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http://draftbreakdown.com/2016-nfl-draft-breaking-down-situational-quarterback-performance/
Box score scouting has a negative connotation, but it can actually be a useful practice. I’ve written on this before, and unfortunately most of my previous work on the subject has been lost in the ether of the Internet, but to sum up all prior posts, I believe that analysis of college production is an important factor in scouting. At the outset of my foray into NFL Draft coverage, I was told repeatedly that box score scouting was pointless, but I’ve come to learn that NFL personnel people do indeed care about stats. Former Denver Broncos General Manager Ted Sundquist stated this perfectly in a recent article when he wrote, “That’s what the draft is all about; attempting to predict which players, based upon college productivity and a given data set of information, will most likely succeed at the next level.” It’s right there, on “paper,” from a former NFL executive: college productivity. Watch the tape? That’s a must. But statistics can help put what we’ve just seen into better context.
This context is particularly important with quarterbacks. But while old school personnel types may favor traditional stats like completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio, and even “QB Wins,” I wanted to dig deeper into situational football. This year, in addition to those classic statistics, I’ve investigated four crucial aspects that impact each game, and can help put those old world numbers in better perspective. I sampled 21 quarterbacks for this study: 17 combine invites (Liberty QB Josh Woodrum is not included because I have never seen him play) and four others who were “snubbed” by the NFL establishment. But before we get into the situation-specific stats, let’s take a look at those traditional categories I mentioned a minute ago. Other than win totals, numbers are based on the 2015 season only. For “QB Wins” we’ll use the Bill Parcells standard of 23 career wins as a starter, and give each player a “yes” or “no” grade:
TRADITIONAL MEASURES
The high score for each column is in green; low score is in red. To give this some kind of overall order, I ranked each column from 1-21, then totaled those rankings to come up with each QB’s category score. When players were tied in a particular column, they received the same ranking. For example, Dak Prescott and Matt Johnson both registered a 5.8 TD-to-INT ratio and earned a “1” in that column, and Brandon Doughty, who had the third-best rate, earned a “3.” For wins, since it’s basically a pass/fail column, I gave the 11 players who won at least 23 games “1”s and the other nine received “12”s. In the end, with all category scores tallied, I will have placed the passers into tiers, so these individual column rankings are just a small piece of the pie.
Our top four quarterbacks here all completed at least 64% of their passes, posted a 4:1 TD-to-INT ratio, and led their team to 23 wins or more. Doughty ran a high-volume offense at Western Kentucky, and as a sixth-year senior, his completion percentage is evidence of his mastery of that attack.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Connor Cook logged the second-lowest completion percentage in our sample, and his 57.5% career mark is sure to set off some alarm bells. However, of the 2016 draft’s “Big Four” QBs – Cook, Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, and Paxton Lynch – only the Michigan State senior hit the 23-win mark, leading the Spartans to an impressive 34-5 record over the last three seasons. In contrast, Goff, Lynch, Brandon Allen, Nate Sudfeld, and Christian Hackenberg all failed to reach 23 career wins despite starting for three seasons. Hackenberg also represents the low-water mark for completion percentage in this sample.
Speaking of completion percentage, many people still associate this statistic with a quarterback’s accuracy. I’m sure that’s true to a degree, but we know by now that many college playbooks are loaded with short, quick, “easy” passes that tend to pad completion percentage. I can hit 100% of my three-yard pass plays and my team will still be forced to punt. That’s an extreme scenario, but my point is that completion percentage is hollow if a quarterback isn’t picking up first downs and moving the chains. This brings us to our next category…
FIRST DOWNS AND DOWNFIELD PASSING
Above we see percentage of first downs per pass attempt and per completion; and percentage of 15+ yard gains and 25+ yard gains per pass attempt and completion. This is not to say that the ball is traveling past the sticks, or 15-or-more yards downfield in the air, but it does give us a look at which QBs are pushing the ball down the field, or, at least, putting the ball in good positions for their receivers to gain yards after the catch.
Vernon Adams immediately stands out in this category. After battling a finger injury early in the season, the Eastern Washington transfer finished strong and took advantage of the open downfield looks afforded to him by Oregon’s fast-paced spread offense. Reports indicate that Adams continued to display deep passing accuracy at East-West Shrine Game practices in January, and he connected on a 93 yard scoring pass during the game.
Just behind Adams, we start to see that Cook’s low completion percentage may not be telling us the whole story. Just over 68% of Cook’s completed passes went for first downs this past season, and that number is consistent with his 2014 performance as well. He finds himself in the top third of every column in this category, and is second only to Adams in terms of 25+ yard passes per completion. While Cook may not have been a terribly efficient college passer, he did produce first downs and chunk plays at a strong rate.
Trevone Boykin and Allen, two QBs in the average range of the Traditional stats, show up well here. Allen moved the sticks with a potent intermediate passing attack heavy on play action, and Boykin’s improvisational skills allowed his receivers time to get open deep. The stats indicate that Wentz did a good job picking up first downs, but that he wasn’t asked to take a ton of shots down the field. This is consistent with his game tape, as the North Dakota State offense featured a 65/35 run/pass ratio, and Wentz and his teammates were often playing with a lead.
Cody Kessler and Prescott, two players who completed over 66% of their total pass attempts, show up at the bottom of this chart, indicating that their completion percentages have been padded by short throws. NC State’s Jacoby Brissett brings up the rear in this category, and this is consistent with the tendency to check down underneath regardless of down and distance. This leads us into our next category…
THIRD DOWN PERFORMANCE
On third downs, our “Big Four” quarterbacks all grade out well overall. Wentz tops the chart with a 51.6% conversion rate on third down pass attempts. We know from the first down and downfield passing stats, that he didn’t have to bite off huge chunks of yardage to convert those first downs, but the bottom line is that Wentz was highly efficient on third downs in his seven starts last season.
Cook’s third down completion percentage is still below 60%, but he was actually 1.8% more “accurate” on third downs than he was overall, and he picked up a first down on 46% of his third down pass attempts. Cook’s 126 attempts were the most of the 21 QBs I sampled for this study, and he only threw one interception on third down all season. While watching Cook on tape this year, I was often impressed by his third down passing, and here we see that, despite what looks like spotty accuracy, he moved the chains at a high rate, and did so while protecting the football.
Kessler finds his way into the upper third of this category overall, but while he completed a high percentage of third down passes and protected the ball reasonably well (two INTs in 108 throws), the USC quarterback picked up a first down on just 36.1% percent of those pass attempts. Going back to our previous category, we see that only about one-third of Kessler’s total pass attempts resulted in first downs, and now we have even more evidence that he simply wasn’t pushing the ball far enough downfield. In a similar vein, Doughty led all FBS QBs with a 71.9% completion percentage this season, and completed 69.9% of his third down passes, yet he comes in 12th here in terms of converting those third downs, and joins Kessler in the bottom third of the previous table in first downs per completed pass.
Some interesting third down notes:
RED ZONE PERFORMANCE
Johnson scores third here in the red zone stats, but we could make an argument that he’s actually the most impressive performer in this category. Only Wentz posted a better red zone TD percentage, but he made just seven starts and attempted 45 fewer passes than Johnson did in these situations. Boykin was outstanding in the red zone too, completing over 70% of his passes for 17 scores and no INTs, but his 48 attempts fell 18 short of Johnson’s number. Goff was one of only two QB in this sample to attempt more red zone passes than Johnson (Doughty was the other), and the Cal starter’s success was well-publicized during the season. Goff completed just under 60% of his 82 passes from inside the 20-yard line, for 28 touchdowns and zero picks. He, Wentz, Boykin, Johnson, and Prescott were the only five passers who registered a red zone TD percentage over 30% without throwing an interception.
What do we make of Cardale Jones’ 2015 red zone performance? With just 14 pass attempts, it’s impossible to properly judge his numbers, but on the other hand, we know that even before J.T. Barrett replaced him in the starting lineup, Jones had ceded red zone snaps to his teammate as Ohio State’s coaching staff searched for ways to finish scoring drives. Unfortunately, despite his incredible 2014 playoff run, the fourth-year junior was never a fit for the Buckeyes’ 2015 offense.
Like Jones, Cook’s 2015 red zone stats leave something to be desired. His 38.3% completion percentage was the worst of any QB who attempted more than 14 passes, and he threw two red zone interceptions including a backbreaking pick just before halftime of Michigan State’s 38-0 playoff loss to Alabama. Cook’s red zone numbers were so shaky this year that I felt obligated to dive into his previous two seasons as a starter, where I found that between 2013 and 2014, he completed 52.8% of his passes (38/72) with 28 TDs (38.9%) and one INT (1.4%). The fact that Cook attempted 10 fewer passes in that two-year span than Goff did in 2015 alone illustrates the vast difference in philosophy between “pro style” and “spread” college offenses. Often times, when guys like Cook, Allen, and Alabama’s Jake Coker got their teams down inside the 20, they’d turn the keys over to their running backs to finish the drive, whereas Goff, Johnson, Doughty, etc. were still firing away.
Now, there’s one more category to hit on before we wrap this up…
TURNOVERS AND SACKS
Unlike the red zone statistics, I have significantly better sample sizes to work with here. Turning the ball over and taking a sack are the two drive-killing sins a quarterback can commit. To calculate the INT%, I simply divided interceptions by pass attempts; and since sacks count as a rushing attempt, I was able to calculate fumble and sack percentages by dividing those numbers by each quarterback’s “passing+rushing” attempts. I’m well aware that not every turnover or sack is the QB’s fault – I don’t expect that any of these calculations are flawless – but I do feel like this gives us a rough idea of which passers were more (or less) mistake-prone in 2015 than their peers.
Cook tops this category on the strength of his fumble percentage. He coughed the ball up just once on 460 total pass-plus-rush attempts, and just seven times in his three years as a starter (1325 total attempts). Goff, who at this point has famously small hands, fumbled 23 times during his college career. And Prescott (9) and Lynch (7) equaled or surpassed Cook’s career fumble number in 2015 alone.
Aside from the fumbles, Lynch fares pretty well in this category. His mobility helped hold his sack number to the fifth-lowest rate of this sample group, and he was the least-intercepted QB with just four picks all of last season.
Brissett is interesting to me here because he did a very good job protecting the football, but he also took sacks at the fourth-highest rate of the sampled quarterbacks. While watching Brissett’s senior season, I often felt that he was too careful and shied away from taking advantage of his physical talent and testing defenses down the field. I mentioned his propensity for checking down back when we discussed Moving the Chains, and this is likely related to his receivers having trouble separating, however, we saw Cook and Goff complete darts to well-covered receivers for big gains throughout their college careers. Brissett never saw the field as quickly as those guys, and despite his above-average mobility, he took a number of sacks while waiting for those big plays to develop.
I mentioned Hogan briefly before. He had the worst third down and red zone interception rates of any of the sampled quarterbacks, so it’s not surprising to see him near the bottom of this category. Hogan has a loopy, slow delivery that really telegraphs some of his passes and allows defenders ample time to break on the ball. The long windup also takes the ball far away from his frame prior to releasing the pass, and leaves him prone to fumbles. By many standards, Hogan had a successful senior season, but I’ve long thought his mechanics are extremely problematic, and therefore make him undraftable.
Adams checks in here a couple of notches below Hogan because of bottom-third turnover rates, and the second worst sack percentage of the group. But with 26 touchdowns on just 259 pass attempts, the Oregon passer also has the best scoring rate. It’s a fairly limited sample size, but these numbers, and his downfield passing statistics indicate that Adams’ big play ability may be enough to mitigate his negative plays.
Finally, Jones’ 2015 numbers are troubling, and even if we combine his stats from the past two seasons we don’t see much improvement in this category. We would see gains in his downfield passing stats, but overall, he was the same quarterback this year that he was when he led the Buckeyes to a national championship. As I alluded to earlier when discussing his red zone performance, I do not believe Jones was placed in the best position to succeed this past year, as Ohio State transitioned from Offensive Coordinator Tom Herman to the tandem of Ed Warriner and Tom Beck. Jones has a prototypical build and the best arm strength in the class, and he has shown the ability to get the ball out quickly, extend plays, and hit the home run ball, but he must do a better job of limiting his negative plays.
In conclusion…
Hopefully I’ve demonstrated here that these stats can provide some insight into what we’ve seen on tape with each of these quarterbacks, but by the same token, the stats themselves require context. With so many variables present in the college football landscape, no statistical system can act as a substitute for film study, but I do believe that we can use numbers to fortify our analysis. I want to stress here that these charts do not represent my player rankings, or where I think these quarterbacks will or should be drafted, but I will certainly consider this information in my evaluations of the 2016 class. That being said, we all love rankings, so just for fun, let’s see how these 21 passers stack up against each other when we combine their performances in the five categories: Traditional (T), Third Downs (3rd D), Moving the Chains (MtC), Red Zone (RZ) and Limiting Negative Plays (LNP).
TOTAL SITUATIONAL PERFORMANCE
The number in each column represents that player’s ranking in our five individual categories. the number to the far right is the Quarterback Score (QBS), which is a sum of each passer’s category ranks. Our overall winner here is Brandon Doughty, who was the only QB to finish in the top 10 of each of the five categories. Matt Johnson, Carson Wentz, Connor Cook and Trevone Boykin round out our top five. Cook, who’s often described as a “high variance” passer, was the only quarterback to register three top-three category scores. Again, this final ranking is just for novelty purposes, but hopefully, the information contained in each situational chart presented in this study can help us better understand the quarterbacks in this year’s draft class by looking beyond the traditional box scores, and perhaps, even what we’ve seen on tape.
Stats compiled using cfbstats.com, cbssports.com, and the North Dakota State team website
All numbers used for this study can be found on this google doc
Box score scouting has a negative connotation, but it can actually be a useful practice. I’ve written on this before, and unfortunately most of my previous work on the subject has been lost in the ether of the Internet, but to sum up all prior posts, I believe that analysis of college production is an important factor in scouting. At the outset of my foray into NFL Draft coverage, I was told repeatedly that box score scouting was pointless, but I’ve come to learn that NFL personnel people do indeed care about stats. Former Denver Broncos General Manager Ted Sundquist stated this perfectly in a recent article when he wrote, “That’s what the draft is all about; attempting to predict which players, based upon college productivity and a given data set of information, will most likely succeed at the next level.” It’s right there, on “paper,” from a former NFL executive: college productivity. Watch the tape? That’s a must. But statistics can help put what we’ve just seen into better context.
This context is particularly important with quarterbacks. But while old school personnel types may favor traditional stats like completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio, and even “QB Wins,” I wanted to dig deeper into situational football. This year, in addition to those classic statistics, I’ve investigated four crucial aspects that impact each game, and can help put those old world numbers in better perspective. I sampled 21 quarterbacks for this study: 17 combine invites (Liberty QB Josh Woodrum is not included because I have never seen him play) and four others who were “snubbed” by the NFL establishment. But before we get into the situation-specific stats, let’s take a look at those traditional categories I mentioned a minute ago. Other than win totals, numbers are based on the 2015 season only. For “QB Wins” we’ll use the Bill Parcells standard of 23 career wins as a starter, and give each player a “yes” or “no” grade:
TRADITIONAL MEASURES
The high score for each column is in green; low score is in red. To give this some kind of overall order, I ranked each column from 1-21, then totaled those rankings to come up with each QB’s category score. When players were tied in a particular column, they received the same ranking. For example, Dak Prescott and Matt Johnson both registered a 5.8 TD-to-INT ratio and earned a “1” in that column, and Brandon Doughty, who had the third-best rate, earned a “3.” For wins, since it’s basically a pass/fail column, I gave the 11 players who won at least 23 games “1”s and the other nine received “12”s. In the end, with all category scores tallied, I will have placed the passers into tiers, so these individual column rankings are just a small piece of the pie.
Our top four quarterbacks here all completed at least 64% of their passes, posted a 4:1 TD-to-INT ratio, and led their team to 23 wins or more. Doughty ran a high-volume offense at Western Kentucky, and as a sixth-year senior, his completion percentage is evidence of his mastery of that attack.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Connor Cook logged the second-lowest completion percentage in our sample, and his 57.5% career mark is sure to set off some alarm bells. However, of the 2016 draft’s “Big Four” QBs – Cook, Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, and Paxton Lynch – only the Michigan State senior hit the 23-win mark, leading the Spartans to an impressive 34-5 record over the last three seasons. In contrast, Goff, Lynch, Brandon Allen, Nate Sudfeld, and Christian Hackenberg all failed to reach 23 career wins despite starting for three seasons. Hackenberg also represents the low-water mark for completion percentage in this sample.
Speaking of completion percentage, many people still associate this statistic with a quarterback’s accuracy. I’m sure that’s true to a degree, but we know by now that many college playbooks are loaded with short, quick, “easy” passes that tend to pad completion percentage. I can hit 100% of my three-yard pass plays and my team will still be forced to punt. That’s an extreme scenario, but my point is that completion percentage is hollow if a quarterback isn’t picking up first downs and moving the chains. This brings us to our next category…
FIRST DOWNS AND DOWNFIELD PASSING
Above we see percentage of first downs per pass attempt and per completion; and percentage of 15+ yard gains and 25+ yard gains per pass attempt and completion. This is not to say that the ball is traveling past the sticks, or 15-or-more yards downfield in the air, but it does give us a look at which QBs are pushing the ball down the field, or, at least, putting the ball in good positions for their receivers to gain yards after the catch.
Vernon Adams immediately stands out in this category. After battling a finger injury early in the season, the Eastern Washington transfer finished strong and took advantage of the open downfield looks afforded to him by Oregon’s fast-paced spread offense. Reports indicate that Adams continued to display deep passing accuracy at East-West Shrine Game practices in January, and he connected on a 93 yard scoring pass during the game.
Just behind Adams, we start to see that Cook’s low completion percentage may not be telling us the whole story. Just over 68% of Cook’s completed passes went for first downs this past season, and that number is consistent with his 2014 performance as well. He finds himself in the top third of every column in this category, and is second only to Adams in terms of 25+ yard passes per completion. While Cook may not have been a terribly efficient college passer, he did produce first downs and chunk plays at a strong rate.
Trevone Boykin and Allen, two QBs in the average range of the Traditional stats, show up well here. Allen moved the sticks with a potent intermediate passing attack heavy on play action, and Boykin’s improvisational skills allowed his receivers time to get open deep. The stats indicate that Wentz did a good job picking up first downs, but that he wasn’t asked to take a ton of shots down the field. This is consistent with his game tape, as the North Dakota State offense featured a 65/35 run/pass ratio, and Wentz and his teammates were often playing with a lead.
Cody Kessler and Prescott, two players who completed over 66% of their total pass attempts, show up at the bottom of this chart, indicating that their completion percentages have been padded by short throws. NC State’s Jacoby Brissett brings up the rear in this category, and this is consistent with the tendency to check down underneath regardless of down and distance. This leads us into our next category…
THIRD DOWN PERFORMANCE
On third downs, our “Big Four” quarterbacks all grade out well overall. Wentz tops the chart with a 51.6% conversion rate on third down pass attempts. We know from the first down and downfield passing stats, that he didn’t have to bite off huge chunks of yardage to convert those first downs, but the bottom line is that Wentz was highly efficient on third downs in his seven starts last season.
Cook’s third down completion percentage is still below 60%, but he was actually 1.8% more “accurate” on third downs than he was overall, and he picked up a first down on 46% of his third down pass attempts. Cook’s 126 attempts were the most of the 21 QBs I sampled for this study, and he only threw one interception on third down all season. While watching Cook on tape this year, I was often impressed by his third down passing, and here we see that, despite what looks like spotty accuracy, he moved the chains at a high rate, and did so while protecting the football.
Kessler finds his way into the upper third of this category overall, but while he completed a high percentage of third down passes and protected the ball reasonably well (two INTs in 108 throws), the USC quarterback picked up a first down on just 36.1% percent of those pass attempts. Going back to our previous category, we see that only about one-third of Kessler’s total pass attempts resulted in first downs, and now we have even more evidence that he simply wasn’t pushing the ball far enough downfield. In a similar vein, Doughty led all FBS QBs with a 71.9% completion percentage this season, and completed 69.9% of his third down passes, yet he comes in 12th here in terms of converting those third downs, and joins Kessler in the bottom third of the previous table in first downs per completed pass.
Some interesting third down notes:
- Six quarterbacks averaged nine yards or more per third down pass attempt – Adams, Matt Johnson, Allen, Jeff Driskel, Everett Golson and Kevin Hogan – but only Driskel picked up a first down less than 40% of the time. Driskel checks in at a 37.9% conversion rate, which suggests he faced a lot of third-and-long situations. Indeed, 43 of his 103 third down attempts occurred under those unfavorable circumstances.
- Hogan threw a whopping six interceptions in 82 third down pass attempts. That’s more than Lynch and Prescott logged over the course of the entire 2015 season.
- Hackenberg was the only QB sampled to complete fewer than 50% of his passes (42.2%) and convert fewer than 30% of his first downs (27.5%)
- Worth noting here that Johnson, who was not invited to the scouting combine, was the only QB I sampled who did not throw a third down interception this past season. He’s also the only one to pass for double-digit third down TDs.
RED ZONE PERFORMANCE
Johnson scores third here in the red zone stats, but we could make an argument that he’s actually the most impressive performer in this category. Only Wentz posted a better red zone TD percentage, but he made just seven starts and attempted 45 fewer passes than Johnson did in these situations. Boykin was outstanding in the red zone too, completing over 70% of his passes for 17 scores and no INTs, but his 48 attempts fell 18 short of Johnson’s number. Goff was one of only two QB in this sample to attempt more red zone passes than Johnson (Doughty was the other), and the Cal starter’s success was well-publicized during the season. Goff completed just under 60% of his 82 passes from inside the 20-yard line, for 28 touchdowns and zero picks. He, Wentz, Boykin, Johnson, and Prescott were the only five passers who registered a red zone TD percentage over 30% without throwing an interception.
What do we make of Cardale Jones’ 2015 red zone performance? With just 14 pass attempts, it’s impossible to properly judge his numbers, but on the other hand, we know that even before J.T. Barrett replaced him in the starting lineup, Jones had ceded red zone snaps to his teammate as Ohio State’s coaching staff searched for ways to finish scoring drives. Unfortunately, despite his incredible 2014 playoff run, the fourth-year junior was never a fit for the Buckeyes’ 2015 offense.
Like Jones, Cook’s 2015 red zone stats leave something to be desired. His 38.3% completion percentage was the worst of any QB who attempted more than 14 passes, and he threw two red zone interceptions including a backbreaking pick just before halftime of Michigan State’s 38-0 playoff loss to Alabama. Cook’s red zone numbers were so shaky this year that I felt obligated to dive into his previous two seasons as a starter, where I found that between 2013 and 2014, he completed 52.8% of his passes (38/72) with 28 TDs (38.9%) and one INT (1.4%). The fact that Cook attempted 10 fewer passes in that two-year span than Goff did in 2015 alone illustrates the vast difference in philosophy between “pro style” and “spread” college offenses. Often times, when guys like Cook, Allen, and Alabama’s Jake Coker got their teams down inside the 20, they’d turn the keys over to their running backs to finish the drive, whereas Goff, Johnson, Doughty, etc. were still firing away.
Now, there’s one more category to hit on before we wrap this up…
TURNOVERS AND SACKS
Unlike the red zone statistics, I have significantly better sample sizes to work with here. Turning the ball over and taking a sack are the two drive-killing sins a quarterback can commit. To calculate the INT%, I simply divided interceptions by pass attempts; and since sacks count as a rushing attempt, I was able to calculate fumble and sack percentages by dividing those numbers by each quarterback’s “passing+rushing” attempts. I’m well aware that not every turnover or sack is the QB’s fault – I don’t expect that any of these calculations are flawless – but I do feel like this gives us a rough idea of which passers were more (or less) mistake-prone in 2015 than their peers.
Cook tops this category on the strength of his fumble percentage. He coughed the ball up just once on 460 total pass-plus-rush attempts, and just seven times in his three years as a starter (1325 total attempts). Goff, who at this point has famously small hands, fumbled 23 times during his college career. And Prescott (9) and Lynch (7) equaled or surpassed Cook’s career fumble number in 2015 alone.
Aside from the fumbles, Lynch fares pretty well in this category. His mobility helped hold his sack number to the fifth-lowest rate of this sample group, and he was the least-intercepted QB with just four picks all of last season.
Brissett is interesting to me here because he did a very good job protecting the football, but he also took sacks at the fourth-highest rate of the sampled quarterbacks. While watching Brissett’s senior season, I often felt that he was too careful and shied away from taking advantage of his physical talent and testing defenses down the field. I mentioned his propensity for checking down back when we discussed Moving the Chains, and this is likely related to his receivers having trouble separating, however, we saw Cook and Goff complete darts to well-covered receivers for big gains throughout their college careers. Brissett never saw the field as quickly as those guys, and despite his above-average mobility, he took a number of sacks while waiting for those big plays to develop.
I mentioned Hogan briefly before. He had the worst third down and red zone interception rates of any of the sampled quarterbacks, so it’s not surprising to see him near the bottom of this category. Hogan has a loopy, slow delivery that really telegraphs some of his passes and allows defenders ample time to break on the ball. The long windup also takes the ball far away from his frame prior to releasing the pass, and leaves him prone to fumbles. By many standards, Hogan had a successful senior season, but I’ve long thought his mechanics are extremely problematic, and therefore make him undraftable.
Adams checks in here a couple of notches below Hogan because of bottom-third turnover rates, and the second worst sack percentage of the group. But with 26 touchdowns on just 259 pass attempts, the Oregon passer also has the best scoring rate. It’s a fairly limited sample size, but these numbers, and his downfield passing statistics indicate that Adams’ big play ability may be enough to mitigate his negative plays.
Finally, Jones’ 2015 numbers are troubling, and even if we combine his stats from the past two seasons we don’t see much improvement in this category. We would see gains in his downfield passing stats, but overall, he was the same quarterback this year that he was when he led the Buckeyes to a national championship. As I alluded to earlier when discussing his red zone performance, I do not believe Jones was placed in the best position to succeed this past year, as Ohio State transitioned from Offensive Coordinator Tom Herman to the tandem of Ed Warriner and Tom Beck. Jones has a prototypical build and the best arm strength in the class, and he has shown the ability to get the ball out quickly, extend plays, and hit the home run ball, but he must do a better job of limiting his negative plays.
In conclusion…
Hopefully I’ve demonstrated here that these stats can provide some insight into what we’ve seen on tape with each of these quarterbacks, but by the same token, the stats themselves require context. With so many variables present in the college football landscape, no statistical system can act as a substitute for film study, but I do believe that we can use numbers to fortify our analysis. I want to stress here that these charts do not represent my player rankings, or where I think these quarterbacks will or should be drafted, but I will certainly consider this information in my evaluations of the 2016 class. That being said, we all love rankings, so just for fun, let’s see how these 21 passers stack up against each other when we combine their performances in the five categories: Traditional (T), Third Downs (3rd D), Moving the Chains (MtC), Red Zone (RZ) and Limiting Negative Plays (LNP).
TOTAL SITUATIONAL PERFORMANCE
The number in each column represents that player’s ranking in our five individual categories. the number to the far right is the Quarterback Score (QBS), which is a sum of each passer’s category ranks. Our overall winner here is Brandon Doughty, who was the only QB to finish in the top 10 of each of the five categories. Matt Johnson, Carson Wentz, Connor Cook and Trevone Boykin round out our top five. Cook, who’s often described as a “high variance” passer, was the only quarterback to register three top-three category scores. Again, this final ranking is just for novelty purposes, but hopefully, the information contained in each situational chart presented in this study can help us better understand the quarterbacks in this year’s draft class by looking beyond the traditional box scores, and perhaps, even what we’ve seen on tape.
Stats compiled using cfbstats.com, cbssports.com, and the North Dakota State team website
All numbers used for this study can be found on this google doc
