The Wall Street Journal recently wrote a piece called “Presenting the NFL’s Biggest Camera Hogs“, which was a study conducted of all 32 NFL teams’ broadcasts based on a 2 game sample size. What they calculated was the average amount of times that a camera would pan to each team’s quarterback, head coach, or other star players during the course of a game.
Not surprisingly, the Colts’ Andrew Luck was the 5th most shown quarterback, receiving an average of 20 shots a game. First was of course, Peyton Manning, at 31 shots per game, whose sideline seriousness is pure cable television gold. Also ahead of Luck were Tom Brady (2nd), Teddy Bridgewater (3rd), and Drew Brees (4th) at quarterback.
The Vikings’ rookie QB Teddy Bridgewater is a bit puzzling at first glance, ranked 3rd among all quarterbacks, but then you consider that he is a high draft pick and probably one of the few selling points of the Minnesota Vikings’ offense without Adrian Peterson.
The Top 20 list of both quarterbacks and head coaches can be seen below:
It’s worth noting that Colts’ head coach, Chuck Pagano, is the 15th most viewed head coach, which is right around the league average. He’ll likely need to tell QB Andrew Luck to stop cutting into his television time, so he can get more camera shots.
However, the Patriots’ quarterback and coaching combo of Brady & Belichick disprove this notion to a degree, as both are Top 5 in camera shots in their field. There may be enough shots to go around for the aforementioned duo, much to the dismay of Colts’ fans, as well as the rest of the NFL.
The more animated head coaches like Jim Harbaugh, Tom Coughlin, Rex Ryan, and Gus Bradley are all higher up on the coaching rankings. It’s because kicking, yelling, and screaming likely makes for better television than a more stoic Chuck Pagano, comparatively speaking.
Of course, what Indianapolis’ fans care the most about is seeing smiles from their players, because it most likely means the Colts are winning. Say Cheese, Andrew Luck!