Jackson vs Hasselbeck: Week 1

It seems that every game the Tarvaris Jackson vs Matt Hasselbeck question has to be brought up again and again. At this point, I’ve decided to just go with it. While I’d rather move on and concentrate on the players currently on the roster, I seem to definitely be in the minority.

37

21

197

2

1

2

78.3

Matt Hasselbeck

34

21

263

2

1

1

93.1

More commentary after the jump

The numbers for week 1 are, not surprisingly, very similar. Throw out Jackson’s interception. It was on a hail mary pass right at the end first half. Those kind of interceptions shouldn’t count against the QB, since they have nothing to do with the QB play or their decision making. Removing that INT makes his QB Rating jump to 89.6.

Matt ended up with 66 more yards on 3 less attempts. That isn’t insignificant. Yard’s per attempt is an often overlooked stat for QBs. Matt’s was 7.74 compared to Jackson’s 5.32. Part of that is due to game planning, and part of that is due to protection, but not all if it. It also shows that Jackson didn’t always make the plays in the intermediate and long passing games.

Jackson was also sacked 5 times, and Hasselbeck was sacked just twice. In my opinion, only one of the sacks taken by Tarvaris was due to him holding onto the ball too long, so clearly Jackson was under a lot more pressure, and therefore had a lot less time that Matt did.

Overall, I think the QB play was rather even in week 1, which like I said above, is what I expected.