I think this article is point on and why Aaron Rodgers said the read option will pass with time too. I think the QB who scrambles and gets hit just like RB's will not last as long as pocket passers and are less likely to be franchise guys due to injury.

Any injury that happens to Mobile QB's can happen to Pocket Passers. Actually, Pocket Passers are more susceptible to shorten shelf lives than Mobile QB's. They are standing still, feet planted, and usually throw when a crowd is around them. True, they only take hits to the body (that's only because of all the rule changes) but if your cases rest on RG III's knee injury (the intial or the second time ) both could have happen to anyone not to mention Fed Ex Field was horrible in that playoff game.

@Jersey you realize that Vick was hit in the backfield behind his atrocious O-Line more often than not. Cam has struggles are more of a maturity thing than running. RG III took a hit when he was already being tackled by another player that dove in while Griffin was on his way to the ground.

I've been following Bay Area newspapers lately and Steve Young said he's impressed with the sophistication of run-option and "pistol" offenses - and wished he had them at his disposal when he played. John Madden said his gameplan would be to tempt the QB to run, them hit him hard. I think alot of coaches will have that approach, thus I'd prefer a Peyton Manning any day over an RG3. I think the Ravens strategy will be to use Kap's inexperience to their advantage: confuse & hit him hard.

@Jersey He took some shots but he only missed significant time due to injury when he Broke his legs in that Preseason game against the Ravens. Outside of that he missed a game here and a game there.

Please don't take this as me picking a fight or argument.

This article is stupid. Cam has had an injury free career thus far. Wilson and Kapernick throw first and you are cherry picking one QB who may or may not have an injury prone future. The data that doesn't cherry pick sees running QBs getting injury on a level similar to pocket passers, and the most injury prone are the least mobile. Chip Kelly is coming to the league and we'll finally see if a spread hurry up offense can go pro, but saying mobile QBs have an expiring shelf life is wrong when NFL history is littered with contradictions and is also irresponsible when the author cherry picks one QB from a group which a majority of have stayed healthy.

@jsquigg ... NFL history says nothing about these quarterbacks because they are different. The read option is a new concept to the NFL and it requires the quarterbacks to act more like running backs, therefore there is no history. And because there is no history we get to formulate opinions as to how it will play out. If you were to say that mobile quarterbacks don't necessarily pose a riskier investment based on history, you would have a decent argument. But the article clear separates from the traditional scramblers by stating that the issue now is that these new quarterbacks in the new read options have different and more punishing roles.

I'm pretty sure if a franchise was to give one of these QBs a huge deal they would invest the money to teach him to slide (Wilson, Kaepernick). Whether or not a QB is mobile or not does not increase his chances of getting injured. I mean look at Brady's knee injury and Manning's neck injury. I think more bearing should be put on whether the QB protects himself by sliding or running out of bounds when in a situation where he could be injured on a hit.

I disagree with this article. The idea that "running" quarterbacks are destined to get hurt more often than a pocket passer is a lazy observation and assumption. Where are the facts to back the theory up? Truth is, "running" QB's are no more susceptible to injury than pocket passers. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are both prototypical pocket passers, and both have lost an entire season due to injury that occured while they were in the pocket. Tony Romo has been often injured over the past 3-4 years missing some games, and all of his injuries came while he was hit in the pocket. On the flip side, how often was Randall Cunningham hurt? If anything, a "running" QB could use his running ability to avoid injury causing hits more than a pocket passer. The cause of injuries has nothing to do with whether a QB will get hurt or not. The cause is whether he knows how to get rid of the ball in time, slide at the right moment, or do other in-game things to avoid an injury causing hit.

Correction: The cause of injuries has nothing to do with whether a QB is a "running" QB or a pocket passer.

@phenom2311 ... I agree with you to an extent, but the "running" quarterbacks you reference (Cunningham) aren't the "running" quarterbacks of topic in the article -- there is a distinction made between the scramblers and the new wave of read option QBs. You are 100% correct that there are no facts to back it up, but the read option is so new there hasn't been enough time or teams/players to say for sure what the outcome will be. This is just conjecture. I'm not sure how it's "lazy" as you put it, however, considering the point was made to compare the demands and roles of read option quarterbacks to that of running backs. If teams started handing the ball to wide receivers ten times a game to run the ball and I predicted they would see more injuries than they currently do, would that be a lazy assumption? It's a matter of occupational hazard. These read option quarterbacks are being asked to do different things (comparable to running backs) so their roles involve an increase in the number of hits they will take -- especially on the legs and from 2nd/3rd/etc. defenders who are cleaning up (see: RG3 injury).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLUxNTGW8Hk

NNL (Numbers Never Lie) did a quick segment on Colin Kaepernick and his success using the read option. No need to get excited either way because like someone said earlier. It will fade when defenders just got all out at the QB and/or the RB.