QB THREAD - 2x quarterbacky award winner: Lamar Jackson

[elpablo21]

Brown had dropped at least 2 TDs on Lamar (maybe a potential one that leads to a 3rd) Wouldn't put too much on that game for Lamar

Russ has a QB rating of 133, No Turnovers and is 1-2. Has missed some throws but the sledding won't get any easier.

Mahomes also 1-2 with some bizarre throws.

Herbert has arrived, again.

Burrow getting a groove a behind a terrible line

Matt Ryan needs to retire but also hang around one more season because next year's class looks eh af.

Teddy quietly doing his thing in Denver rn

 

[DeadsetAce]

Teddy quietly doing his thing in Denver rn

good call out. feels like he's flying way under the radar while really leading that team well. i didn't realize they were 3-0 until raider fans started posted AFCW standings after their game today

 

[elpablo21]

good call out. feels like he's flying way under the radar while really leading that team well. i didn't realize they were 3-0 until raider fans started posted AFCW standings after their game today

I know they've played against dog **** up until this point so he'll get some better test the next few games but he looks steady as ever

 

[CP1708]

 

[mister friendly]

https://deadspin.com/can-we-admit-the-truth-about-carson-wentz-now-1847788346

 

[DeadsetAce]

https://deadspin.com/can-we-admit-the-truth-about-carson-wentz-now-1847788346

only ones holding out were the eagles fans and they couldn't care less now

 

[Nouss]

I'll reserve my Wentz slander until he gets better protection. Playing behind the 31st overall Oline will have anyone struggling.
(See the Superbowl)

 

[651akathepaul]

Carson makes things difficult for himself. Multiple occasions you see he misses an open man and scrambles when he really didn't need to if he was seeing things right. He's too experienced to get the benefit of the doubt in that regard, in my opinion.

 

[Nouss]

He also puts himself in danger far too often. Dude dives head first rather than sliding. Watching him every week now, he reminds me of RGIII's rookie year and Andrew Luck actually. Reckless with his body moreso than the football.

But dude is still 100x better than Jalen Hurts.

 

[CP1708]

Brady takes over as NFL all time passing leader.

Yards, TD's, Attempts, Wins, Games (other than kickers)

The only thing he doesn't have....yet....is completions, needs about 200+ more to pass Brees.

Playoff wise, he owns them all, including games.

 

[elpablo21]

Fields made some throws, overall numbers looked average

Zach finally put something together

Wanted to see Teddy work against a playoff team and then gets concussed

Has the league figured out Lamar yet?

I dreaded the day Kyler was drafted into the NFC West and this is why

 

[DeadsetAce]

it's time to put a bullet in Ben. just atrocious

Mac looked good tonight. stood in there and took some shots but got the ball out. still needs to be a bit quicker getting it out at times but ahead of schedule. at least in my mind. still a couple WTFs here and there but that's expected

Dak making some random TEs look like studs out there. that TD to Cooper was just ridiculous

Zach Wilson's bomb TD was nice as hell too

 

[CP1708]

No need to @ me Raider fans.

I've been workin on Carr since the Balt game. Tryin to figure out what he does. Tonight.....and really, yesterday......I got it.

He beat Balt......after Balt really beat themselves. Twice. He threw literal heaves in the sky that were caught, he wins.

He beat Ben. Well......

He beat Brissett......

Which leads me to yesterday. Jacoby was DOG****. I mean BAAAAAAD. He had like 70 yards thru 3. Putrid. Then, down 20-3 started throwing over and over against deep(er) safeties and ended up with this line 20/30 199 2/0 107 rating.

No. Flat out, no. He was ATROCIOUS. Fanbase/media wanted him benched for something called Reid Stinnet. Dead serious. But his stats LOOK solid.

So, Carr.

ESPN showed tonight, FOUR GAMES, first half......1 TD. Second half, he has a bunch. And kudos for that. He was 3-0, against what WAS 3 solid teams, now lookin like one solid team, Baltimore.

21-0, now 21-14. Here he comes again. Softer coverages, he's throwin it around better, and then he underthrows Ruggs deep. PI, but not TD. Could have been.

Later he tries again, misses again. Ruggs was open. Picked a couple plays later.

When Atlanta made their run, when they were good, I watched that game and Carr did nothing for like 48 minutes. ATL had a huge lead. Carr started checking down throw after throw to some RB, can't remember who, they went down the field like nothing. TD. ATL scores again, he gets ball, same thing, TD. Prevent defense with big lead. His numbers were big overall, like Jacoby yesterday.

The media, and Carr himself keeps sayin "this is different this year"....... Iono. 21-14 I was startin to wonder, could he do this again? 4-0?

We'll see. But 8 quarters of first half football, 1 TD. They have trailed 14-0 in 3 of 4 games......

Maybe he's Kobe high schooling it.

But I still don't buy what he, or Gruden sell. I like his weapons, my God he's got it around him. Waller, Jacobs, Ruggs, Edwards, Drake and Renfrow is FUN. I like those pieces ALOT. If he can play both halves the same, THEN I will buy into him. Til then, same mid the last 8+ years. Imo.

 

[elpablo21]

I know you cracked your knuckles before you started typing that joint

Herbert is the goods. That offense is fun to watch and that was without Mike and Allen really doing anything

Any "advanced" stats yall follow?

I took a look at QBR rating today. That one never seemed to take off no matter how much ESPN pushed it. Still don't make too much sense of it

 

[DeadsetAce]

well god damn, CP

as far as Carr, i generally agree. meh. between the OL (well the one they had) and the weapons...gotta do more to WIN. not just fill a stat sheet.

elpablo21 i can't stand rating and QBR people hold on to that so dearly. and now with DFS and fantasy exploding, stats have become king. which drives me nuts. no one watches 60 minutes of football anymore. it's all redzone and stats. i know so many people that don't even watch their own team anymore. it's just redzone all day long with a bunch of stats and boxscores and lazy *** analysis (i.e. Derek Carr). and don't get me wrong, i watch redzone too. i love redzone. but for pats games or big matchups, i always watch the full 60. eye test still king. all of that is a long way of saying, there aren't any "advanced" stats that i follow. thanks for listening

/rant

 

[CP1708]

I didn't say anything bad about him, just reviewing what I've seen so far. Hell, I been a lot nicer about him than usual.

 

[elpablo21]

well god damn, CP

as far as Carr, i generally agree. meh. between the OL (well the one they had) and the weapons...gotta do more to WIN. not just fill a stat sheet.

elpablo21 i can't stand rating and QBR people hold on to that so dearly. and now with DFS and fantasy exploding, stats have become king. which drives me nuts. no one watches 60 minutes of football anymore. it's all redzone and stats. i know so many people that don't even watch their own team anymore. it's just redzone all day long with a bunch of stats and boxscores and lazy *** analysis (i.e. Derek Carr). and don't get me wrong, i watch redzone too. i love redzone. but for pats games or big matchups, i always watch the full 60. eye test still king. all of that is a long way of saying, there aren't any "advanced" stats that i follow. thanks for listening

/rant

I hear you I haven't looked at QBR in years but was looking at the current and all time list the other day and was just wondering if there we're more viable things out there. I understand the eye test but I also think things like FIP xFIP wOBA WRC+ give my eyes a an even better grasp of what I'm watching imo

As far as the general debate I never looked at it one way or another. As least in hoops and baseball. PFF stats always seem random and I can't think of any thing else that's really out ther. I'm sure there is. I know team stuff like DVOA is out there

I don't gamble so I never realized how big something like QBR was in that arena. I honestly thought it died out

 

[CP1708]

I don't put toooooo much stock into advanced stats, I'll listen to a few here or there, but so many damn things happen and are subjective, there's just no way to quantify it all.

I try to remember scenarios as best I can, like I've brought up a billion times, Peyton throws an absolute wobbly duck right into the numbers of a defender, right in his hands, and he drops it. Peyton throws a TD a couple plays later. Game, season, everything altered in an instant.

Brady throws an Int, sorry, a guy lined up two toes over the LOS, Brady gets the ball back, TD, Super Bowl.

What advanced stat is measuring all that?

I just try to search thru the patterns and jot down as many notes as I can and then examine them later. Think about the amount of work I've put into my QB playoffs spreadsheet, way too much I'd care to admit.

 

[rolaholic]

Pretty great piece on the MVP favorite right now in Kyler and the leap he seems to have taken so far this season

Spoiler: Whole article

What happens when you put Josh Allen’s sudden development in his third year as a starter in Russell Wilson’s body?

You get 2021 Kyler Murray.

On Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals improved to 4-0 by beating the previously undefeated Los Angeles Rams by 17 points. You could be forgiven for not paying attention to the Cardinals up to this point, as the talking points surrounding the NFC West have been primarily focused on “Does Sean McVay finally have his quarterback?” and the yearly “What’s wrong with the Seattle Seahawks?”

However, the is time now to talk about the Cardinals, who are first in the NFC West and the NFL's only remaining undefeated team.

Before getting into Murray, there must be some ink spilled on the Cardinals defense, as it has improved in every season under defensive coordinator Vance Joseph. The Cardinals finished 30th in overall defensive efficiency — expected points added per play — in the 2019 regular season but improved to 17th last year and now rank fourth this year. The defense is a big reason for Arizona's 4-0 start to the 2021 season.

However, Murray deserves most of the praise, as he has established himself as a top MVP candidate at this early juncture in the season. Murray is the third-highest-graded NFL quarterback (87.6) right now.

The big question after two years in Kliff Kingsbury's offense — which ranked about league average in offensive efficiency over those two seasons — was who was to blame for its struggles in previous seasons. Was Kingsbury’s offense outdated? Or was Murray just not good enough to be a top-end quarterback?

To answer the first question: Yes, Kingsbury's air raid offense is outdated. The “spread” era of football has come and gone, as defenses have figured out how to defend the spread schematically while defensive body types have evolved to chase down ball carriers who were made to run horizontally.

Lining up in “open” formations — trips, doubles and empty — doesn’t give the offense the advantage it once did. The air raid offense and spread era existed because teams in the late-1990s and early 2000s didn't spend enough time defending formations with four receivers on the field, which presented defenses with a problem that they weren’t prepared to face.

Related content for you: NFL Week 4 Team of the Week & Awards via Anthony Treash

However, in the 20 years since, these offenses are proliferating every level of football. So now there’s been a shift back to slightly heavier personnel groupings and formations to mitigate the defense's speed that's been accumulated over the past two decades.

Kingsbury stayed true to his air-raid roots over the first two seasons in Arizona. The Cardinals played with four receivers on the field on over 25% of their snaps over the last two regular seasons while the league average over that span was 2.5%. The Cardinals had the third-highest empty formation rate over that time as well. Their receivers line up in the same spots and don’t shift or motion often. The offense doesn’t huddle often, and Murray never goes under center. This was how Kingsbury was brought up in the football world, as they are the tenets of spread football.

This ideology has been on its deathbed for a few years because of how much weight it can put on the quarterback's shoulders. This is partly why we’ve seen certain offenses gain popularity once again, as they make life simple on the quarterback by asking him to just hand the ball off or bootleg off play-action to create offense. Condensed formations and heavier personnel groupings keep defenses and defensive players who grew up in the spread era honest enough to create explosive plays without the quarterback needing to think too much.

We can certainly point to Jimmy Garopolo and Jared Goff in recent years as good examples of this.

Without all the bells and whistles that are commonly attached to the modern NFL offense — wide zone run scheme to create horizontal movement and the play-action that can occur off of that, motion to create formational advantages and heavier personnel to force defenses to play with heavier bodies themselves — defenses can line up, know their assignments and not worry about any deception, which is tough on a quarterback.

The 2021 Cardinals — from this macro-perspective — are no different than the 2019-2020 Cardinals. They lead the league in 10 personnel (one running back, zero tight ends, four wide receivers) snaps once again while ranking 10th in empty formation rate, 30th in shift/motion rate, second in no-huddle rate and fourth in shotgun rate.

The big difference between the previous iterations and the Cardinals offense in 2021 is Murray, as he's transcended the quarterback position this season. He’s in the midst of a third-year breakout similar to Allen's dominant season in his third year with the Buffalo Bills.

The Bills scrapped the idea of being a heavy-personnel, play-action offense over the last two seasons, which has allowed Allen to thrive. At Wyoming, Allen played in a heavy-personnel, play-action offense where he took snaps from under center. Many believed that he needed to run that same offense in the NFL to maximize success early in his career. However, after two years, Allen appeared to be a colossal bust.

But then the Bills went full spread. Their shotgun rate and use of 10 personnel both went up, and Allen responded incredibly well. While it was a risky move on paper, as it could lead to more Allen turnovers, it turned out to be the best thing for his career.

With the Stefon Diggs addition, the Bills had enough receiving talent to have an answer for teams that used man coverage to try to best the Bills as they did in previous years. Against zone coverage, Allen used his legs to scramble before finding receivers in open pockets of space as the defense's eyes were focused on the quarterback.

We’re seeing these same concepts play out in Arizona right now. The Cardinals, like the Bills, have a top-five receiver in DeAndre Hopkins, and they’ve replaced Larry Fitzgerald with rookie speedster Rondale Moore while adding A.J. Green’s big body in free agency — good luck playing man coverage against those cats.

Allen's biggest improvement in last year's breakout 2020 season came in the intermediate area of the field. Specifically, he became lethal when throwing intermediate in-breaking routes, displaying good accuracy and anticipation. These routes are great against man coverage but are also effective at finding the spaces in between dropping linebackers and deep safeties in zone coverage. They are tough throws that also have a lot of upside.

Murray hasn't majored in the intermediate in-breaking routes that led to Allen's breakout — and this is where the comparisons with Wilson begin — because he's a shorter quarterback, because his vision over the middle of the field is limited, especially compared to the towering Allen. However, Murray has thrown a lot of intermediate curl routes instead of the in-breaking routes.

These routes are a little more static, which has helped Murray in that part of the field, especially against zone coverage. Generally, those deep curls aren’t great against man coverage, but they still can find space versus zone coverage.

To continue the comparison to both Allen and Wilson, Murray has been elite throwing outside the pocket this season. After his first two seasons, the Cardinals were 20th in the league in EPA per play on these scramble plays. The Bills were also 20th after Allen’s first two seasons in the league. The Bills are sixth in the same category since the beginning of the 2020 season, and the Cardinals are sixth thus far in 2021. Since the start of the 2018 season, Wilson is second in passing grade when scrambling outside the pocket.

Allen and Murray are living in the same world but in different bodies, plying their trade in tough offenses that don’t work for most quarterbacks but work perfectly for what each can do.

There was no guarantee that Murray would break out like this and many begged Kingsbury to adapt his offense for the modern world. However, Murray’s development has allowed Kingsbury to continue running his version of the air raid offense — not to discredit the Moore, Green and Rodney Hudson additions, as they have certainly helped. It was a gamble but like the Bills in 2020, the results this season speak for themselves.

 

[elpablo21]

Yeah but I'm not looking into for advanced stats to measure every instance or give me an answer for everything. That example is too deep in the weeds

I'm not trying to find an answer for why the Mariners were -100 run differential but won 90 games. I just enjoy digging into the numbers on the site and it gives me something more than BA and OPS

I look at advanced statistics as replacing some older stat models rather taking the eye test away. I get some ppl do that but I never saw it that way.

Anyways, I think I found my answer in Football Outsiders. I'll have to see what they have that is actually free

 

[CP1708]

I hear/appreciate the curiosity, I'm forever searching for wrinkles too but it's just so damn layered.

You see the Goff "Int" this week? There's no way to quantify stuff like that.

This guy tries, he's a writer and has created a ton of his own analysis. But look at some of the questions + feedback + examples.

One small random thing I've thought about looking into is 1 yard TD's, or even average yardage per TD. I think I could find the info, it's the time. My job is much different than 5-6 years ago when I could get away with an hour or two of researching and charting stuff.

 

[elpablo21]

Forgot about Kacsmar. He does usually have good stuff

 

[CP1708]

Another empty first half for Carr, the NFL MVP after 3 games.......

I'm way off on Dak bein the one to 6K cuz they run like crazy again. But Brady is on pace for 6K......

And.......since the SB.......the KC offense is not the same.......and they just lost CEH. All that weaponry is kinda just Tyreek and Kelce. They are elite as all hell but the rest of the O is really meh. And Pat's contract kicks in soon annnnnnnd their defense is a siv. I know it's early, but worth noting.

Cousins has been silent since I propped him.

Matt Ryan, quietly, nice again.

Herbert is Mahomes 3 years ago right now. That offense is powerful.

Josh Allen is killing tonight and so far this season.

 

[SneakerProSr.]

Another empty first half for Carr, the NFL MVP after 3 games.......

I'm way off on Dak bein the one to 6K cuz they run like crazy again. But Brady is on pace for 6K......

And.......since the SB.......the KC offense is not the same.......and they just lost CEH. All that weaponry is kinda just Tyreek and Kelce. They are elite as all hell but the rest of the O is really meh. And Pat's contract kicks in soon annnnnnnd their defense is a siv. I know it's early, but worth noting.

Cousins has been silent since I propped him.

Matt Ryan, quietly, nice again.

Herbert is Mahomes 3 years ago right now. That offense is powerful.

Josh Allen is killing tonight and so far this season.

Kansas City's offense has always just been Tyreke and Kelce while Mahomes.

Production,Targets etc its been heavy spamming of them 2 while Mahomes has been the starter.

 

[CP1708]

Kansas City's offense has always just been Tyreke and Kelce while Mahomes.

Production,Targets etc its been heavy spamming of them 2 while Mahomes has been the starter.

Yes, but they had others contribute when you managed to double one/slow the other.

Hardman was supposed to be that guy. But he seems Ted Ginnish. (Big play here or there but not consistent) Bell left/wasn't good. CEH has been average. Watkins left.