Aaron Rodgers Has a Supremely Impressive Record of Avoiding Pick Sixes
By Jason Lisk
I was playing around with some quarterback info on Pro Football Reference this morning and noticed something that I thought had to be an error. The website has recently added information on “pick sixes” thrown that show up on the player stats. When I was running a search (for something else) and looked at quarterbacks through age 30, Aaron Rodgers had only one of them before his 31st birthday. That stood out. So I searched again, and he has thrown only two for his career.
The first came in 2009, when Tanard Jackson returned one at the end of game to seal a Tampa Bay victory with 34 seconds remaining as Rodgers tried to make a desperation play on 4th and 12. The second took nearly another decade to occur, and was last September when William Jackson stepped in front of an out route and took it back 75 yards.
Maybe you’ve heard passing reference to his lack of throwing interception returns to the other team, but seeing the stats for all the other quarterbacks puts it into some perspective just how crazy it is that he has only thrown two in his career.
Here are the regular season career pick six totals listed for some of his elite contemporaries who have played well into their thirties, according to Pro Football Reference:
- Brett Favre – 31
- Drew Brees – 27
- Peyton Manning – 27
- Philip Rivers – 23
- Eli Manning – 22
- Ben Roethlisberger – 15
- Tom Brady – 13
Want another example of how ridiculous his propensity to avoid them is, and how valuable he is? Since the start of the 2008 season, when Rodgers took over as the starter, he has thrown two of them. All other Green Bay quarterbacks have thrown five. That’s in 773 pass attempts for all other Green Bay quarterbacks, versus 5,428 passes for Rodgers.
As far as I can tell, Rodgers has the best rate of avoiding them of all-time, at least among passers who played long enough to throw 1,000 passes in the NFL. Roger Staubach joins Rodgers in only throwing two, in 2,911 attempts. The immortal Marc Wilson is the only other QB to throw as few as two in 2,000 attempts. Meanwhile, Carson Wentz has the most pass attempts with only one in his career, as he is currently at 1,448 passes. He would have to throw just one in his next 4,039 passes to match where Rodgers currently stands.