for crying out loud.

There's a chance that Andrew Luck gets injured next year and Matt plays against the Rams in LA.

Let that sink in for a second.

[dieterbrock]

In a "QB driven league" its amazing at how poor the back up QB have become. Sure there's an exception to the rule here and there, but most teams seasons are kaput if they lose their starting QB

[Stranger]

1. Wow, eagles only have a 57.5% with Sam in there.
2. If I did the math right, the machine puts us at 18-19th team with the best chance to make the playoffs (assuming starting QB's)

[Elvis]

This is a really cool chart. But how much is it telling us?

Good teams have good QB's and are screwed if they go down. Bad teams, not so much, on either score.

I've been saying for some time now i don't think it matters very much who the Rams QB is. They've been victims of Steve Spagnulo and Jeff Fishers's defensive mindedness.

Maybe this year will be different.

Here's hoping.

Oh, probably doesn't mean much but Bortles and the JAX offense have been looking really sharp this preseason...

[moklerman]

Oh, probably doesn't mean much but Bortles and the JAX offense have been looking really sharp this preseason...

I agree but I've been fooled by Bortles already. He really impressed me last year during the preseason and then all the things he was doing well disappeared once the regular season started.

Which I think will happen again this year. Their #2 WR Robinson is terrible. He can't catch. Their rookie RB from Alabama looks very mediocre to me so the running game will rely on a converted WR/QB also named Robinson. Who shows flashes but isn't really built to carry a running game. The passing game will likely feature the TE's considering their big offseason acquisition of Julius Thomas and incumbent Marcades Lewis. But Thomas broke his finger on his first reception and is very overrated IMO. Take him out of Denver and he's not going to have the big numbers. Especially when put on a Jaguars team that doesn't do too well on offense. And the early first round LT Joeckel is...I can't help it, a "joke". It's rare to see a first round pick like that get manhandled at LT but the last game I watched they showed lowlights of him looking like he was on roller skates, getting pushed straight back into the QB. They were talking about what he needed to improve on from last year and the very next play, he gets pushed back into Bortles.

Weak running game, shaky receiving corps and a below average o-line don't inspire confidence in Bortles' prospects. But, with what he does have to work with, he was throwing some impressive passes last night. Threading them into really tight windows, good anticipation and good accuracy. Hopefully he carries it into the regular season.

As far as Mallet, I'm really surprised that he isn't the starter and has now been relegated to third string. From what I've watched this preseason, at worst, it was an even race for first string QB. Hoyer wasn't doing anything special and to me, was being outplayed by Mallet. The other day, I read that he was pissed that he wasn't named the starter so him taking a day off isn't the end of the world. I'd be more concerned if he took the loss in stride. Maybe he also isn't mature enough but I'd have to hear about other examples of what he was/wasn't doing before I'd agree that a guy who was playing better shouldn't get the job because of his maturity.

[Elvis]

The Mallet drama has me looking forward to Hard Knocks on Tuesday...