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"There are three things that can happen when you throw the football, and two of them are bad." It's hard to determine which coach was the first to say this (it is typically attributed to Woody Hayes or Darrell Royal) but for a very long time there was no doubting the quote's validity regarding the riskiness of attempting a lot of passes. This trend started to change in the 1980s with the advent of West Coast offenses that feature a much safer passing system. This risk management mindset eventually found its way into every NFL aerial playbook and has worked so well that through Week 7 only two quarterbacks with 100 or more pass attempts had more interceptions than touchdown passes (Blake Bortles and Teddy Bridgewater). Even with these league-wide safety-first leanings, there are still more than a few field generals whose risk-taking mindset says gunslinger more than game manager. The best of these players often have great statistics that mask these risk-taking leanings, so let's use some deeper dive game tape reviews and metrics to identify five of these gunslingers.
Jay Cutler, Chicago Bears It's apt to start with Cutler because his long history of hazardous throws is one major factor as to why former Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and current Chicago wide receiver Brandon Marshall have both taken Cutler to task of late.
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