One of the criticisms often heard of the spread option is that the QB in the system gets hurt with a higher frequency due to how many hits he takes. The idea does seem to make sense but does it hold up to reality? I’ve searched the MGOBLOG archives and haven’t seen a specific discussion of the topic so hopefully I’m presenting some new material.

The first thing to decide is an objective method with which to classify QBs without cherry picking players. To do this I generated a run-to-pass ratio by dividing total rushes by total passes. A high number means the QB runs a lot; a low number means he’s John Navarre. I then needed to decide on thresholds for running QBs vs. pocket QBs. After screwing around with the numbers for a while I came up with a Threat Level rating—not to be mistaken with Threet Level rating.

An R/P ratio of 0.5 or higher (1 run for every 2 passes) was a level 3 threat to run, 0.33 to 0.5 (1 run for every 3 passes) was level 2, 0.20 to 0.33 (1 run for every 5 passes) was level 1, and less than 0.2 is a level 0 threat to run. I admit these thresholds are somewhat arbitrary but they hold up to sense checks. Here are some notable QBs in each category from 2008:

Level 3—Dual Threat QB: Pat White – West Virginia, Tim Tebow – Florida, Terrelle Pryor – Ohio St.

Level 2—Running QB: Juice Williams – Illinois, Kellen Lewis – Indiana, Steven Threet – Michigan

Level 1—Mobile QB: Colt McCoy – Texas, Nick Sheridan – Michigan, Daryll Clark – Penn St.

Level 0—Pocket QB: Graham Harrell – Texas Tech, Sam Bradford – Oklahoma, Chase Daniel –Missouri, Mark Sanchez – So. Cal, Jimmy Clausen –Notre Dame, Brian Hoyer –Michigan St.

The next order of business was to filter out irrelevant players. To do this, I assumed that a QB needed to register at least 17 plays (any combination of passes and rushes) per game he played in to qualify as a non-scrub QB.

Then came the hard part: tallying the number of injured QBs in each category and the number of games lost due to injury then determining if there is indeed a difference between the four running threat levels. According to critics of the spread option, level 0 QBs should get injured the least often and level 3 QBs should get injured the most often. After a few solitary hours and a couple of six packs here’s what I found.

Threat Level No. of QBs QB Injury % % Games Lost Avg. No. of Games Lost 3 26 23.1 6.1 2.5 2 24 41.7 6.6 2.0 1 46 23.9 10.8 5.7 0 64 21.9 5.7 3.3

Surprise, surprise the critics are wrong. On a percentage basis the only group that suffered an out of norm injury percentage were level 2 QBs which I think of as QBs that are used like running backs (Juice Wiliams) or QBs that are too slow to be running in the first place (Steven Threet). All other groups suffered injuries at about a 23% clip. Meaning about 1 out of every 4 QBs in a given category lost playing time due to injury in 2008.

An interesting note that I did not expect to see is in the Average Number of Games Lost Column. Apparently the more stationary you are the more serious the injury you will sustain. This makes sense; in the pocket 10 linemen weighing about 300 lbs each surround the QB. In space, he can slide or go out of bounds and if he does get hit it’s by a 230-pound linebacker or a 200-pound defensive back.