Why Moore will be the starter...

[ItsNotGonnaBeAlright]

Article I wrote for my show. What do you think? Won't be posted until Monday.

When Matt Moore took over for the last five games of the season in 2009, fans rejoiced after Jake Delhomme's epic disentigration over the first eleven games that season. At the beggining of the offseason, Matt Moore was declared the tentative starter almost immediately after the heartwrenching and tearful breakup between the Carolina Panthers and Delhomme. Then Jimmy Clausen was drafted in the second round and all hell officially broke loose. With the teams training camp looming large next week, one of the biggest questions heading in revolves slowly around Spartanburg like a dying moon: were those five games enough of a reason to put Moore in full time, or should Clausen be given an equal chance to start this year?

As an answer, let's look at averages. Moore's over that amazing five game stretch to be specific.

Moore finished the year completing 85 out of 138 passing attempts. 6 out of 12 of those pass completions/attempts came in true back up time in games against Philidelphia and Arizona, but I'm including them in my overall estimates of his potential as a starter along with the one interception he threw against the Eagles. With the other interception he threw against Tampa Bay, that gives Moore a completion rate on the year of 61.59% with 1.44% of his attempts coming down as interceptions. He also threw eight touchdowns in all of that, so that would be 9.41% of his completions resulted in touchdowns. Finally, those passes added up to 1053 yards to equal out to 12.39 yards per completed pass. So that gives us the percentages, but percentages of what? How many passing attempts would Moore have over the course of a full sixteen game season? There's a couple of ways to figure that out.

First, we can just add all the attempts that Delhomme had to the ones that Moore had. This gives us 459 passes attempted. 61.59% of those passes being completed would be roughly 282 completions, with 6 interceptions. Of those completions, 26 would have been for a touchdown. Finally, at 12.39 yards per completion, Moore would have finished the year with 3493 passing yards. For those that care, that would be a QB rating of 98.42. Another way of calculating all of this would be to find Moore's pass attempts per game started. Based on these numbers that would be 138 passes over five games, or 27.6 passes per game. We'll just say an even 27 passes attempted each game, giving us 432 attempts, 266 completions, 3295 yards gained, 25 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions again with a QB rating of 98.67. Not too much of a difference, but it does give us a range. Since the second set of numbers are smaller, we'll use those next.

So how would that have affected the offense of the 2009 Carolina Panthers? Well, ignoring that all other parts of the offense would have probably played out differently thanks to these numbers versus the rathe dismal ones put up by Jake Delhomme, if you add in the 2505 rushing yards and 18 rushing touchdowns the Panthers posted in 2009, the team ends the year with 5800 yards gained and 43 touchdowns. Add in the other two touchdowns and one safety the defense scored, assume all additional extra points are kicked and no additional field goals are necessary, and all other scoring statistics remain unchanged, the Panthers as a whole finish 2009 having scored 382 points, or 23.875 points per game. We'll just round that down to 23 points.

Why is that significant? Because if the Panthers could have scored 23 points per game, and their opponents had not scored any differently, then the team would have finished with a record of 12-4 and would have been a garuanteed wild card for the NFC.

Based on all of this, the case can be made that Moore should undoubtedly be the starter over the unproven Jimmy Clausen when the 2010 season kicks off. But think of it this way: even with the best hypothetical stats I've come up with, Moore was decisively average as far as starting quaterbacks were concerned in 2009. He would have ranked between Donovan McNabb and Carson Palmer in terms of yardage (#18 and 19 respectively), he would have tied Palmer in terms of completions at eighteenth, and would have been almost dead center of the league between Kyle Orton and David Gerrard in terms of completion percentage at number 15. He would have, however, finished in a four way tie for tenth place in regards of his number of touchdowns and would have tied Marc Bulger for the least number of interceptions in the leage.

These aren't exactly impressive numbers, but they are certainly good enough for this team. Moore won't break any records, but he also won't break our hearts. Because of all this, he should be considered as the starter until proven otherwise.

[ncguy2184]

Thats a great article! good job

[SorthNarolina]

It's a bit of a "duh" but in the offseason pretty much all articles are.

I like the last paragraph though that's a nice play on words.

I don't think the stats are really that enlightening for a panther fan in the "huddle" category.

One thing I'd LOVE to see stats wise is putting Moore up against Alex Smith and Kevin Kolb. The media gives both of these guys credit for poo that Moore has not only done, but done better. Even guys like Kyle Orton and Jason Campbell are getting more respect than Moore which is retarded.

Moore's play is much like that of Tony Romo who ESPN would NEVER shut up about during 06.

[OnlyPantherFaninMaine]

Never been a fan of the "good enough mentality," I'm done with mediocracy. I want a QB who can dominate and put a team on his back each Sunday. Whether that man is Moore, Clausen, or even Pike, I will support him for many years to come. One thing in my mind is for certain, when this whole QB situation works itself out, I think we will have a starting quarterback with a caliber of play we have yet to see in Carolina.

[Pejorative Miscreant]

Moore is the default starter based on experience alone. Fortunately he showed a lot of promise last year and proved to be a good leader. I think Moore will thrive but Clausen provide quite a bit of competition.