Teams
- Jacksonville Jaguars (2002-2010)
Accolades
- 1x Pro Bowl (2009)
“It doesn’t matter what your skin tone is now. If you can throw touchdowns, and you can operate the team, and you’re a quality guy … now that’s a difference about the quarterback position and every other position — you’re basically the CEO of this team.”
—David Garrard (source)
David “Deputy” Garrard’s career seemingly came and went in a flash. A benchwarmer at first, just waiting for chances, he would jump on them when they came and provided tremendous excitement in north Florida for the second half of the new Millennium’s first decade. But within this sprint of a career are some great moments, by air and by ground, as well as a couple of notable postseason games.
For the first three seasons of his career, David Garrard struggled for opportunities to take snaps. The fourth round draft pick out of East Carolina served as back-up to Mark Brunell in 2002, and primarily sat behind first round pick Byron Leftwich in 2003 and 2004. Those three seasons saw Garrard only start three games, resulting in a 1-2 record. But opportunity comes in strange ways, and in the NFL, that often means by injury.
Leading Jacksonville to a 7-3 start, Leftwich would go down with a broken ankle and the Jags turned to back-up Garrard. His passing numbers weren’t special (12-for-26 for 115), but he showed why he would still a force to be reckoned with, running for 61 yards and a TD in the 24-17 win. Garrard would lead Jax to four wins in the final five regular season games, and a playoff date with Tom Brady and the Patriots. Unfortunately for Garrard, Leftwich would return from injury and be rendered ineffective. It was too late for any Garrard magic as New England would roll the Jaguars 28-3.
Leftwich would retain the starting position in 2006, but after a mediocre 3-3 start, Head Coach Jack Del Rio would turn to Garrard who would respond admirably, taking Jacksonville to 8-5 with three games left in the season. Despite solid, if unspectacular, performances again Tennessee and New England the next two weeks, Garrard and Jags found themselves on the outside looking in on the playoffs. It seemed only a matter of time before Leftwich would retain the starting gig and relegate Garrard to back-up or in pursuit of another job.
Yet Garrard showed again that he was one to seize opportunity. At the beginning of ’07, he noticeably outplayed Leftwich in preseason, resulting in Garrard being named starter for the regular season and Leftwich being released. Jacksonville’s new starter would show his head coach that he did not make a mistake. In just 12 starts (he would miss four games with a sprained ankle), the Jags would go 9-3 with Garrard at QB. He would throw for over 2,500 yards and 18 TDs, finishing with a passer rating of 102.2. Most notably, his 0.9% interception percentage was the NFL’s best as Jacksonville once again found themselves in the postseason.
In the Wild Card round, Garrard would be outplayed by Ben Roethlisberger, as he accumulated only 198 total yards and passing for only one TD to two INTs. But more importantly, Garrard saved his best for last. Down 29-28 late in the fourth quarter, David Garrard would take Jacksonville 44 yards in eight plays over two minutes, and Josh Scobee would guarantee the Jaguars first playoff victory since 1999 with a 25 yard field goal. Garrard’s reward would be a postseason rematch with the Patriots….. the 16-0 New England Patriots. The team of destiny, a Pats victory seemed a fait accompli. Garrard would make sure it was anything but. He would throw for 278 yards and two TDs as Jacksonville kept the game within eight points in the final period. But Garrard was also hurt by an interception and a lost fumble, and the Patriots would go on to win 31-20.
In 2008, it was the best of times and the worst of times for Jacksonville. Garrard would throw for over 3,600 yards and add 300+ more on the ground while starting all 16 games for the first time in his career. But his TD:INT ratio would plummet to 15:13 and Jacksonville’s record would plummet with it, falling to 5-11. But Garrard would bounce back in 2009. He would throw for 3,597 yards and run for over 300 yards for the second consecutive season, again starting all 16 games. This effort resulted in his lone Pro Bowl appearance. But despite a 7-5 start, the Jags would falter down the stretch, offensively and defensively, and lose their final four.
The 2010 season showed great promise as Garrard would start 14 of the team’s first 15 games, going 8-6 in those starts. He would throw a career-best 23 TDs and run for a career-best five more. But in what had become a recurring theme, December would be unkind to Jacksonville and an 8-5 start became an 8-8 finish. In the offseason, Jacksonville would draft Blaine Gabbert in the first round, signaling the end of the David Garrard era. Over the next couple years, Garrard would sign with both the Dolphins and the Jets, but never take a regular season snap for them. In 2015, he would sign a one-day contract to officially retire as a Jacksonville Jaguar.
David Garrard is another one of those guys who, on the surface, didn’t seem to have a particularly noteworthy career. But one of the points of this exercise was to dig deeper and analyze a quarterback’s complete body of work. In this case, despite only once throwing for more than 20 TDs in a season, he would run for 17 in his career, including 10 in his final three years. In a relatively short career (he only started 76 games), Garrard would run for an impressive 1,746 yards. He also had consecutive seasons of almost 4,000 total yards. Had the Jaguars been more consistent, especially during the final quarter of their seasons, Garrard might have had more opportunities to do something really special in the playoffs. Regardless, while never quite a superstar, for a solid handful of seasons David Garrard consistently made Jacksonville a force to be reckoned with.
Deviation Chart
| Season | W-L% | Tot Y/G | Tot TD/G | Tot TO/G | Y/C/Y/A | Cmp % | TD% | Int% |
| Reg Season | 0.007 | -0.009 | -0.019 | 0.091 | 0.005 | 0.024 | -0.021 | 0.090 |
| Playoffs | 0.000 | -0.009 | -0.030 | -0.084 | 0.185 | -0.094 | 0.038 | -0.200 |
Longevity Bonus = 0.1 Title Bonus = 0.0
Index Score = 1.095 (average QB = 0.0)
Deviation Rank (out of 155)
| Season | W-L% | Tot Y/G | Tot TD/G | Tot TO/G | Y/C/Y/A | Cmp % | TD% | Int% |
| Reg Season | 84th | 78th | 95th | 39th | 88th | 65th | 111th | 21st |
| Playoffs | T-47th | 76th | 78th | 121st | 13th | 125th | 40th | 133rd |
Why is he on the Top 100 list?
If there’s anything that really helped David Garrard, both on the field and in this study, is that he didn’t make a ton of mistakes. In 12 starts in 2007, he only threw three interceptions, and had only three fumbles as well. He is ranked #21 all-time in terms of interceptions/attempt deviation, and #39 overall in terms of total turnovers per game. He was also slightly above-average in terms of completion percentage, furthering justifying his ranking.
Why isn’t he higher on the list?
Really the only category that Garrard could be considered subpar in the regular season is touchdowns per pass attempt at 111th. Because of this, his total touchdowns per game also comes in slightly below the median at 95th. So this seems to have been the big tradeoff with Garrard, limited turnovers for limited touchdowns, but when you had Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew in their primes, you’re also going to run the football with those guys.
The Quarterback Project 