FanPost

In The Ballpark

Hey everybody, I was skimming my newsreader and a couple of other sports sites yesterday (yes, I know, I have to go to bed without any supper for daring to read MSM "literature." But sportsline.com had an online poll that caught my attention. They posed the question: "Who is the best quarterback in the NFL?" The choices were: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Eli Manning.

I found this to be a very interesting question, given the fact that we're only two games into the season. It also made me wonder how our boy Kyle measures up to what CBS Sports sees as the "best of the best." So . . . I went to NFL.com and looked up the 2 game stats for CBS's 6 top quarterbacks, and Kyle.

Please note: this was simply to satisfy curiosity and not some weird attempt to deify Kyle Orton after two games (that will have to wait until we hit 13-3 and the playoffs. ;-p)

Here are the results using the categories that NFL.com uses to quantify quarterback performance (with two additions: Yards/Completion and Record)

Completions:
Highest 62, Lowest 42, Kyle has 36

Attempts:
Highest 100, Lowest 61, Kyle has 65 (above Peyton Manning 61)

Completion Percentage:
Highest 75%, Lowest 60.5%, Kyle has 55.4%

Yards
Highest 669, Lowest 584, Kyle has 506

Yards/Attempt:
Highest 9.9, Lowest 5.9, Kyle has 7.8 (above Roethlisberger 7.5 and Brady 5.9)

Yards/Completion:
Highest 14.4, Lowest 9.6, Kyle has 14.0 (above Brees 13.0, Roethlisberger 10.4, and Brady 9.6)

Yards/Game:
Highest 344, Lowest 292, Kyle has 253

Touchdowns:
Highest 9, Lowest 2, Kyle has 2 (tied with Brady and Roethlisberger)

Interceptions:
Lowest 0, Highest 3, Kyle has 0 (above all 6 of CBS' best of the best)

First Downs:
Highest 32, Lowest 25, Kyle has 20

First Down Percentage:
Highest 45.6, Lowest 32, Kyle has 30.8

Longest Pass Play:
Highest 87, Lowest 31, Kyle has 87 (above all 6)

20+ Yard Pass Plays:
Highest 11, Lowest 3, Kyle has 9 (above P Manning, Brees, Roethlisberger, and Brady)

40+ Yard Pass Play:
Highest 3, Lowest 0, Kyle has 2 (above Brees, E Manning, Brady, Roethlisberger)

Sacks Taken:
Lowest 1, Highest 6, Kyle has 3 (above Rivers and Roethlisberger)

Passer Rating:
Highest 132.9, Lowest 76.8, Kyle has 90.9 (above Roethlisberger, Rivers and Brady)

Record:
Highest 2-0, Lowest 1-1, Kyle has 2-0 (above Brady, Roethlisberger, and Rivers)

While not much can be made out of the stats drawn from just two games, it does appear that Orton, while not falling in the realm of uber-quarterback, is at least in the same ballpark as those that one MSM outlet would hold up as the best of the best. Now we just have to wait and see if Orton and the Broncos offense can sustain this early apparent success.

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR.