I tweeted this 10 days ago:

Tampa Bay’s passing attack was very good this year, and it was also very underrated last year. In 2017, Jameis Winston led all quarterbacks in percentage of pass attempts that picked up a first down. And while Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick both had ups and downs in 2018, after Winston replaced Fitzpatrick in week 11, he played like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL over the last two months (just like he did in 2017). Winston’s biggest problem has been turnovers, but given that he just turned 25 years old last week, I don’t think his career is set in stone. And we know that interception rates are pretty random from year to year, so there is a good chance Winston can bring his interception rate under control.

The big question, though, is can Winston keep being one of the game’s best players at picking up huge chunks of yards while limiting his turnovers? Well, his 2019 is off to a good start, as he just found his perfect coach: Bruce Arians has come out of retirement to coach the Bucs. It is telling that Arians only was willing to re-enter the NFL to coach the Browns and Baker Mayfield or Tampa Bay and Winston. And that is not too surprising, at least not to me: Winston is, in my opinion, capable of becoming the next Carson Palmer and playing at an All-Pro level under the right coach. And I am sure that Arians seems a lot in Winston that he saw in Palmer, particularly when it comes to the vertical passing game.

The graph below shows each quarterback season (with at least 224 pass attempts) since 2015. The X-Axis shows how many air yards (i.e., yards in the air the football traveled) each passer gained, on average, on all pass attempts. The Y-Axis shows how many air yards (which excludes yards gained after the catch) each passer gained, on average, on completed passes. The quarterbacks that stand out the most during the last four years are Palmer and Winston (and Fitzpatrick on the 2018 Bucs). [continue reading…]

Jameis Winston entered the NFL as a 21-year-old in 2015. Now, midway through his fourth season, Winston still has a number of rookie struggles. He currently has a 6.8% interception rate in 2018, bringing his career interception rate up to 3.2%. Among the 39 passers with 500 attempts since 2015, Winston has the worst interception rate in the NFL.

On the other hand, interceptions are not a very sticky statistic, and a pretty poor way of evaluating quarterback play.  Winston is an aggressive passer who has played on bad teams, so that tends to lead to interceptions.  And young quarterbacks — Winston is still just 24 — sometimes struggle with interceptions, especially on bad teams.

Meanwhile, Winston has been downright remarkable at picking up first downs.  Including sacks, Winston has picked up a first down on 37.3% of his dropbacks since entering the league; that’s the 2nd-best rate in the NFL over that span.  Last year, he led the league in percentage of pass attempts that went for a first down; this year he’s been even better (although he only ranks 3rd).  Including sacks, he has still picked up a first down on 40% of his dropbacks.

Since 2015, Winston ranks 1st in INT rate and 2nd in Passing First Down rate.  No other player ranks in the top 9 in both, although Roethlisberger, Newton, and Fitzpatrick rank in the top 12 in both stats. [continue reading…]

Statistically, Jameis Winston had a strong 2017 season. Winston was above-average in completion percentage, yards per attempt, net yards per attempt, passer rating, and Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. Overall, Winston ranked 11th in ANY/A and 14th in passer rating, but that might undersell him. That’s because Winston was also the game’s preeminent downfield thrower in 2017. His average pass traveled 10.62 yards in the air, by far the longest in the NFL (Carson Wentz was second at 9.91, followed by Russell Wilson at 9.75, Carson Palmer at 9.36, and Tom Brady at 9.09). Winston also led the NFL in average air yards on completions, at 7.97 (Wentz was seond at 7.79, followed by Palmer at 7.53.)

Winston was throwing longer passes, which hurt his passer rating and completion percentage, but helped his team. Winston picked up a first down on over 40% of his pass attempts, the highest rate in the NFL last season:

And Winston was excellent on third downs, which is a pretty key component of producing an efficient offense. In fact, he ranked 2nd among starting quarterbacks:

So why were the Bucs so bad in 2017? Was it a case of Winston having very good stats but not playing well? I don’t think so. To start, Tampa Bay had the worst defense in the NFL according to DVOA. And the Bucs had very bad special teams, including a disastrous kicking game. Finally, while Tampa Bay ranked 9th in pass DVOA, the Bucs ranked 25th in rush DVOA. The Bucs ranked 30th in rushing yards by running backs (1168) and 29th in rushing yards per carry by running backs (3.53). [continue reading…]

Jameis Winston‘s average pass completion has traveled 8.24 yards in the air, the longest distance in the league.

On Carson Wentz‘s average completion, the ball traveled 8.11 air yards.

And Marcus Mariota? His average completion picked up 7.61 air yards before being caught.

Those are the three most vertical passers in the NFL this season by that metric.

Last year, Winston and Mariota ranked 2nd and 3rd in this category: Winston’s average gain was 7.89 yards before being caught, Mariota’s 7.86. Cam Newton led all passers at 8.14 air yards on completed passes. But Wentz? He ranked 27th out of 30 qualifying passers, at 5.34 yards.

In 2015 — the rookie years for Winston and Mariota — Winston ranked 2nd behind Carson Palmer with an 8.13 average; Mariota was in the top 10 at 7.24.

Wentz is having a remarkable season: he ranks 4th in yards per pass attempt, and ranks 1st in yards per completion. Winston ranks only 4th in yards per completion, while Mariota is down at 11th in yards per completion. That’s because those two — and especially Mariota — aren’t getting much yards after the catch from their receivers. Mariota and Winston are both getitng just 4.2 yards of YAC per completed pass, ranking them both in the bottom six of that metric. Wentz ranks 19th with 4.8 YAC per completion.

The graph below shows Air Yards per completed passes for each quarterback in the 2017 season on the X-Axis, and Yards After the Catch per completed passes on the Y-Axis. Mariota, Wentz, and Winston are all to the far right of the graph, of course: [continue reading…]

Today at the New York Times, a look at the impressive rookie seasons from the top quarterbacks in the 2015 Draft.

In the 2015 N.F.L. Draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tennessee Titans owned the top two picks. The teams selected Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, making them just the sixth pair of quarterbacks to be selected one-two since 1970. Each player is having an excellent season by rookie quarterback standards, and both showed their long-term potential in exciting wins on Sunday.

Mariota has thrown for 19 touchdowns in 10 games and has a 95.1 passer rating this year; both marks are among the best in N.F.L. history for a rookie. Against the Jaguars, he threw for 268 yards and three touchdowns on just 29 passes, his fourth game with at least three touchdown passes. He also ran for an 81-yard touchdown, the third longest touchdown run by any quarterback in N.F.L. history. In addition, Mariota joined Randall Cunningham and Michael Vick as the only players since 1960 with three passing touchdowns and 100 rushing yards in the same game.

You can read the full article here.

This week at the New York Times, a look at how four young quarterbacks gave their team’s long-suffering fans some hope:

Bortles helped the Jaguars upset the Miami Dolphins, 23-20, courtesy of a number of big plays. Bortles was responsible for eight plays of at least 15 yards, including a 28-yard scramble on one third down. A second-year quarterback, he was responsible for 76 percent of Jacksonville’s yards on the day, and helped drive the team to the game-winning field goal.

Carr was responsible for 83 percent of Oakland’s offensive output on a day in which the Raiders were extremely pass-happy. Carr saved his best work at the end of the game: Taking over at his 20-yard line, trailing by 33-30 with 2 minutes 10 seconds remaining, Carr marched the Raiders to the game-winning score. He was seven for nine for 65 yards, and connected with Seth Roberts for a 12-yard touchdown with 26 seconds remaining.

You can read the full article here.

Arizona Is 14-2 In Carson Palmer’s Last 16 Games

Part II this week focuses on Arizona, which has been one of the best teams in football when Palmer stays healthy.

Expectations were not very high for the Cardinals entering 2015, despite the return of their starting quarterback, Carson Palmer. But through two weeks, the Cardinals lead the N.F.L. with 79 points. And dating to the 2013 season, Arizona has a 14-2 record and has outscored its opponents by 160 points in its last 16 games started by Palmer. Over that stretch, Palmer has completed 365 of 568 passes for 4,479 yards and 32 touchdowns with just 12 interceptions in what amounts to a full season’s worth of action. In other words, Arizona with a healthy Palmer deserves to be in the discussion for best team in the league.

You can read the full article here.

You may be surprised to learn this, but Jameis Winston is just the fourth black quarterback selected with the first overall pick. In 1968, Oakland drafted Eldridge Dickey in the first round, the first NFL team to select a black quarterback in the first round. But the Raiders switched Dickey to wide receiver, and he never played quarterback in an NFL game.

Then, no black quarterback went in the first round until… 1978! That’s when Tampa Bay selected Doug Williams, a groundbreaking pick for that time. Of course, it didn’t do much to stem the tide: no black QBs entered the league over the next five years. In fact, in 1983, Vince Evans was the only black quarterback in the NFL (Williams was in the USFL at the time).

The third black quarterback selected in the first round since the merger came in 1990, when the Lions took Andre Ware.

Eleven years later, Michael Vick became the first black quarterback to go first overall. He’s since been joined by JaMarcus Russell (2007), Cam Newton (2011), and now Winston.

There was a clear tipping point, and that was 1999. That year, five quarterbacks went in the first round, with three of them (Donovan McNabb, Akili Smith, and Daunte Culpepper) being players who would have had no chance of being first round picks 25 years earlier.

In the graph below, the X-Axis represents each draft year from 1970 to 2015, while the Y-Axis shows overall draft pick. In the graph, I’ve plotted the first round of each draft since the merger, with black quarterbacks represented by red dots and all other quarterbacks in blue dots. ^[1]To avoid any such questions in the comments, yes, I’ve got 2015 on there, and no, Marcus Mariota is not black. He’s Samoan. As you can see, the chart is pretty homogenous prior to 1999:

There’s no clearer way to show the institutional prejudice the NFL had in the ’70s and ’80s than this chart. This isn’t breaking news, of course, but it’s interesting to see just how highly-drafted black quarterbacks have been recently after being completely shut out of the first round for many years.

And Winston himself is something of a different player. He rushed for 65 yards his last year in college; compare that to guys like Newton (1473) or Vick (617, and more runs than completed passes). Winston going first overall is hardly a triumphant moment signaling the end of racism, but perhaps the most positive development is how little you heard about his race during this pre-draft process. ^[2]Why yes, I have now ruined everything. That was most certainly not the case with Vick, Russell, or Newton. Then again, Winston had enough other issues to keep us occupied.