Kirk Cousins: A Career of Ineptitude

If you've watched enough NFL broadcasts, you've probably seen the statistic that a certain QB has 'X' game-winning drives. On the surface, this appears to be a decent way to determine which QB's are proficient at being clutch. But there is a LOT to unpack with regards to that statistic, so let’s dig a little deeper.

IV: Let's chuck everything in a Google Sheet.

But after going through almost 1400 drives and losing my sanity thrice, I finally compiled a list of every clutch drive attempt since 2016. And now, a few charts.

I know it's badly labelled (and apparently missing Rodgers for some reason)



Here's a simple one, it just looks at the overall record of each QB. The further in the bottom right you are, the better you've done. There's also a lot of QB's overlaid at, like, 1-2 but those are mostly irrelevant backups. There's a couple of things that jump out, I'm going to mention them because I am fully assuming that you are incapable of using your eyes.

-Patrick Mahomes is very good at American Football. So are Tom Brady and Drew Brees.

-Of course Nick Foles also has an excellent record.

-Derek Carr apparently does a LOT more clutch drives than anyone else.

-Blake Bortles do be vibing waaayyy on his own in the top left.

-Most of the promising young AFC QB's are in a little band together. This includes Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and Deshaun Watson who has curiously attempted the same amount of clutch drives as the amount of times he has been accused of lewd and coercive behaviour during massage appointments. I wonder if his Happy Ending ratio in those sessions was higher than the 46% record he has in NFL games. Justin Herbert is also doing the best out of this group of 5.

-Carson Wentz has failed the most clutch drives in this timespan. I wonder if this contributes to the feeling of him as a disappointing QB.

-Matt Moore has a better clutch drive record than Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford and Ben Roethlisberger. God has abandoned us. Also I'm convinced the 2016 Dolphins were a bad dream we all had.

But who can do it when the chips are REALLY down. Don't worry, I also made a playoff chart.

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This one only shows the amount of successful clutch drives, because I wanted to do variety.

-The success rate in the playoffs is actually higher, at 54%, than the regular season, at 44%.

-Despite this, 12 of the 27 QB's who have attempted clutch drives in the last 6 years haven't completed one.

-Up at the top are Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady, who have stupid 7-1 and 7-2 records respectively, several of which came in the 2018 AFCCG.

-Matthew Stafford is the QB with the best perfect record, alongside *checks notes* Case Keenum and Kirk Cousins. This sport is so weird.

-Also, Taylor Heinicke and Nathan Peterman are missing from here, he has an 0-1 record. One didn't show up on the graph for some reason, the other I forgot because trying to put the words Nathan Peterman and playoffs in the same sentence is like trying to push two opposing magnets together.

The final chart I made was looking at if better QB's are more clutch. I did this by choosing career passer rating (the first stat I thought of, EPA or ANY/A or DVOA might be better but eh) and just measuring its correlation to clutch drive record. R=0.613 for all QB's with at least 12 attempts, which has a P-Value of 0.0016 in a sample of 42, so I reckon it's pretty safe to say there's a relationship between the two.

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-Both extremes obviously stand out here, Patrick Mahomes and Drew Brees are out of this world, Blake Bortles and Josh McCown are not.

-But it's also interesting how close together on the chart many QB's are, I'm pretty sure half of the list has a passer rating between 80 and 100 and a success rate between 0.35 and 0.5. Although the difference between an 80 and 100 passer rating is pretty high to be fair.

-Ok but seriously how are Bortles and McCown this far behind everyone.

-I had no idea Sam Darnold had such a low passer rating (he's the lowest on the chart).

I'll put the full list in a second, but first, if you've read through all of this, thanks a lot, have a complementary dog photo.



Her name is Poppy and she likes sitting on my lap and eating paninis

V: The List.

Ok, here's the full list of the 106 QB's since past 2016 that have attempted clutch drives and their rankings. It will be split up based on volume, with regular and postseason counted together (playoffs in square brackets). More notable QB's in the lower tiers will be in italics. Tied QB's will be separated by wins, if applicable.

High Volume QB's (12+):

1: Patrick Mahomes (21-6) [7-1] (.778)

2: Drew Brees (20-6) [4-2] (.769)

3: Tom Brady (18-8) [7-2] (.692)

4: Justin Herbert (14-8) (.636)

5: Nick Foles (10-6) [2-1] (.625)

6: Matthew Stafford (24-15) [3-0] (.615)

7: Jimmy Garoppolo (14-9) [1-2] (.609)

8: Derek Carr (32-21) [0-1] (.604)

9: Aaron Rodgers (16-12) [2-2] (.571)

10: Ben Roethlisberger (20-16) (.556)

11: Ryan Tannehill (21-18) [0-2] (.538)

12: Eli Manning (10-9) (.526)

13: Dak Prescott (22-22) [2-2] (.500)

14: Lamar Jackson (12-12) [0-1] (.500)

15: Josh Allen (11-11) [3-2] (.500)

16=: Andrew Luck, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Alex Smith [0-2]: (10-10) (.500)

19: Russell Wilson (21-22) [0-1] (.488)

20: Deshaun Watson (11-13) [2-1] (.458)

21=: Case Keenum [2-0], Kyler Murray (8-10) (.444)

23: Joe Burrow (11-14) [2-2] (.440)

24: Matt Ryan (14-18) [0-2] (.438)

LEAGUE AVERAGE: 611-786 [40-34] (.437)

25: Andy Dalton (13-18) (.419)

26: Kirk Cousins (18-26) [1-0] (.409)

27: Joe Flacco (9-13) (.409)

28: Mitch Trubisky (8-12) (.400)

29: Jared Goff (11-17) [2-1] (.393)

30: Jameis Winston (11-18) (.379)

31: Carson Wentz (17-25) (.378)

32: Carson Palmer (5-9) (.357)

33: Daniel Jones (7-13) (.350)

34: Jacoby Brissett (8-15) (.348)

35: Sam Darnold (5-10) (.333)

36: Tyrod Taylor (5-11) [0-1] (.313)

37: Phillip Rivers (11-25) [0-1] (.306)

38: Baker Mayfield (9-21) [0-1] (.300)

39: Marcus Mariota (8-19) (.296)

40: Cam Newton (9-24) (.273)

41: Blake Bortles (3-22) [0-1] (.120)

42: Josh McCown (1-11) [0-1] (.083)

Low Volume QB's (3-11):

1: Tua Tagovailoa (4-1) (.800)

2: Dwayne Haskins (3-1) (.750)

3: Matt Moore (6-3) (.667)

4: Cooper Rush (2-1) (.667)

5=: Brett Hundley, Mac Jones, Josh Rosen (3-2) (.600)

8=: Brock Osweiler, Trevor Siemian (4-4) (.500)

10: Jay Cutler (2-2) (.500)

11=: Blaine Gabbert, Drew Lock: (3-4) (.429)

13: Nick Mullens (4-6) (.400)

14: Colin Kaepernick (4-6) (.400)

15: Tyler Huntley (3-5) (.375)

16=: Mike Glennon, Trevor Lawrence, Bryce Petty (2-4) (.333)

19=: Brandon Allen, Jordan Love, Zach Wilson (1-2) (.333)

22=: Cody Kessler, Gardner Minshew II (2-5) (.286)

24: Matt Barkley (1-3) (.250)

25=: Sam Bradford, Devlin Hodges, Jalen Hurts, Tom Savage, Geno Smith (1-4) (.200)

30: Brian Hoyer (2-9) (.182)

31: Teddy Bridgewater (1-7) (.125)

32=: Tim Boyle, David Blough, Deshone Kizer, Jake Luton, Nathan Peterman [0-1], Mason Rudolph (0-3) (.000)

38=: Kyle Allen, Davis Mills (0-4) (.000)

40=: CJ Beathard, Jeff Driskel (0-7) (.000)

Non-Qualifying QB's (1-2):

1-0: Paxton Lynch, Sean Mannion, Brett Rypien, Mike White

1-1: Justin Fields, Robert Griffin III, Josh Johnson, Landry Jones, Drew Stanton, Joe Webb

0-1: Derek Anderson, Tyler Bray Matt Cassel Jacob Eason David Fales, EJ Manuel, Mark Sanchez, Nate Sudfeld

0-2: Chase Daniel, Ryan Finley, Garrett Gilbert, Colt McCoy