8 Starts...How Do These QB's Stack Up?

On Thursday Night football 11/17/2011, Tim Tebow and the Broncos continued their run to contend for the AFC West title. This game was Tebow's 8th as a starter in his career, and this win brought his starter record to 5-3 (4-1 in 2011). The game did nothing to resolve either way the debate about Tebow and his ability to throw.
Here at Fact-Based Football, we decided to take a look at a number of QB's and how they performed during their first 8 professional starts.  The group we looked at for this analysis are: Tim Tebow, Mark Sanchez , Joe Flacco , Kyle Orton , Sam Bradford , and Matt Ryan .

Sanchez and Flacco were chosen because they brought their respective teams to the AFC Championship game their first year as starter. Orton was chosen because it is always fun to compare Tebow to Orton and because Orton led his team to the playoffs in his first year as starter. Bradford and Ryan were chosen because they were each the AFC Offensive Rookie of the Year in their first season (Bradford in 2010 and Ryan in 2008).

Here are their stats:

Name	Record	Comp	Att	Yds	TD	Int	QB Rate	Cmp%	Yds/Att	TD%	Int%
Bradford	4-4	171	292	1674	11	8	75.9	58.6	5.7	3.8	2.7
Flacco	5-3	136	220	1464	5	7	75.6	61.8	6.7	2.3	3.2
Orton	5-3	122	225	1186	7	9	62.9	54.2	5.3	3.1	4.0
Ryan	5-3	133	227	1661	9	5	85.4	58.6	7.3	4.0	2.2
Sanchez	4-4	114	214	1443	8	10	67.6	53.3	6.7	3.7	4.7
Tebow	5-3	92	196	1281	10	4	76.9	46.9	6.5	5.1	2.0

So what is the point??

It is not surprising that all of the QB's in this group delivered a 4-4 or 5-3 record in their first 8 games. While Tebow has been shown to be the most inaccurate of this group, we can also see other interesting facts. For instance, Tebow has the second highest QB Rating, the highest TD%, and the lowest Int %. This data seems to support the idea put forth by many Tebow fans, that he protects the ball and delivers results (i.e. TD's) versus just stats (e.g. comp pct and yards).