I wrote a piece about this back in September talking about 3 teams and the choices they made about how to approach their quarterbacks. I thought it would be good to follow up, now that we are at the end of the regular season.
Washington Football Team: I think it is easy to say that the Kliff Kingsbury hire was a success for the Football Team. Not only will Jayden Daniels likely win rookie of the year, the Football Team made the playoffs with a team ranked 4th by pro-football-reference expected points contributed by offense. They rank 3rd in passing yards. I would say that's a pretty good year and the Kingsbury outperformed expectations as did Daniels. Daniels ranked 6th by EPA per play for all qualifying quarterbacks. Some have pointed out that his EPA numbers are boosted by just how effective he has been as a scrambler this season, and obviously that is more Daniels than Kingsbury. Still, I think it has to be noted that Daniels has been a huge success in his first season and that Kingsbury was a good hire.
Chicago Bears: From a success story to a failure, we get to the Bears and their hire of Shane Waldron. Things got so bad with Waldron he was let go during the season, then their rookie quarterback looked much better with an interim offensive coordinator. Then the Bears fired their head coach and took the interim offensive coordinator away from their rookie QB to make him the interim head coach and it all fell apart again for Williams. Turns out those that had expressed concern with Waldron and the fact that his success was due to how good Geno Smith was playing for him were warranted. Now the Bears have wasted a year of a rookie quarterback they picked number one overall and honestly no one knows if he can be a viable starter in the NFL. Williams ranked 31st in EPA per play behind Daniel Jones. Not where the Bears were hoping to find their quarterback. This is why when you are picking number 1 overall and picking a quarterback, it is probably a good idea to reboot your coaching staff. Williams never had much of a chance this year, but unlike his counterpart Drake May, who was also in a similar circumstance, didn't look anything like the number 1 overall pick.
Carolina Panthers: Well, who could have predicted this ending. When I wrote that piece back in September, the Panthers had just announced they were benching Bryce Young, and it looked like this whole experiment had collapsed. Young would come back later in the year and actually end the season 25th in EPA and looking like an actual starting quarterback by the end of the year. If we look at weeks 9-18 Young finished 12th in EPA just behind Sam Darnold. All credit here to Dave Canales. He obviously never quit working with Young and the improvement in his game is staggering. Perhaps bringing in a coach who has been tied to two other quarterback success stories wasn't a bad idea after all. I'm not sure Young will ever live up to his number 1 pick status, but at least he'll be back next year as the starting quarterback, with a chance to see what he can do. Right now, he looks like a starting level quarterback in the NFL.
I think the obvious answer to this question is that it is a bit of both, and this was a good season for testing this out. Sam Darnold started this season as statistically one of the worst starting QBs in NFL history and ended the season ranked 15th in EPA. Does this mean Darnold is really a mid-tier quarterback? Probably not right now without good coaching. Maybe his talent and good coaching can grow him into that quarterback like Baker Mayfield who finished 5th in EPA this year. Coaching does matter. Even with a player like Patrick Mahomes who is one of the most talented quarterbacks the game has ever seen, much of his early success was attributed to Andy Ried.
Just for fun here are the top 10 QBs rated by EPA
1. Josh Allen .321
2. Lamar Jackson .296
3. Jared Goff .292
4. Joe Burrow .212
5. Baker Mayfield .209
6. Jayden Daniels .202
7. Tua Tagovailoa .200
8. Brock Purdy .198
9. Jordan Love .192
10. Patrick Mahomes .165
Here are the top 10 rated by QBR
1. Lamar Jackson 77.5
2. Josh Allen 77.2
3. Joe Burrow 75.0
4. Jayden Daniels 70.6
5. Jordan Love 69.2
6. Jared Goff 68.5
7. Brock Purdy 68.0
8. Patrick Mahomes 67.9
9. Kyler Murray 66.5
10. Jalen Hurts 65.6
I really hope the Bears, my second-favorite team, hire Pete Carroll.
ReplyDeleteKliff Kingsbury now seems like he could have a Mike Shanahan career.
And I'm very happy for Bryce Young (and very disappointed that the Dolphins, my favorite team, didn't quickly trade for him when he was initially benched and Tua Tagovailoa was injured, though, of course, maybe they tried).
Interesting! Per Best Ball Stats, "Expected Points Added (EPA) is a commonly used advanced statistic in football. In short, this stat measures how well a team performs compared to their expectation on a play-by-play basis. EPA and EPA per Play, along with other stats using EPA, can help us evaluate team and player performance." This sounds like it is roughly what Britt Brett was working out back in 1977.
I hope for Robert Mays's sake the Bears hire Ben Johnson. At least then if things fail he and other Bears fans will think they made the right hire it just didn't work. Maybe Johnson should just be a coordinator or maybe Caleb Williams is a bust.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that makes sense.
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