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Counterpoint: Jon Kitna

June 24, 2007 1:08pm CDT

Recently, my esteemed colleague Ted Carlson put forth his opinion regarding Lions' quarterback Jon Kitna. I respect Ted's opinion as much as anyone in our small circle of fantasy football experts, but I have to respectfully disagree with several of the conclusions he drew as he outlined The Case Against Kitna.

In fact, before we even get to Ted's specific arguments against Mr. Kitna, I'd like to raise the possibility that there are only four quarterbacks who are a clear cut above the rest of the pack, rather than five. Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees are obviously the top four, but I'd stop short of including Marc Bulger in that upper-tier, as most seem to be so cavalierly doing these days.

To take this up a notch, I'll even argue that Kitna is as deserving of the No. 5 spot as Bulger is.

Allow myself to explain… myself, using Ted's previous article as my framework as well.

The Running Game: Part 1
The gist of Ted's first argument is that Kitna did most of his damage when Kevin Jones was injured, which in turn led to Kitna throwing more often. I can't quibble too much with this argument, except that Ted took it a step too far when he said, "Two of his most prodigious efforts came in weeks 16 and 17 – when Jones was long gone and after the Lions were already headed towards a top-three pick. Kitna threw seven scores over those two games. Yes, one-third of his season touchdown total came in two care-free efforts, one of which didn't count in fantasy leagues."
Ted, Ted, Ted. I'm disappointed in you. While we as fantasy football analysts tend to use statistics liberally to our advantage, the "Player A scored one-Xth of his touchdowns in weeks Y and Z" argument is an empty one. If so, we'd have to have serious reservations about Steven Jackson, who scored 10 of his 16 touchdowns last year in the final four games primarily against defenses who had already given up on their seasons. Or that we should wonder about Bulger because he threw for 1,432 (or one-third) of his yards and 13 (over one-half) of his touchdowns in four games last year, while averaging just 239 yards and throwing 11 scores in the other 12 contests.

The Running Game: Part 2 Part 2 focused on the Lions astonishingly low rushing attempt totals a year ago. To your first argument, I say touch, Mssr. Carlson. There is no way the Lions attempt so few rushes this season.

The fact of the matter, however, is that one could easily argue Kitna will be more effective if the team can establish a more balanced attack and force opposing defenses to respect the run, rather than being able to sit back in double-coverage in the secondary.

Not only that, but history suggests Kitna will almost certainly approach 600 pass attempts regardless of how often the team runs the ball.

The following table displays the stats of offensive coordinator Mike Martz's offenses in St. Louis during his seven-year tenure there.

CompAttYardsTDINT
200539259843512324
NFL rank242930
200437358146152322
NFL rank3541429
200337860042872323
NFL rank2221231
200240863544802427
NFL rank2121232
200137955149033722
NFL rank1121125
200038058754923723
NFL rank131128
199934353045804215
NFL rank5201110
AVG37958346733022.3

As you can see, his signal-callers have averaged a whopping 583 pass attempts per season over the years, and Kitna's totals in terms of yards (4,208) and touchdowns (21) in 2006 are actually the lowest totals a Martz quarterback has put up since he joined the NFL (some of the numbers you see above are combined totals for multiple quarterbacks in a single season, but Kitna threw every pass for the Lions last season).

Taking things a step further, Martz offenses have averaged 392 rushing attempts and over 1,700 yards per season on the ground over the years. That, of course, has much to do with the presence of Marshall Faulk during that timeframe, but the fact remains Martz annually throws the ball nearly 600 times, whether he has an effective rushing attack or not.

The Attempts The third argument was that quarterbacks, like running backs, have registered significantly worse statistics the year after attempting at least 570 pass attempts.

While Ted's numbers don't lie, I have a hard time believing the statistical decline in the season after a heavy workload has anything to do with each quarterback wearing down. Let's face it, these guys are not toeing the rubber every fifth day and tossing 40 elbow-defying sliders 30-35 times in a six-month span like a baseball pitcher whose arm eventually blows out.

Contrarily, they're tossing about 40 pigskins or fewer, once a week, 16 times per season. So until we start seeing an abundance of gunslingers undergoing "Fran Tarkenton" surgery, I'll take the statistical evidence with a massive grain of salt… and I'll also note that the same exact theory Ted used to debunk Kitna also applies to everyone's favorite No. 5 signal-caller, as Bulger threw 588 passes a year ago. Yes, the same injury-prone Marc Bulger who had never made it through a full season before last year and who spent half of the 2005 campaign with his ailing right arm in a sling after spraining the AC joint in his throwing shoulder.

The Finale In Ted's final analysis, he pointed out that fantasy owners should heed the sordid tales of players like Tommy Maddox (2003), Kerry Collins (2005), and Kurt Warner (2005), of whom big things were expected because all three players boasted talented receiving duos, much like Kitna does this year with Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson.

While a comparison to this slew of career losers and over-the-hill former grocery baggers is certainly frightening, Kitna's track record is a little less hazy than those of Maddox and Collins (Warner was obviously well past his prime and had a No. 1 draft pick breathing down his neck, so let's not try to say we didn't see that one coming). Clearly, Kitna is not Carson Palmer, which is why he spent two years of his prime as a backup in Cincinnati. But in his last three years as a starting quarterback, Kitna has not been bad.

You'll see the numbers here:
PASSINGRUSHING
YearGQB RatComp%YdsYds/GTDINTYdsTDSack
20021479.162.23,178227.0161657424
20031687.462.33,591224.42615113037
20061679.962.44,208263.02122156263

The key number here is the completion percentage, which Kitna has kept above 62 in each of his last three years as a starter. Both Warner and Marc Bulger were in the mid-60s in their heyday in Martz's offense, but Kitna's accuracy is more than enough to thrive in the Lions system, as evidenced by his numbers a year ago.

I will admit that Kitna's value takes a significant hit in leagues where owners are docked substantially for throwing interceptions. Kitna threw 22 in his first go-around in Martz's system last year, and as the table above illustrates, Martz's quarterbacks have averaged over 22 per season. Unfortunately, this appears to be the price to pay for sustained excellence in terms of yardage and touchdowns; a price Martz is obviously willing to pay.

Ted correctly pointed out that there is a lot of risk in the quarterback rankings after the top four (well, the top five if you've blindly joined the crowd to automatically include Bulger in the top tier). I don't disagree that Kitna comes with some risk as well, but to rank him as low as No. 13 or No. 14 while ignoring the massive risk involved with players like Michael Vick and Jay Cutler is pure lunacy.

Go ahead, take Donovan McNabb as the sixth quarterback off the board. But don't come crying to me when he breaks his leg, throws out his back, twists a knee, or bruises a lung in week 11.

And if none of this convinces you that Kitna "will throw his TDs and spirals of absolute vigor and absolute destruction into the hands of…um, Mike Williams," then this should do the trick: A Word of Warning.

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