TheOak

With all the speculation about Drew wearing his arm out I decided to look a little deeper at the closest comparison I could think of. A Major League Pitcher. What I have not and pretty much can't be accurately accounted for are non game throws, toll of hits on a QB, or the effort used to throw.. QBs don't always throw 45 yard passes and Pitchers do not always throw a fastball.
A NFL regulation football weighs 14-15 ozs.
A MLB regulation baseball weighs roughly 5 ozs.

QB - In Drew's career he has thrown 6,276 passes in games. Ave of 33.3 Att/game.

Pitcher - James Shields For the Royals has thrown 3,559 pitches so far this season. A MLB pitcher ave 147 pitches in a game.

So a ball park (excuse the pun) assumption would be that a pitcher in 1 season throws as many times as an NFL QB does in 6 seasons... Add a toll for weight differential and a SWAG knocking that down to 2 years.

Injury aside, I don't see that Drew is over throwing his arm. That injury may be taking its toll though, there is some loss of velocity as I have seen him under throw as many as everyone has but then again some times he is spot on with his pass.

At the end of the day I have proven nothing and you just lost 4 minutes of your life. However this could be worthy of discussion for those that have played both QB and pitcher.

Budsdrinker

Only thing I disagree with is the pitcher averaging 147 per game. Unless he is pitching a no-hitter or shut out they don't stay in past 100 pitches much.

dam1953

It's not unusual for a pitcher to have a 20-25 pitch inning, where he is pitching every 10 - 15 seconds, and this doesn't count pickoffs, etc. This is likely the most strenuous time for a pitcher. Also, a fastball is less strenuous than some of the breaking balls they throw.

Here is probably the most telling statistic that we don't need to worry about Brew wearing out his arm. One is seven MLB pitchers have undergone Tommy John surgery. Can you think of a single QB that has had TJ. QBs normally end up with rotator cuff surgery from being planted in the turf, not from throwing the ball. So, if we protect Drew he could be setting records until the end of the decade.

(I expect that your 147 pitch number included warmup pitches before innings, etc.)

”It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin

UK_WhoDat

Can't help you buddy. Except to say that 147 sounds like the aveage number of pitches by a team per game. That is not the average number of pitches per pitcher per game.

TheOak

I must have misread the chart.

James Shields has thrown 3559 pitches this season.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitchin...ype/expanded-2
http://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/play...pitches-thrown

Drew averages between 550-650 passes per season?
http://www.nfl.com/player/drewbrees/2504775/careerstats

Roughly 1/6th?
Correctamundo?

TheOak

I did misread the chart. My bad.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/7533

Mardigras9

With his contract, what is the revenue per pass? I'de say the life of a QB arm is a pretty good gig.

homerj07

Damn 4 minutes. You guys read slow.

TheOak

On which pass?

The Dude

I dont know that you can compare the two. Throwing styles are different as well as ball shape, size and weight.