Now we know why Brunell kept dinking and dunking

[Southpaw]

Originally Posted by jamf

MB had a higher Yards Per attempt Average and More plays over than 20 yards( Ave per game) than JC.

I'm glad the switch to JC was made. Now we can move on to a new era. But, MB played better than JC. JC didn't throw downfield either, he dumped off to Cooley and still missed those throws!

I think the statistics in this situation are a bit misleading. The Brunell guys like to throw around his high completion percentage and efficiency, but there were obvious shortcomings from Brunell's play that were exposed once Cambell took over.

The main problem that people had with Brunell was the dink and dunks. Brunell may have had more 20+ yard completions, but how many of those were actually passes over 20 yards? Usually it was an 8 yard pass that was YACed for more by the receiver. Teams didn't respect Brunell's ability to throw deep, which forced Portis to run with eight in the box, 90% of the time. Campbell comes in, and teams are forced to respect the deep ball. Betts benefits directly from this and has a pretty good season, because teams are only able to commit 5 or 6 to the run. Otherwise, they'd be scorched over the top by Campbell.

And who gives a shit about efficiency and yards per attempt, when all it means is Brunell will efficiently lose if Washington gets behind in the game? At least with Campbell, I know he's going to make every attempt to win the game. I was at the end of the season debacle against the Giants, and if it was Brunell going into the fourth quarter down by 14, I would have left. Since Campbell was playing I had hope, and he led two fourth quarter touchdown drives. Brunell would have found ways to take sacks or throw it away on 4th down.