361: Statistically Superior Quarterbacks in This Year's Draft

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Resa JJ zacher reson.

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Speaker 2: What's up everyone. It's JJ Zacharyeson, the editor in chief at FANDL and at Number five dot com, and this is episode three hundred and sixty one of the Late Round podcast so many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast network. Thanks for tuning in. If you remember this show last year or the year before that, then you know what's coming. If not, let me explain. Jim Snis is my colleague at Number five, and he does a great study on the site each year about quarterbacks who are statistically superior in their respective draft classes. So I bring Jim on the show each year to talk about that study and to explain where his head's at with that current year's draft class. And that's what today's show is all about. Before getting to the interview, I want to remind you guys to check out Racing dot Fandel dot com. You've heard me talk about it over the last two weeks, but horse racing is still going on while the sports were world is on hold. So go to Racing dot Fandel dot com, place some bets and have a little fun while the NBA MLB and NHL are suspended. Now let's talk quarterbacks with my man Jim SNAs. All right, Jim, we do this show every year, and every year I reference your which quarterbacks are statistically superior in this year's draft class article that's on number fire dot com. But for anyone who hasn't listened to this quarterback show in the past, can you explain your process for that particular study.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's basically looking back at what successful first round quarterbacks have looked like in the past and looking at just data, not looking at you know, evaluations and stuff like that, just looking at the data behind them. And when you look at first round quarterbacks, statistics do seem to matter quite a bit for those top end picks because if you look at successful first round picks, they tend to have better profiles statistically coming out than the less successful guys. If we look at just quarterbacks who have gone the first round since two thousand and they have had a top ten season in net expected points in one third of their qualified seasons. Their average adjusted yards per attempt their final year in college was nine point four, whereas the other first rounders, the guys who have not been the top ten for a third of their seasons were at eight point six. That's a pretty big gap, and there's also a big split between quarterbacks who have at least one top fifteen season and those who have none. It's nine point one for the guys with one top fifteen season and eight point one for the guys who didn't. You'd actually pretty surprised how many first round quarterbacks have never had a top fifteen season in net expected points, and looking at the stats, they do seem to matter quite a bit. So players with better adjusted yards per attempt numbers in college are more likely to be successful first round picks when they come out. Experience also does matter a pretty good amount, specifically once you account for age, and not shockingly here, the best bucket for a player to be in is young and experienced guys like Lamar Jackson was like that at the Stafford. If you are both young in experience coming out, your odds being successful are pretty high. If you're older, that's okay, as long as you have a lot of experience, and the older and inexperienced quarterbacks are the guys that don't work out all that often, so ideally, what you want from a first round pick a quarterback is someone who is young, efficient, in experience. You want to check those three boxes, and obviously you can't always get that. There is nobody in this class who really actually checks all three boxes. But you can still find some really good players. But if you were crafting the ideal quarterback, you would want them to be young, efficient, and experience coming out of college.

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Speaker 2: Well that brings me then to my next question, because the number one quarterback in that study was not the consensus number one pick in this year's draft, which is Joe Burrow. You've got Tua there instead, So can you explain why and whether you actually have Tua ahead of Burrow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that if you gave me both these guys healthy, i'd pick Tuoa. Obviously that's not the situation we're currently in. So so I understand why Joe Burrow is going to go ahead of Tua, and I would not push back against that. I totally get it. But if Tua were healthy, I would go Tua because he's two years younger. He's coming off his age twenty one season. Burrow's coming off his age twenty three season, and like I said, older inexperienced quarterbacks is kind of the worst case scenario. From a draft evaluation perspective, that does not scare me off of Joe Burrow. We'll talk more about him in a second, but it does push me towards Tua because Tua was elite at Alabama. If you look at his AYA in twenty eighteen, he was second in the nation behind justs Kyler Murray, and he would have led the nation this year had he qualified in twenty nineteen. I think my favorite Tua stat though, and one that stands out is looking at what he did on third and six or longer, because that's an obvious passing situation kind of puts a quarterback into buying. You can see what they're working with there. And Tua on third or six or longer this year had an AYA of seventeen point eight, which is just absolutely disgusting. If you look at his full career, get a larger sample, I get that it's still fifteen point eight. And if you look at this year, none of the other top seven quarterbacks in this class had an AYA longer or better than ten point eight in that department. So Tua was an outlier in the most positive sense. He was silly, He was stupid. You can talk about the pass catchers. Obviously, Henry Ruggs, Davonte Smith and Jerry Junior are gonna do a lot of good things for you. That doesn't explain at seventeen point eight Aya on third and six or longer. So if two were healthy, I would take him over Burrow, and I feel pretty confident saying that. But given the health situation with Tua, given the fact that teams can't really do medical rechecks right now, I understand why Burrow's going higher. I don't think that's a mistake. But if they're both healthy, i'd take Tua.

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Speaker 2: So is there any fear then about Burrow as a prospect, given that he was really only good in college for one season, and then, as you already noted, he's already twenty three years old.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a concern because if you look at guys coming off older seasons with not a lot of experience, they don't turn out very well. There have been fifteen first round quarterbacks who came out after their age twenty two season or later with less than thirty five games under the belt, and Burrow just twenty eight games with at least ten passive tense aged twenty three seasons, so a year older and less experienced than those two benchmarks. If you look at those fifteen first round quarterbacks in that bucket, they have combined for just one top ten season in net expected points, and that was Carson Wentz when he almost won the MVP. So those are really good year but one out of sixty five qualified seasons at least two hundred dropbacks is not great. They've been in the top fifteen just eighteen percent of those sixty five seasons. That group includes Mitchell Trubisky, Mark Sanchez, Brandon Whedon who was a hair over twenty two, Joey Harrington, Christian Ponder, EJ. Manual, a lot of big end bus But the thing about this is, and the reason why I still think Borough is good, is that none of them had efficiency anywhere near Burrows. He is one of only two guys in that or only two guys in that group, had an AYA of ten or higher in their final collegiate season. Burrow was a twelve point five, so he cleared that by a wide margin. He also did that despite playing one third of his games five out of fifteen against top seven defenses in the country based on Bill Connelly's sp plus. So I am on board with Burrow. I think that if I were to lay out one concern, and it would be my only concern, it is the age in the experience. But his efficiency was so good I am at least partially willing to overlook that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes total sense. So who are your statistical comps then?

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Speaker 1: For Tua and Burrow, Yeah, statistically, Tua is a lot like Cam Newton, which is weird because Cam's like ninety pounds heavier than Tua and like fifteen inches taller. Exaggerating a little bit, but when they were coming out, both Tua and Cam were young. They weren't super experienced, but they were efficient, and I think that that matters a lot, So I'd comped to it a Cam Statistically. If we're talking like playing style, I think he has a lot of overlap with Baker Mayfield because they're both really smart guys. They're accurate, they can work the ball deep despite and maybe not having like a cannon necessarily for an arm. So stats wise, Cam play style, I go Baker. As for Joe Burrow, his best statistical comp is Sam Bradford, and that could be viewed as a negative but I don't think it really is because Bradford had a ton of injuries in college. Those carried over to the NFL, too, so it's hard to tell what the career trajectory for Sam Bradford would have looked like had he been healthy. So I don't think that's a negative comp for Sam Bradford. If we're talking play style, I think he's a lot like Russell Wilson. Wilson is faster. He had I think a four or five five forty at the combine. Burrow didn't run, but I don't think he would run four or five five. But the thing they both do well is they excel creating plays outside of structure. Like if you watch Joe Burrow, he's almost better when things break down, which is wild. So I think that, like if if you give me a bad offensive line and like not great wide receivers, I would feel more confident with Joe Burrow than I would anybody else. And I think that that is a really good mark for him. So Russell Wilson would be my cop there for Joe Burrow.

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Speaker 2: So it seems like a big decision in this year's draft is going to be what the Chargers do at number six, they seem to be strongly tied to Justin Herbert. There have been some rumors that Herbert could even go higher than where the Chargers are drafting. But is he your number three quarterback in this class? And then are there any red flags to his profile?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he is my number three, but I think he's a full tier below Tua and Burrow, and I think it's a pretty significant drop off. So if I were the Chargers of the Dolphins sitting there at five and six, and I had the choice to do so, I would try to ensure to do what I could to ensure I get to a instead of Herbert. And I know trading up historically for quarterbacks has not worked out well. You've done studies on that, and I value draft picks a lot, so it's risky, but I still think I would try to do so given the fall off from the top two down to Herbert. But Herbert's still fine. He just doesn't really wow you, I guess, is the way that i'd phrase it. He is young in experience, which is really good. He's twenty one years old. He's got forty one games of experience, and that's good. That's awesome. He was kind of just okay in the efficiency departments. And that's not a terrible issue because if you look at younger experienced quarterbacks with decent efficiency marks in college, they tend to work out really well. Guys in that bucket of young experienced and kind of just okay efficiency are Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson.

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Speaker 2: Pretty good.

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Speaker 1: You do have Blake, Bortles and Packs and Lynch in there too, so it's not all superstars, but I do think that it is good for justin Herbert's outlook. The reason I hesitate is that he ran this super horizontal offense in Oregon. I think it's partly because the pass catchers there weren't very good and there were a lot of drops in Oregon. But he didn't really take the next step from an efficiency perspective, So he's fine. And like, if you can't get Tua near the chargers at there at six, I would be okay taking Herbert at six, but I would be trying to get toua if I could.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So who's your comp then for Herbert?

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Speaker 1: So statistically in the piece, it was Paxson Lynch, which is super unfortunate because nobody wants me to be calm to Paxon Lynch. But I do think that Sellsem short because again he would just have to me be closest to Lynch. But a lot of guys in that bucket wound up being good. If I were doing this from a play style perspective, I would call Justin Herbert a more efficient Josh Allen because Josh Allen coming out of Wyoming was he was young, decently experienced, he was athletic, and he had a big arm, and those are really good boxes to check. He just sucked in college, and Herbert didn't suck. He was just he was kind of okay. So if you forced me to pick between Josh Allen in twenty eighteen and Justin Herbert, now, I would happily take Justin Herbert over Josh Allen. But I think that they check a lot of the same boxes, just that Herbert wasn't as bad statistically in college as John Allen was.

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Speaker 2: Gotcha, So your article showed the top six quarterbacks in this year's class, but one player from that list that I saw was missing was Jalen Hurts. So what's missing from his profile, and do you think that he deserves more or less love than he's currently getting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the reason he wasn't on there is because draftstock matters a lot, and it seems unlikely that Jalen Hurts goes in the first round. If you look at all quarterbacks coming out since two thousand, there have been only nine quarterbacks who've entered the NFL as a non first round pick and recorded multiple seasons in the top ten in net expected points. That is nine out of however many non first round quarterbacks there have been since two thousand, you do have like Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady, Drew Brees. Those guys are all awesome, but not many guys make it if the NFL doesn't have a big grate on them. So I make the cutoff guys with the greatest seventy five or high on scouts sinc. And it was those six who made that cutoff. So that's a big negative with him because we can probably assume Hurts will not go in the first round, and your stats in college don't matter if the NFL does not buy in. Because NFL with evaluators, despite our grievances with them, are pretty good at what they do. But I did do a separate piece on Hurts and there were some pros and cons here. The pros are that his stats are really good. Obviously he didn't face a super tough schedule, but he was actually tougher than Justin Herbert's tougher than Jordan Loves, tougher the Jacob Easans, and we don't really talk about that with them. And when Hurtz did face top fifty defenses, He's still at a nine point five AYA that was much better than everybody except for Burrow in tuas. So he's athletic. That's clearly valuable in the NFL. That's all good. The downsides with Hurts or that he holds on to the ball forever. His average time to throw according to Pro Football Focus with three point eight seconds, and Joe Burrow was the only other guy near the top of this class higher than two point six. And again, Hurts is a three point oh eight and Burrow was still like a third of us and quicker than Hurts. So he's gonna take a lot of sacks. That's a pretty big negative. But we're talking about guys like Jordan Love and jacobis and potentially going the first round. I view them as bigger negative than I do Hurt, So I see no reason why Hurts shouldn't be viewed pretty pretty highly. So I think that if I'm looking at things relative to consensus, I'm higher on Hurts than consensus, because, like, if it doesn't work out, he could still he could be like a super sized version of Taysom Hill and be a lot better at what Taysom Hill does and what Taysom Hill does. But I think there's a chance he winds up being much more than that. So I think I'm higher on Hurts than consensus. But I understand some of the concerns around him too.

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Speaker 2: So of the quarterbacks that we haven't talked about today, which one do you think is a chance to make some sort of impact at the NFL level.

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Speaker 1: I still like Jake from I know, like, if you watch the combine, you probably think that's really stupid, And like I questioned a lot of things because like it looked bad. But we talk all the time about arm strength and that matters. But if you look at his numbers in college, his average depth of target was ten point three yards. That was second best among the top guys in this class behind Jalen Hurts, which is noteworthy for Hurts too, because I think the perception there is that Oklahoma runs this like screen heavy offense. They did not this year. But ten point three yards a dot for Jake from is a yard and a half higher than Herbert, and he also had the highest percentage of throws traveling at least twenty yards downfield according to Pro Football Focus. It's among the top seven guys in this class. So he did go deep, and he was accurate as both a freshman and the sophomore. His aya was nine point six as a freshman ten point one is a sophomore. He also checked the same boxes as Herbert where he's young and experienced age twenty one season, forty one games played, and you look at the numbers this year, they're pretty underwhelming, but he faced this ridiculous schedule where seventy eight percent of his pass attempts came against top fifty defenses by Bill Connolly's sp plus. Nobody else in this class had more than six. So if I'm ranking out this class, I think it's burrow into it easily up top. I think that Justin Herbert deserves to be third there, but I think that like Jake From is fourth for me. I understand why people want to go with guys like Love and Esan because they do have a lot of arm talent and like that doesn't matter. Upside is significant. But if you're giving me the choice of Jordan Love in the first round or Jake From in the second, I'm gonna take Jake From every time. I know the concerns and they are legit, but he's smart. He has like this pinpoint accuracy. He has been successful despite the lack of arm tile in the past, and I think that I wouldn't be shocked if he were to be another one of those non first round success stories a couple years down the line.

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Speaker 2: Awesome stuff, Jim, thanks for hopping on. I really appreciate it. For any of you who are not following Jim on Twitter, you should change that immediately and hit him up at jim Sonis. I'm also on Twitter at Late Round QB and if you have questions for Friday mail Bag episode, you can send them there or email me at jjat number five dot com. Thanks guys, I'll have a rewind episode for you on Wednesday, so I'll talk to you then