Teddy Bridgewater may not be the long-term answer, but he's the Broncos' best post-Peyton QB

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke Skywalker, “Your eyes deceive you; don’t trust them.”

He also told Luke, “Stretch out with your feelings.”

Eyes can deceive. But so can feelings.

If your eyes and feelings tell you that Bridgewater is a great starting quarterback, they’re lying. But if they tell you that he’s a replacement-level quarterback, no different than the flotsam that preceded him in the post-Peyton Manning era, that, too, isn’t correct.

Let’s take a look at this in light of two critiques that have mushroomed in recent weeks.

Critique No. 1: If you took garbage-time stats out, he’s not good

OK, let’s do that. Let’s eliminate all plays in the fourth quarter with a deficit of more than two scores. This takes two touchdown passes off of Bridgewater’s ledger.

Among the eight quarterbacks to start multiple games for the Broncos since Manning’s retirement, here are the rankings when removing garbage time from the equation:

Passer rating:

1. Bridgewater, 97.3
2. Joe Flacco, 86.3
3. Case Keenum, 79.4
4. Drew Lock, 79.0
5. Trevor Siemian, 78.6
6. Brock Osweiler, 76.1
7. Paxton Lynch, 72.3
8. Brandon Allen, 68.3

Completion percentage:

1. Bridgewater, 69.5
2. Flacco, 65.6
3. Keenum, 61.1
4. Lynch, 60.2
5. Lock, 59.9
6. Siemian, 58.9
7. Osweiler, 56.1
8. Allen, 46.4

Interception rate:

1. Bridgewater, 1 every 56.5 attempts
2. Flacco, 1 every 50 attempts
3. Allen, 1 every 42 attempts
4. Keenum, 1 every 39.7 attempts
5. Siemian, 1 every 36.2 attempts
6. Osweiler, 1 every 33.0 attempts
7. Lock, 1 every 32.2 attempts
8. Lynch, 1 every 28.3 attempts

Touchdown-to-interception ratio:

1. Bridgewater, 10-4 (2.5-to-1)
2. Allen, 3-2 (1.5-to-1)
3. Siemian, 26-21 (1.24-to-1)
4. Flacco, 6-5 (1.2-to-1)
5. Lock, 20-17 (1.18-to-1)
6. Keenum, 16-14 (1.14-to-1)
7. Osweiler, 4-4 (1-to-1)
8. Lynch, 3-4 (0.75-to-1)

Yards per attempt:

1. Bridgewater, 7.18
2. Flacco, 7.16
3. Osweiler, 7.15
4. Siemian, 6.73
5. Lock, 6.68
6. Keenum, 6.55
7. Lynch, 6.23
8. Allen, 6.13

Sack rate:

1. Lock, 1 every 23.8 pass plays
2. Osweiler, 1 every 17.5 pass plays
3. Keenum, 1 every 17.4 pass plays
4. Siemian, 1 every 13.7 pass plays
5. Bridgewater, 1 every 11.3 pass plays
6. Flacco, 1 every 11 pass plays
7. Allen, 1 every 10.3 pass plays
8. Lynch, 1 every 8.1 pass plays

Yards per pass play (including yardage lost to sacks):

1. Osweiler, 6.26
2. Lock, 6.15
3. Bridgewater, 6.00
4. Flacco, 5.83
5. Siemian, 5.78
6. Keenum, 5.77
7. Allen, 4.90
8. Lynch,4.86

First-down rate:

1. Bridgewater, 1 every 2.99 plays (pass attempts plus times sacked plus rushing attempts)
2. Flacco: 1 every 3.22 plays
3. Lock, 1 every 3.24 plays
4. Osweiler, 1 every 3.26 plays
5. Siemian, 1 every 3.41 plays
6. Keenum, 1 every 3.48 plays
7. Lynch, 1 every 3.76 plays
8. Allen, 1 every 4.29 plays

Bridgewater’s willingness to hold the football to try and give late-opening receivers a chance to break open is the primary factor driving up his sack rate.

Critique No. 2: He struggles on third downs

Relative to the rest of the NFL in 2021, this is accurate. But compared with Broncos quarterbacks of recent years, he is a slight upgrade; at this time last year, the Broncos converted just 32.3 percent of their third-down plays on which Lock passed, was sacked or rushed, while this year with Bridgewater, there is a slight uptick to 32.9 percent.

Both of these figures are improvements on Keenum and Flacco’s form at the same point in the 2019 and 2018 seasons, but rank behind Trevor Siemian’s figures — a 36.5-percent conversion rate when he didn’t hand it off in the first eight games of 2017 and a 36.7-percent rate in the same situation a year earlier.

However, Bridgewater ranks 27th of 34 quarterbacks (minimum 25 combined plays of pass attempts, rush attempts and times sacked) in third-down conversion rate, moving the chains once every 3.04 plays. His third-down passer rating of 88.7 is 18th of those 34 quarterbacks.

All this translates to a quarterback in the lower half of the middle tier.

But Bridgewater is the best the Broncos have had since Peyton Manning. And you can take that assessment any way you like.