The NFL’s worst quarterbacks against every type of coverage

Complexity of coverage has expanded exponentially throughout the NFL’s history, and specifically in the NFL’s recent history. The days of the Tom Landry “umbrella” base defense are long-gone, though those concepts led the way in pro football for decades. The implementation of the zone defense in the 1960s and 1970s, the acceptance of the slot defender as starter in the early days of the new millennium, spin-offs and iterations of single-high ahd two-deep concepts in recent years, and the addition of match coverage as s staple from the 1990s to now have all expanded the picture regarding what defenses can throw at quarterbacks and their targets.

Just as offenses have never been more diverse and efficiently explosive than they are now, there have never been more different ways to deal with a passing game from a coverage perspective than their are now.

In line with that, we have studied the NFL’s best quarterbacks against every type of coverage…

…and you know how this goes. If there’s a best, there’s got to be a worst. So, here are Touchdown Wire’s worst quarterbacks against every type of pass coverage.

(All metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise indicated).

Cover-0: Justin Fields, Chicago Bears

(AP Photo/Aaron Gash)

Cover-0 — man coverage across the board with no deep safeties — can bedevil most quarterbacks. Last season, Justin Fields was perhaps most bedeviled. The Bears’ rookie quarterback had all sorts of things stacked against him, and it showed against this particular coverage. Against Cover-0, Fields completed three of six passes for 23 yards, 12 air yards, no touchdowns, one interception, an ANY/A of 7.7, and a passer rating of 20.1.

In Week 2 against the Bengals, Fields tried to hit Marquise Goodwin on a mesh concept, but he didn’t see linebacker Logan Wilson dropping from the line of scrimmage into coverage, and Wilson had an easy pick. Assessing where defenders are on the…