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Another week. Another post-mortem on the Denver Broncos offense. There has been a lot of discussion about Trevor Siemian. Some of it has been calling for him to be benched, while others have placed more blame on the coaches and offensive line.
A simple comparison of how other quarterbacks do under pressure could settle the debate. Pro Football Focus laid it all out in stark comparison in their refocused post.
QB TREVOR SIEMIAN 40.5 OVERALL GRADE
Siemian finished 25-of-35 for 208 yards and an interception, he also had a drop and was sacked five times. Semian did not complete either of the two passes he attempted deep, which is a throw targeted 20 yards or more downfield, and was 2-of-7 on pass attempts under pressure for 33 yards. The Broncos offense never got in rhythm and Simian was in a hurry to get rid of the ball versus the Chargers pass-rush.
That’s a bad game. However, it was the under pressure numbers that stood out the most. I decided to dig into Siemian’s numbers when under pressure a bit more using the data PFF collects.
He ranks 31st out of 32 players in the NFL through seven weeks. When under pressure, he is 21/57 for 289 yards with two touchdowns and five interceptions for a quarterback rating of 29.1. He’s also been sacked 22 times in six games.
The quarterback rating when under pressure is actually worst in the league. Only Mike Glennon is close with a 32.0 quarterback rating when under pressure.
Then you look on the other side of the ball in Sunday’s game and see that Philip Rivers was pressured on half of his dropbacks. How did he fare with a porous offensive line?
QB PHILIP RIVERS, 73.7 OVERALL GRADE
Rivers was under duress in the entire game against the stout Broncos defense, as he was under pressure on more than half of his dropbacks. However, his performance did not drop off when he was under pressure, as he was still able to complete a third of his passes and earned a passer rating of 90.3 on these plays. In order to avoid some of the pressure, Rivers tried to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible and as a result only 7 of his 23 attempts traveled 10 or more yards from the line of scrimmage.
To me, that was the difference in this game. Both offensive lines were pretty bad in this game, but one quarterback stepped up and made the plays and the other did not.