And not by a heck of a lot... Not enough to say, 'Hey Sage is so much more mobile, we need to use his legs as a weapon'.
His legs are not a "weapon," but it seems they keep him out of more trouble...
Here's some head-to-head stats from nfl.com:
SCHAUB:
QB rating: 87 (compared to Sage at 84, pretty close)
games: 11 (compared to Sage at 9, two more games for Schaub)
completion %: 66% (compared to Sage at 64, pretty close)
yards: 2,241 (roughly 600 more than Sage at 1,684)
Avg: 7.8 (Basically a yard more, per pass, than Sage. That's close, also)
TD: 9 (6 less than Sage)
Int: 9 (three less than Sage)
sacks: 16 (Whoa! 10 more than Sage)
Sack yds: 126 (Schaub racked up almost 80 more sack yds)
fumbles: 7 (four more than Sage, but Schaub had two more games)
fumbles lost: 3 (Same as Sage)
SAGE:
QB rating: 84
games: 9
completion %: 64%
yards: 1,684
avg: 7
TD: 15
int: 12
sack: 6
sack yds: 48
fumbles: 4
fumbles lost: 3
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Schaub and Sage are pretty neck-and-neck in stats, with the obvious difference being that Schaub had two more games than Sage and an extra 600 yards. Sage averaged about 187/game...which would put him at about an extra 374 yds. passing for two more games to equal Matt's 11 games. So, Schaub has Sage on the total passing yards by about 225 yds.
My main focus is on sacks and sack yards. Please explain THIS stat away, if you can. That's a number that I think exposes Schaub as being less mobile than Sage pertaining to keeping us from losing lots of ground in field position, as well as being able to keep down-and-distance a manageable figure.
The other categories, except for total yards, is practically EVEN, is it not?
Where is this huge difference between the two QBs? You can "say" we have a starter and a backup...that's an issue of semantics...but I still see two backups competing for a starting job. A job that maybe NEITHER of them are really capable of either earning or keeping for long.
We don't have world-beaters at the QB position. I think we have two guys who are almost the same guy, but in different ways.
Saying a guy has a "higher ceiling" is just pure speculation. The same speculation which landed Schaub in a deal that a lot of people in the media--people you and I lampooned on these boards--questioned when it happened. These same media analysts loved the Schaub deal when we played our first two games, and yet began to grow silent about as the season wore on.
We saw how the media went to the oline and said "How does it feel to be vindicated for the years of being trashed for the sack numbers?" Supposedly, the new QB was showing that the oline was not so bad. Yet, look at the sack numbers and sack yards for Schaub: Who is it that suddenly stopped showing up? The oline or the QB?
And for the ones who say I need to stop mentioning David Carr...I don;t like Carr, I'm very glad he's gone, and I think a lot of people here are repeating history by propping up Matt Schaub when it it looks to me that he's not done anything spectacular yet to warrant such lovig devotion by Texans fans.
We lost two 2nd round picks in back-to-back drafts for him, and a lot of people would be OK with getting a 3rd for Sage? Go figure.