2018 Surplus Yards, By Adam Steele

by Chase Stuart on August 28, 2019

Adam Steele is back for another guest post. You can view all of Adam’s posts here. As always, we thank him for contributing.

Last year I introduced a metric called Surplus Yards to measure the percentage of yards a QB gains from long passing plays. If you haven’t read that post I strongly encourage you to do so before continuing.

Here is a table showing every 40+ yard completion from the 2018 regular season, listed from longest completion. As you can see, Ben Roethlisberger had a 97-yard completion, a 78-yard completion, two 75-yard completions, and so on. Roethlisberger had 15 completions last year of 40+ yards, second-most in the NFL:

Quarterback 2018	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	Surp %	Surp Y/A	Surplus
Ben Roethlisberger	PIT	97	78	75	75	67	53	51	49	48	47	47	46	46	43	43		5.2%	0.39	265
Patrick Mahomes	KAN	89	75	73	67	67	58	50	50	48	43	42	40	40	40	40		4.4%	0.38	222
Aaron Rodgers	GNB	75	64	60	57	54	54	54	51	51	49	48	43	42	41	41	40	4.1%	0.31	184
Ryan Fitzpatrick	TAM	75	75	72	58	51	50	48	42									6.4%	0.61	151
Nick Mullens	SFO	85	75	71	53	52	43	41										6.1%	0.51	140
Ryan Tannehill	MIA	75	74	74	69	43												6.8%	0.49	135
Dak Prescott	DAL	90	75	64	49	49	44	43	40	40								3.4%	0.25	134
Baker Mayfield	CLE	71	66	66	59	51	49	48	42	40								3.5%	0.27	132
Matt Ryan	ATL	75	75	58	50	49	47	44	43	40								2.5%	0.20	121
Philip Rivers	LAC	75	66	55	54	48	46	45	44	44	42							2.8%	0.23	119
Mitchell Trubisky	CHI	70	55	54	54	50	47	47	45	43	40							3.3%	0.24	105
Russell Wilson	SEA	66	54	52	52	51	45	45	45	44	43	42	42	42				3.0%	0.24	103
Eli Manning	NYG	58	55	55	54	53	51	51	44	41	40							2.4%	0.18	102
Jared Goff	LAR	70	57	56	53	48	47	44	41	40								2.0%	0.17	96
C.J. Beathard	SFO	82	67	55	45													7.1%	0.53	89
Blake Bortles	JAX	80	67	61														3.2%	0.22	88
Andrew Luck	IND	68	60	55	53	43	42	40										1.8%	0.13	81
Kirk Cousins	MIN	75	68	48	45	44	40	40										1.9%	0.13	80
Tom Brady	NWE	63	55	55	55	44	42	42	42									1.8%	0.14	78
Deshaun Watson	HOU	73	50	49	49	47	45	43	40									1.8%	0.15	76
Josh Allen	BUF	75	57	55	46	42												3.6%	0.23	75
Nick Foles	PHI	83	52	50	50													5.3%	0.38	75
Derek Carr	OAK	66	61	47	45	44	44	44										1.8%	0.13	71
Drew Brees	NOR	72	62	46	42	42	42											1.7%	0.13	66
Jameis Winston	TAM	64	60	51	48	42	41											2.2%	0.17	66
Lamar Jackson	BAL	74	68															5.2%	0.36	62
Case Keenum	DEN	64	49	45	44	44	43	43	42	42	42	41						1.5%	0.10	59
Marcus Mariota	TEN	61	55	51	48	44												2.3%	0.18	59
Matthew Stafford	DET	67	60	45	43	41	40											1.5%	0.10	56
Joe Flacco	BAL	71	56	45	44													2.3%	0.15	56
Carson Wentz	PHI	58	56	51	48	42												1.8%	0.14	55
Josh Rosen	ARI	75	59	40	40													2.4%	0.14	54
Cam Newton	CAR	82	51	40														1.6%	0.11	53
Brock Osweiler	MIA	75	46	43														3.5%	0.25	44
Sam Darnold	NYJ	76	44	42	41													1.5%	0.10	43
Josh Johnson	WAS	79																6.6%	0.43	39
Alex Smith	KAN	52	50	46	42													1.4%	0.09	30
Jimmy Garoppolo	SFO	56																2.2%	0.18	16
Colt McCoy	WAS	53																3.5%	0.24	13
Kyle Allen	CAR	53																4.9%	0.42	13
Matt Barkley	BUF	47	43															4.3%	0.40	10
Andy Dalton	CIN	49																0.4%	0.02	9
Tyrod Taylor	CLE	47																1.5%	0.08	7
Chase Daniel	CHI	46																1.2%	0.08	6
Josh McCown	NYJ	41																0.2%	0.01	1
Derek Anderson	BUF	40																0.0%	0.00	0

One reason to track this data is that the year to year correlation for Surplus % is basically zero. That’s why a year ago we would have expected that the Surplus % leaders from 2017 would regress to the mean in 2018. And that’s exactly what happened. Jared Goff, Alex Smith, and Andy Dalton benefited the most from surplus yards into 2017, but each plummeted to well below league average this past season. Goff fell from 6.0% to 2.0%, Smith from 5.8% to 1.4%, and Dalton from 5.0% to 0.4% (league average is roughly 3%). The only active QB who has shown a repeatable ability to rack up surplus yards is Aaron Rodgers, who was once again above average at 4.1%.

The distribution of surplus yards in 2018 was notably tilted towards a number of bad or unproven passers, showing even more clearly how random long pass plays really are. Luminaries like C.J. Beathard, Ryan Tannehill, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Nick Mullens all benefited from more than double the league average Surplus %.

In the cases of Beathard and Mullens, it’s no coincidence that both played for the same team. Kyle Shanahan’s scheme was able to exploit defenses and create gaping holes in the zone for his receivers to pick up huge chunks of yardage. This created long gains that boosted the stat sheet for his quarterbacks but only required simple throws that nearly every professional passer could make. This 85-yard TD pass by Mullens is a great example of the scheme and receiver doing all the work but the QB getting the statistical credit. This is why I respectfully disagree with Chase that Nick Mullens was the best rookie QB in 2018.

A few of Ryan Tannehill’s long completions were even more ridiculous, most notably this 74 yard TD by Albert Wilson which Tannehill gets credit for despite doing almost nothing the play. As bad as Tannehill’s conventional statistics looked in 2018, it turns out those numbers actually inflated his level of play. You may remember this game, as Chase mentioned it during his week 3 recap.

Last season’s leader in total surplus yardage was Ben Roethlisberger, who had four completions of at least 75 yards. Not coincidentally, Big ben also led the league in total YAC by a mile. Check out this 75 yard TD to Vance McDonald in which the tight end gains 55 extra yards after stiff-arming the defender. These are the kind of non-repeatable plays that Roethlisberger benefited from in 2018. He will likely see a decline in his passing numbers anyway, but remember this post when you see the loss of Antonio Brown cited as the main reason.

Candidates for positive regression in 2019 include Matthew Stafford, Sam Darnold, Cam Newton, Andrew Luck (well, *would have included*), and Carson Wentz.

What stands out to you?

Tagged as: Adam Steele, Guest Posts

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