by Chase Stuart
on February 17, 2014
Smith looks to go deep against the Bucs.
We were very spoiled last year.
Andrew Luck,
Robert Griffin III, and
Russell Wilson had outstanding rookie seasons in 2012, and perhaps that set expectations a bit high for the 2013 class. No one will confuse those three with
EJ Manuel,
Geno Smith, and
Mike Glennon, all of whom struggled for most of their rookie seasons. But while Smith and Glennon didn’t produce excellent numbers, they produced very
interesting ones.
Among the 35 quarterbacks with the most pass attempts, Glennon finished a very pedestrian 27th in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. But he did it in a very unique way: Glennon had an outstanding 19/9 touchdown-to-interception ratio, but he ranked dead last in Net Yards per Attempt. One reason for that is Glennon averaged only 10.6 yards per completion, the 3rd worst average among the 35 passers.
Smith finished 34th in ANY/A, largely due to his horrific 12/21 TD/INT ratio. He was a bit better in NY/A, ranking 28th, but what’s interesting about the Jets quarterback is that he ranked 7th in yards per completion. That metric is not a particularly effective measure of passer quality — after all, Matt Ryan ranked 35th — but it is a pretty good way to describe a quarterback’s style. While both Glennon and Smith were below average, they were below average in very different ways. [continue reading…]
Tagged as:
Bills,
Bucs,
EJ Manuel,
Geno Smith,
Jets,
Mike Glennon
{ }
by Chase Stuart
on May 24, 2013
Smith throws a pass in between refreshing Twitter.
As
Jason Lisk has pointed out, quarterbacks drafted first overall tend to be much more successful than other quarterbacks, even those drafted just a few picks later. If a quarterback is an elite prospect — think
John Elway or
Peyton Manning or
Andrew Luck (the Colts got three of those for one
Jeff George) — he’ll go first overall, while lesser-skilled quarterbacks might get “overdrafted” because of the position they play. There are counter-examples, of course — think
Matt Ryan and
Joe Flacco in 2008 — but I agree with Jason on the general theory.
One could argue that if you group together all quarterbacks drafted in the first three rounds (after removing the top five or ten picks), you won’t find any significant relationship between draft slot and performance. That’s not where this post is going, though. Instead I’ll take a narrower view and note that Geno Smith became the 44th quarterback drafted in the second half of the first round or the first half of the second round since 1978. Those cut-offs should give us a good look at quarterbacks ignored by teams picking in the top half of the first round but quarterbacks who were otherwise good enough to be drafted relatively early. This analysis generally applies to EJ Manuel, too, although he technically misses the cut-off as the 16th pick of the first round. Once we leave out the quarterbacks drafted since 2009 — Brandon Weeden, Andy Dalton, Colin Kaepernick, Tim Tebow, Jimmy Clausen, Josh Freeman, and Pat White — we’re left with 36 quarterbacks.
The table below shows each of those quarterbacks, along with the year they were drafted, the round, the overall pick, and the team that selected them. How did they turn out? I’ve included their number of seasons starting, number of games and games started, career passing yards and passing touchdowns, and also their number of Super Bowl wins, Super Bowl appearances, and Pro Bowls. The final row shows the median for each category (and for the last three columns, the average). Obviously this will shortchange some of the active quarterbacks, but you get the general idea.
[continue reading…]
Tagged as:
EJ Manuel,
Geno Smith,
Marty Mornhinweg
{ }
