Bucs Corners Better Than Believed?
July 16th, 2025
Best in NFC South?
Joe is not a big fan of quarterback ratings.
For every time Joe Buck starts rattling off a quarterback rating within the first 30 seconds of a game, Joe wishes someday Troy Aikman would holler, “How do they calculate that, Joe?”
Promise you Buck doesn’t know. Not many do. It’s a complex calculation. So why do so many folks lean on a stat they cannot define?
Joe would rather hear a deep analysis of cheerleaders than parroting quarterback ratings on a script laid out days before.
But here is why Joe does not like quarterback ratings. Go ahead and look at this list of all-time quarterback ratings. Even a normally stoic guard at Buckingham Palace would fall off his horse laughing so hard.
So how in the world is Joe supposed to take quarterback ratings seriously?
Now when it comes to quarterback ratings against defenders, well, Joe sort of puts some credence into those. It’s just showing how successful quarterbacks are against a defender when he is targeted.
So, in a roundabout way, Joe gets an idea how bad or good a defender may be from a quarterback rating. So the following should scare the hell out of the crowd who wants to run Jamel Dean out of town.
Per Mike Tannenbaum’s cash-strapped The 33rd Team, Zyon McCollum and Dean had the lowest quarterback ratings when targeted in the NFC South last year.
So, armed with these numbers, does that suggest the NFC South has poor corners or are quarterback ratings against defenders an unreliable stat?
Remember, the Bucs, for the second-straight season in 2024, gave up the fourth-most passing yards per game.