Considering the huge response I received from my initial quick look into the stats of both Chad Pennington and Brett Favre, I figured it would be fun to look a little deeper at both quarterbacks' statistics.
First up, many people asked for a breakdown of how each quarterback plays in the 2nd half of a game. Below are each QB's 2nd half statistics:
Comp/Att | Comp% | Yds | YPA | TD-Int | Rating | |
Pennington | 137/202 | 67.8% | 1,557 | 7.7 | 4-4 | 89.1 |
Favre | 150/215 | 69.8% | 1,451 | 6.7 | 8-7 | 87.2 |
Not too much of a difference to speak of. As expected, Favre has both more touchdowns and more turnovers.
Moving on, I want to present two interesting situational stats. The first one is how each quarterback performs when the game is tied or within 7 points either way:
Comp/Att | Comp% | Yds | YPA | TD-Int | Rating | |
Pennington | 192/288 | 66.7% | 2,284 | 7.9 | 9-4 | 95.3 |
Favre | 184/273 | 67.4% | 1,853 | 6.8 | 8-12 | 78 |
Pennington clearly has outplayed Favre under these circumstances. Makes you realize that Favre is more of a "stat-compiler" than he is amazing quarterback - picking up most of his numbers in blowouts (a la the game against Arizona this season).
Lastly, this is one of my favorite situational statistics. How a quarterback performs on 1st down is critical to a team's success. Good quarterbacks make plays on 1st down. Below is the 1st down breakdown of both quarterbacks:
Comp/Att | Comp% | Yds | YPA | TD-Int | 1st Downs | 1st% | Rating | |
Pennington | 103/154 | 66.9% | 1,361 | 8.8 | 3-2 | 55 | 35.7% | 95.7 |
Favre | 90/124 | 72.6% | 858 | 6.9 | 2-4 | 25 | 20.1% | 83.4 |
And yet again, Pennington is the clear winner in this breakdown. It's amazing to me that Favre has completed just 13 fewer passes on 1st down, but has 503 fewer yards passing. Pennington's average yards per completion on 1st down is 13.21 yards. Favre's is just 9.53. Who's the "dink and dunk" quarterback again?
So be sure to print this out and show it to every Jets' fan that you come across.
And remember: just like holiday joy, Pennington fever is sweeping the nation!