At one point or another in our careers, we're all guilty of looking at the stats after a game, or season, and quickly coming to - what we believe to be - a logical conclusion.
However, stats rarely tell the whole story and should always be taken in perspective. As Pat Fitzgerald once famously said, "Stats are for losers".
One position that is perhaps judged more on stats than any other is the quarterback. Whether it's in the eyes of assistants, coordinators, or NFL scouts, one area of quarterback play that is discussed a great deal is completion percentage. But according to one former NFL quarterbacks coach, completion percentage is very, very misleading.
Steve Logan, who most recently coached the quarterbacks with the 49ers and has also served as the offensive coordinator at Boston College, East Carolina, Tulsa as well as with the Rhein Fire and Berlin Thunder, explained via a tweet from Chris Wesselin:
"The design of an offense has great impact on completion percentage. If we're going to, you can take a young man and encourage him to check down, suddenly you look up and he's completing 68 or 70 percent of his passes. That's wonderful. But what do you sacrifice to get that done? We don't have a vertical passing game suddenly."
"You have to be careful with completion percentage."
Logan then shared a story about watching film with Colin Kaepernick on the Arizona Cardinals and observing how much they pressure. Logan told Kap that "in games like this, we've got to be able to sacrifice completion percentage for explosive plays."
"Explosion plays, that's where you make your living. Go look at any touchdown drive. Well, every now and then you'll get a 16-play touchdown drive, or a 12-play touchdown drive, it's first, second, third-down and you convert. But most touchdown drives are made up of first down, second down, third down, first down, explosion play, touchdown. That's where we want to live. And Colin, he can give you that."
See the full quote from coach Logan below.