Ryan Fitzpatrick Showing Successful NFL QB Play Is More Than Just Avoiding INTs

The New York Jets are 4-2 thanks in large part to the quality play of their quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick.

What? Why are you laughing? Oh, you don't think Fitzpatrick is a good quarterback? You don't think his play has been quality?

In a way, that's understandable. It's the Quarterback Era, as we've often been told, and Fitzpatrick is no Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. He's no Aaron Rodgers, certainly, or even Andy Dalton. But the difference between Fitzpatrick and Geno Smith, or Mark Sanchez or any other recent Jets quarterback, is that he's making offense happen.

The Jets have the seventh-best scoring offense in the NFL, the highest they've been ranked since Vinny Testaverde was giving Keyshawn Johnson the damn ball. Yes, the Jets running game has been great—but as ESPN's Ron Jaworski always says, "points come out of the passing game." Not only have Fitzpatrick and Co. been putting up a lot of points, but his ability to sustain and extend drives has brought balance to the Jets offense.

"But," I hear you say, "he throws all those picks! He's terrible!" Yes, Fitzpatrick does turn it over. But he's thrown interceptions on only 3.3 percent of his passes so far this year—less often than Dan Marino at his mid-1980s peak, Jim Kelly in the K-Gun offense, Steve Young when he led the NFL in everything in 1993 and Kurt Warner during two of the three the Greatest Show on Turf years.

Fitzpatrick is not a Hall of Famer in the making or even a Pro Bowler. But the NFL has been obsessed with minimizing interceptions since the forward pass was introduced to the game, and it's getting to the point where our antipathy for picks is overwhelming our ability to judge quarterbacks on anything else.

Here's how maniacal the NFL has been about eliminating interceptions over the years:

Ty Schalter/Bleacher Report

In 1934, the old coaching adage about passing—only three things can happen, and two of them are bad—was literally true: The NFL's average completion rate was just 31.4 percent; less than one-third of all forward passes even ended up in receivers' hands!

From 1933's all-time high of 15.3 percent, interceptions have fallen in an almost unbroken trend. This was helped by the widespread adoption of the "T"-based formation and modern dropback passing game; the league-wide interception rate fell from 11.1 percent in 1944 to just 4.8 percent in 1964. From then until the late 1970s, though, the interception rate fluctuated—the only time in history it did not trend downward.

In 1977, Roger Staubach posted the lowest interception rate in the NFL: 2.5 percent. Today, that rate would tie him with Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson for 16th-best.

Tony Dejak/Associated Press

Since the passing rules changes of 1978, interceptions have resumed their downward plunge; 2015's average interception rate is just 2.5 percent. During that time, however, the touchdown rate has remained fairly flat. It's 4.5 percent today, about what it was in 2004, 1987, 1972, 1966, 1953 and 1941. In fact, since 1971, the touchdown rate has hovered around 4 percent.

Since the 1978 rules changes, the completion rate has slowly climbed upward. The 24.5 percent increase in completion rate from 1977 to today isn't nearly as dramatic as the 56 percent decrease in interception rate, but it's there. The theme is clear: Eliminate mistakes.

But can you really eliminate-mistakes your way to victory?

The point of offense is to score points. While ending drives with a turnover is bad because it takes away the opportunity to score, does eliminating turnovers actually lead to more points?

Let's explore the relationship between touchdown rate and interception rate and how often teams finish their drives with a score:

Ty Schalter/Bleacher Report

This chart only goes back to 1998, the earliest year Pro Football Reference has drive stats for, but the results are striking. There is a correlation between throwing picks less frequently and scoring more—but the effect is only about half what it is for touchdowns and scoring.

Well, duh, throwing touchdowns more frequently will lead to scoring more often, right? So let's use the best measure of offensive effectiveness we have that doesn't involve scoring—yards per play:

Ty Schalter/Bleacher Report

This is interesting. The correlation between touchdown rate and moving the ball is almost identical to the correlation between touchdown rate and scoring, but the correlation between moving the ball and avoiding interceptions is weak.

Put another way: It's better to maximize touchdowns than minimize interceptions.

Let's do one more scatter plot, just for fun. Every half-decent football analyst in the world will tell you "QB wins is not a stat," and that's true. Far too many other factors influence the result of an NFL game for quarterback play to be judged solely by the scoreboard. But since we've gone this far, let's correlate the touchdown and interception rates of individual quarterbacks over the same time period to their win percentages as starters:

Ty Schalter/Bleacher Report

Name	Team	QB Rec	Int% ▴
Tom Brady	NWE	7-0	0.3
Andy Dalton	CIN	6-0	1.0
Aaron Rodgers	GNB	6-0	1.1
Alex Smith	KAN	2-5	1.2
Josh McCown	CLE	1-5	1.4
Eli Manning	NYG	4-3	1.5
Derek Carr	OAK	3-3	1.6
Drew Brees	NOR	3-3	1.6
Brian Hoyer	HOU	1-2	1.7
Brandon Weeden	DAL	0-3	2.0

OK, it's not nearly as decisive as before, but still: Touchdown rate correlates much more strongly with QB wins than interception rate. In fact, the effect of interceptions is so weak that there's barely any correlation at all.

So what of Fitzpatrick?

He's not exceptional by any measure. In fact, at this point in the season, he's only tied for 10th-best in touchdown rate. But that's far better than he ranks in interception rate (25th), yards per attempt (23rd), passer rating (21st) or any other metric that considers interceptions.

Name	Team	QB Rec	Int% ▴
Andrew Luck	IND	1-4	4.3
Peyton Manning	DEN	6-0	4.2
Cam Newton	CAR	6-0	3.9
Jameis Winston	TAM	2-4	3.9
Sam Bradford	PHI	3-4	3.6
Matthew Stafford	DET	1-6	3.4
Ryan Tannehill	MIA	3-4	3.4
Ryan Fitzpatrick	NYJ	4-2	3.3
Marcus Mariota	TEN	1-4	3.1
Nick Foles	STL	3-3	3.0

But Fitzpatrick's top-10 touchdown rate, league-low sack rate (1.9 percent) and quality play in clutch situations (he ranks fourth in QBR) make him one of the better quarterbacks in the league at making offense happen.

According to Pro Football Reference, the Jets are tied for 10th in drive scoring percentage, with 37.3 percent of their drives ending in points. They are ninth in points per drive (2.08) and tied for 11th in yards per play (5.6). They also rank seventh in points per game (25.3).

Officially, the league considers the Jets offense the 16th-ranked unit in the league, because they rate offenses and defenses by total yardage. If you look at yards, passer rating or many of the other conventional stats we use to measure quarterbacks (with interception phobia baked in), Fitzpatrick gets dumped into the same subpar bin.

But measured by the metrics that matter most, Fitzpatrick is a top-10 quarterback—and the Jets have a top-10 offense to go with their outstanding defense.