Josh Freeman: Clutch
September 29th, 2011
Yes, Bucs fans — sober ones, that is — are well aware that Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman is building quite a resume as the king of the comebacks.
Starship — as Joe’s good friends at WTSP-TV Channel 10 like to refer to him as — already has eight fourth quarter rallies and he’s just starting his second full season as the Bucs’ fulltime signal-caller. Pretty tremendous stuff.
And while Freeman may be struggling this year, compared to his eye-popping numbers of last year, Freeman has proven to be one cool cat when the pressure is on, so reports Pat Yasinskas of ESPN. It seems Freeman thrives on third downs.
Freeman has the league’s best third-down completion percentage (89.3). He’s completed 25 of 28 passes for 256 yards and has an 84.5 Total QBR, which is fifth in the league.
Look, he’s damned near perfect on third downs. That’s just unreal. What more can you ask for? Any quarterback that is money like that when the pressure is on is OK in Joe’s book.
Maybe Bucs coach Raheem Morris could hypnotize him into believing each down is third down?
September 29th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
I’d be more curious what the 3rd down conversion rate is when he throws. I love Freeman, but many times this year, I’ve seen him throw the check down for 2 or 3 yards that gain a total of 5 yards or less, when we need 7+ to convert. If that is over 60% (and it may very well be), then I would be impressed.
September 29th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
“Maybe Bucs coach Raheem Morris could hypnotize him into believing each down is third down?”
And that every quarter is the 4th quarter.
September 29th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
I love ‘Starships’ clutchness. I see when he makes errors early on in games that he just smiles them off. Crunch time he buckles up! After his 2nd pick during the Atlanta game he looked like he was extremely pissed! He had that look in his eye like wait till we get the ball back.
He HULKED up!
#1 Being loose and smiling sends signals to your teammates not to panic, I’m in control.
#2 Being loose and level-headed will increase your focus; increased focus means better play.
#3 Having a ‘short term memory’ on bad plays is making Starship a great QB!
Cool Hand Starship
September 29th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
I would rather start slow and finish strong. Then start strong and flops midway.
I am starting to think we are doing it on purpose. Start out slow. Let the other team go all out early on, start tiring down and feel like they are sitting pretty with that lead. Then all of the sudden the team flips it’s switch and goes balls to the wall for the final 2 quarters, nearly dominating the team on both sides of the ball.
Being this team is so young, They have nothing but energy. It’s better then the other outcome. I mean we could be like the Vikings .
September 29th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
I have been very worried he has been having an off year but that was a wow stat for me. Good job Josh thank the lord we got you and not Sanchez.
September 29th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
3rd down completions does not equate first downs.
Bucs are 18/40 on third down conversions. 12 attempts from runs, 28 attempts from pass. Bucs have ran for 7 first downs. That means Freeman has 11 first downs passing out of 28 attempts. This also means 14 of his 25 completions were short of the first down. His pass conversion rate is a solid 39.25%. The team has a 45% total conversion rate if you consider the run first downs. Good enough for 8th in the league.
These are solid numbers indeed. Now if we can only string more of them together and not turn the ball over we would be set.
September 29th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
@T in Orlando That was all for you buddy. Well, I wanted to know as well, but you wanting to know is what gave me the extra boost to research and number crunch. lol Thanks for the motivation.
September 29th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
OK…enough of “clutch”…
lets see Freeman’s dismemberment game….plan
September 29th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
@Mauha Deeb, nice work. Yes, very solid, also, more points on the board and earlier will go a long way to securing a win each game, we apparently have turned the corner with the D-line, now we just need to get the Offense to work with a sense of urgency, which I really haven’t seen them do, even in the come backs it looked like business as usual which is good, but I still wanna see more hustle out of the huddle to the line, even in the no huddle, it never looks urgent.
September 29th, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Thanks for the numbers, Mauha.
39% sounds good.
And it’s reasonable that the conversion rate via pass is lower than the overall conversion rate, since they would tend to rush when the yardage needed is small and pass when the yardage needed is larger. In other words, it’s likely that they tend to rush more on the “easy” 3rd downs and pass more on the “hard” ones.
September 29th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
It’ll all get better as time goes on.
Although, I have to admit, after going so long without a true franchise QB, I’m still waiting for the shoe to drop.