Of all the things for which Derek Carr tends to receive criticism, his penchant for the checkdown would seem to be the most common. For those who would say that criticism is overblown, Pro Football Focus has some numbers for you.
They compiled a list of the quarterbacks who have thrown the most and least amount of checkdowns. And to make sure they had a large enough sample size, they used the past two seasons.
There, at third overall, with a 10.3 percent checkdown rate is Derek Carr.
The only QB’s who had a higher rate of checkdowns were Blake Bortles (13.3 percent) and Mason Rudolph (10.5 percent), neither of whom were starters by the end of last season.
Carr threw about three times as many passes (1119) as Bortles (421) and Rudolph (305) over the past two seasons. Of those in the top ten in checkdown rate, only Philip Rivers (9.6 percent) had more total checkdowns (121), though those six more checkdowns were on 147 more passes.
Carr, Rivers, and Deshaun Watson (8.9%) were the only quarterbacks in the top ten who were full-time starters all of the past two seasons.
In case you were wondering, the two Super Bowl quarterbacks were among the lowest checkdown rates. Patrick Mahomes had the second-lowest checkdown rate (3.3 percent) and Jimmy Garoppolo had the eighth-lowest checkdown rate (4.5 percent). Likewise, 2019 MVP Lamar Jackson had the ninth-lowest checkdown rate (4.6 percent). So, clearly, that’s the end of the spectrum on which you’d like to be.
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