Skelton was bad Sunday, but not the worst in history
What does completing 6 of 19 passes for 99 yards and three
interceptions lead to? Well, besides a benching and a
loss, a QB rating of 10.5.
It’s as bad as it sounds.
To be fair to Skelton, it’s not the lowest QB rating in
NFL history. According to Wikipedia, as recently as 2007 Atlanta’s
Chris Redman posted a rating of 0 in a game vs. Tampa Bay
after completing just 4 of 15 passes for 34 yards and two
interceptions.
But it’s not the worst in Cardinals history, and given the
multitude of top notch signal callers who
have called the Valley home, being the best – at being the
worst – is actually fairly impressive.
In fact, Kent Graham (remember him?) posted a 0.0 rating
in a 1997 game, torching the Giants to the tune of 4 of 14
for 40 yards and a pair of picks. Boomer Esiason had some
struggles at New England in 1996, completing just 4 of 12
passes for 22 yards and two interceptions. His rating that
day? 2.8.
Skelton’s game against the 49ers comes in third, with
Graham (again) coming in fourth and Jake Plummer landing
in fifth.
More recently, Derek Anderson’s 17 of 31, 161 yard, 2
interception performance against Atlanta last season,
while terrible, was only bad enough for a rating of 42.5.
There was nothing funny about Anderson’s game against the
49ers later in the season, in which he completed 16 of 35
passes for 196 yards and one interception. That left him
with a 51.6 rating.
Then again, for all of Anderson’s faults, he wasn’t Max
Hall-bad.
Hall, in fact, gave Skelton a run for his money with his
start at Seattle last year, completing just 4 of 16 passes
for 36 yards and one interception, giving him a rating of
13.5.
John Skelton had a brutal Sunday against the 49ers, a game
that will go down as one of the worst quarterbacking
performances in team history. But it’s not the
worst, and that’s something to be happy about.
Or maybe not.
Arizona Sports’ Vince Marotta contributed to this
report
