# You have an All-pro RB and you run a QB keeper **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 7, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615 "2014-10-07T01:48:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/1 "2014-10-07T01:48:05Z")
If you’re gonna have glorified RB as a QB, why have any running backs?! ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/2 "2014-10-07T01:58:00Z")
QB run will only work as a deception if you have other players who can run you don’t want your QB to get hurt. the majority of runs are by the RB ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/3 "2014-10-07T02:36:52Z")
You have to go backwards – if only a yard or two – to hand off. It makes more sense to send the QB in if it’s short yardage. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/4 "2014-10-07T03:05:08Z")
Nobody expects RBs to throw TDs. EVERYONE expects that from QBs, because THAT’S THEIR JOB!! ---
**Author:** ![Mikahw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Mikahw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikahw)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/5 "2014-10-07T12:23:25Z")
Uh-oh, somebody had better inform Michael Vick about this. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/6 "2014-10-07T13:01:52Z")
The QB sneak simply has [a higher rate of success](http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/62665328) than any of the other options (it succeeds about 80% of the time on average). ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/7 "2014-10-07T16:01:15Z")
> [@Mikahw](#): > > Uh-oh, somebody had better inform Michael Vick about this. He’s the poster child for what I’m talking about! ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/8 "2014-10-07T16:27:22Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > what I’m talking about! How about you explain to us exactly what it is that you’re talking about, in maybe more than one sentence per post? Give us a few examples, and why you think having a mobile QB ins’t a good strategy, other than “BUT THEIR JOB IS TO THROW!!1!” Perhaps you could start with why you think that’s their job, rather than “taking the snap from the center and undertaking the best possible action with the football to improve their team’s chances for winning”? ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/9 "2014-10-07T16:42:56Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > How about you explain to us exactly what it is that you’re talking about, in maybe more than one sentence per post? Give us a few examples, and why you think having a mobile QB ins’t a good strategy, other than “BUT THEIR JOB IS TO THROW!!1!” Perhaps you could start with why you think that’s their job, rather than “taking the snap from the center and undertaking the best possible action with the football to improve their team’s chances for winning”? There is a difference between mobile QB, like a Aaron Rodgers, and a run first QB, like Vick or Newton or Kaepernick or RGIII. The problem with having a run first QB is that they may be more likely to become injured and tend to put themselves at risk more than other pocket passers. Which is why, I think, after what happened to RGIII and Newton, those run first QB’s are being asked to run less and less. While having your QB run could be “the best possible action” the risk of injury is too much higher that, again it seems to me, OC’s with running QB’s are having them run less. All of which has fuckall to do with whatever silly point the OP was trying to make. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/10 "2014-10-07T16:47:38Z")
Hamlet: Actually, you articulated my point better than my OP did. Run first QBs are a waste because they RUN. Quarterbacks are expected to throw! ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/11 "2014-10-07T16:53:14Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > If you’re gonna have glorified RB as a QB, why have any running backs?! The QB will get exhausted from 20-30 carries a game on top of his usual QB duties. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/12 "2014-10-07T17:01:49Z")
So you can run the option (mostly applies to college football). There are zillions of types of options from the triple option (a fullback too!) to read options. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/13 "2014-10-07T17:03:10Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Run first QBs are a waste because they RUN. Quarterbacks are expected to throw! So run-first QBs would be more valuable if they did something they’re not as good at? Or they’d just be less of a waste? Is that your point? Because you still haven’t made one. “Quarterbacks are expected to throw” is a terrible argument, regardless of how many times you make it. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/14 "2014-10-07T17:05:04Z")
The option is just another way of wasting your QB. Teams that run the triple option/Wildcat do so because they don’t have a competent QB. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/15 "2014-10-07T17:10:08Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > The option is just another way of wasting your QB. Teams that run the triple option/Wildcat do so because they don’t have a competent QB. I disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/16 "2014-10-07T17:40:35Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > The option is just another way of wasting your QB. So, you’re saying that when the 49ers reached the NFC Championship game in each of the last three years (and the Super Bowl in one of those years), they were doing it wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/17 "2014-10-07T17:42:53Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > So, you’re saying that when the 49ers reached the NFC Championship game in each of the last three years (and the Super Bowl in one of those years), they were doing it wrong? Of course. How else do you think the swift-of-foot Peyton Manning lost to the statuesque Russell “Stone Feet” Wilson last year? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/18 "2014-10-07T17:53:26Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Hamlet: Actually, you articulated my point better than my OP did. Run first QBs are a waste because they RUN. Quarterbacks are expected to throw! And “doing what you’re expected to” is of course the goal of football, and not silly things like “gaining yards,” “scoring,” or “winning.” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/19 "2014-10-07T17:58:54Z")
I’d also like to point out that the game being played today can hardly be called football at all, since that game was destroyed in 1906 when the forward pass was legalized. Real quarterbacks NEVER pass the ball! ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615/20 "2014-10-07T18:08:43Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > There is a difference between mobile QB, like a Aaron Rodgers, and a run first QB, like Vick or Newton or Kaepernick or RGIII. Well, yeah, but the difference is that you’re calling one group one thing and another group another. It’s definitely not that there are quarterbacks that run first, and quarterbacks that don’t run first. At his very most insane, Vick ran 123 times in a season. I’m not a wizard but I think that’s less than 8 times a game; let’s call it 8. Mobile throwerman Aaron Rodgers ran 4. something something times per game at his most runnerish. Kaepernick was at 5.75 last year. Kurt Warner, who I genuinely would have believed you if you said he had a season with 0 rushing attempts, was just under 2 per game at his peak. For Vick and Kaepernick and Cam Newton, some rushing attempts are straight called runs, and for everyone you’ve got your handful of sneaks in a given year. That leaves everyone scrambling at what looks like a similar enough rate that you’re talking a time or two per game difference at the very most, and probably somewhat less between your “mobile” guys and your “runners.” That’s not that much of a distinction. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-have-an-all-pro-rb-and-you-run-a-qb-keeper/700615.md?page=2)