In my tier 1 CB breakdown before of Xavier Rhodes, Dee Milliner and Johnthan Banks before the combine, I noted that any of the second tier corners could be better than the tier 1 prospects. Although I didn’t have the stats to prove it at the time, the media tide has turned with some saying that both Desmond Trufant and Darius Slay could be better than Banks. The numbers reveal some interesting things about Trufant, Poyer and Slay. Each CB has a few positives, but they also have some deficiencies. Whether those are related to where they were aligned before the snap or a lack of experience in certain coverages, you can make the case that each CB listed here is deficient in some way compared to the “tier 1” guys.

Charting CBs takes a long time, so I used a 4 game sample for each of these players. I’m happy with the sample and think it captures each CB pretty well. As always, these stats aren’t meant to prove that X player is better than Y player. However, they will complement what you see on film and can cause you to take a second look at something you hadn’t questioned. No stats are perfect, but these should give you a good feel for each CB.

Where Were They Targeted?

These are the locations in which the cornerbacks were targeted. That is, it includes all outcomes such as completions, pass interference, deflections, etc.

• Just like the tier 1 CBs, Poyer, Trufant and Slay were targeted at a high level in the short ranges. This is due to a prevalence of passes in the short game, including swing passes and quick routes near the LOS. Trufant’s 23.3% is the lowest of all CBs including the tier 1 corners.
• Interestingly, Trufant was targeted almost equally amongst each zone. His 26.67% challenge rate deep is the highest of all the CBs in this class. That makes you wonder why quarterbacks chose to challenge him deep so often? Did they feel they could beat him or is that more of the style in the PAC-12?
• An incredible 50% of Darius Slay’s targeted were in the 11-20 yard range, but only 5.6% past 20 yards. There is obviously a discrepancy there, indicating that Slay could be weak in what many consider the “NFL zone” of throws.
• Nearly 69% of Poyer’s targets came in the 1-10 yard range, this is likely due to the type of routes he often covered from the slot (we’ll get to that in a bit)

What Happened After They Were Targeted?

All of these are a function of total passes, not just targets. Thus 100 minus the percentage of No Throw would equal how often they were targeted. I’ve taken out interceptions, thus it won’t add to 100%.

• Poyer was targeted on only 13.5% of all passes. This is the lowest of all CBs, edging Xavier Rhodes by 1.5% (Rhodes was ~15%).  I’m slightly dubious about this number because Poyer covered the slot nearly 40% of the time. While some schools like Texas A&M put their best receivers like Ryan Swope in the slot, I’m not sure that’s always the case. Is this number inflated because Poyer was covering number 2 and 3 wide receivers?  You can see the alignment numbers below.
• Trufant on the other hand was targeted roughly 25% of the time, or the highest of all the CBs in this class. Despite this, his completion level is still lower than other CBs like Banks and Milliner. That means, QBs were targeting him but not completing their passes. This is in part due to his ability to play the ball.
• Slay has very similar numbers to Johnthan Banks. Both were targeted on roughly 20% of all passes.  However, Slay had less passes completed on him, with 10% of all passes being completions. He also deflected the most passes out of this CB class. Combine that with his 5 interceptions this year and it shows a good nose for the ball.

Where Did They Line Up?

Even though we know where they were targeted, what technique were they playing? While I didn’t try to decipher the playbooks to figure out the coverages, I at least noted where they were aligned pre-snap. As a note, the CBs had to get their hands on the WRs to count as press coverage. The yardage refers to how far they were from the line of scrimmage.

• I find the lack of press played by Slay and Poyer interesting. Johnthan Banks pressed the least in the first tier and he played press 8% of the time. Poyer and Slay only played press 3% of the time. That’s essentially negligible. That doesn’t mean they can’t be taught, but it makes you wonder if they can make a jump to a press scheme easily.
• Trufant either played far off the line of scrimmage or near it, nothing in between. Trufant played press coverage 12% of the time, third highest for this class of CBs. He bailed on press another 24% of the time, giving him experience close to the line. However, he only lined up 1-5 yards off the LOS 11% of the time.

Average Distance of Completions

This is simply the average distance in yards of a completion against each CB. Note that these are before yards after the catch.

• Trufant had the lowest average distance of completions of tier 2 and the second lowest amongst all CBs despite being targeted deep often.
• Slay and Poyer are sitting between 7 and 8 yards which would still put them lower than Banks and Milliner.

Here are a few other charts that I’m not even going to bother commenting on. If you’ve liked this, you can follow me at Follow @NU_Gap. I do work pretty much every day breaking down prospects and I’ll be tweeting out interesting stats that I come across , future articles/breakdowns, or let you know when I post new things . Thanks a lot!

The goal for this was to analyze each and every sack. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get game tape on sacks against some of the smaller schools (Murray State). I did get a sufficient sample on most players and I’m happy with the data I got. I’m looking at a large prospect group, so I won’t comment on every player but only the most interesting parts. (Sorry for the small-ish charts, I have too many players and the site isn’t cooperating)

How Quickly Did They Get to the QB?

I decided to measure  the amount of time it took each player to get to the quarterback. With data on ten prospects, I have a good feeling for what these numbers represent.

Generally, times greater than 5 seconds are coverage sacks. Times between 3.5 and 5 seconds are the majority of sacks and what you would call “average sacks”. Sacks faster than 3.5 seconds are speed sacks which result from a good jump off the line or just great burst.

• Mingo, of course, had one of the fastest times in getting to the QB. You could have predicted it by looking at his athleticism on tape or at the combine, but it shows up on his sacks. Even though his number of sacks was limited, none of them were coverage sacks and he got to the QB in 3.63 seconds on average.
• For the size of Tank Carradine and Bjoern Werner, they got the QB quickly. Both came in at 3.91 seconds and 45% of their sacks would be considered speed sacks. That’s extremely close to Dion Jordan who is considered far more of a “speed” guy than the others.
• Damontre Moore’s number is disappointing. On average it took him 4.51 seconds to get to the QB and 44.4% of his sacks were from coverage. For a pass-rushing specialist, he wasn’t near the numbers of any other prospects.
• Don’t read too much into Ansah’s numbers. He had a small sample size and I was even hesitant about putting his numbers up because I think they’re a tad misleading. He did, on average take a long time to get to the QB, you can judge whether you think that’s his rawness or a concern.
• Okafor’s time is great at 3.56. That time is faster than Mingo who came in roughly 20 lbs lighter than him at the Combine and is largely considered the “speed” specialist. None of Okafor’s 11 sacks were from coverage. This isn’t a fluke of small sample size, Okafor simply got to the QB quickly.

How Did They Get There?

This is a breakdown of what moves they used to get to the QB. I simplified it down to three categories instead of having a million different moves and counters.

• Damontre Moore had a wide variety of ways to get to the QB, the majority of his sacks came off going to the inside, but he also used bull and outside rushes to the tune of 22% and 44% respectively. Whether this variety was a detriment to his speed as noted above or he used these moves because he didn’t have a quick outside rush, the rush flexibility is interesting.
• Both Jordan and Werner were strictly outside rush guys. Neither rusher tallied a sack from an initial inside move.
• Tank Carradine went outside a majority of the time, but showed a range of versatility going with the inside rush 27% of the time.
• If you watched Ziggy Ansah, you’re pretty well versed in his utilization of the bull rush to attempt to get to the QB. He doesn’t disappoint here, 50% of his sacks (2) came from the bull  rush
• Okafor was extremely versatile, garnering 11 sacks on an excellent mixture of strength and speed. 36% of his sacks came off bull rushes which shows excellent power. When combined with his speed of getting to the QB, Okafor was often able to overpower his opponent.

How Did Their Opponents Contribute?

I created a really quick and dirty strength of schedule for the pass rushers. Part sacks allowed by each team’s offensive line and part Sagarin ratings, it’s not perfect but it should give you a relative feeling for the quality of teams/ offensive lines each pass rusher got their sacks against. Thus, the higher number means tougher opponents.

• Again, don’t pay much mind to Ansah’s numbers, they’re from an extremely small sample size. Use them as a guideline but not gospel.
• Aside from Ansah, Moore tallied his sacks against the toughest teams. With sacks against Alabama, LSU, and Mississippi State – Moore beat a difficult assortment of O-lines for his sacks.
• Mingo, with a similar SEC schedule as Moore, got his sacks against a difficult schedule. Is this the reason for his lack of production, is it an excuse, or does it have absolutely nothing to do with it? I’m leaning towards little to do with his lack of production, but the fact that he was able to produce good speed rushes against that schedule is impressive.
• Both Carradine and Werner’s strength of sacks were in the bottom three in this group. Sacks against lowly Maryland and Wake Forest really dragged down their numbers. By this metric, Werner’s best sacks were against Miami then Florida (UF didn’t get a lot of love due to the 39 sacks they surrendered).
• Outside of Ansah’s fluky SOS, Okafor tallied his sacks against the strongest opponents on average. Many of the QBs he sacked were not sacked particularly often, making his sacks more “difficult”.

How Did Their Team Contribute?

I’m not going to comment on this, just explain and post. These are the average amount of rushers and blitzers their teams sent against opposing offensive lines. The idea being, the higher the total rushers and blitzers, the more each rusher was helped by their teammates.

Sacks By Down

Remember this is part 1 of 2, the second part will be focusing on giving a broader perspective of these pass rushers. That means analyzing their overall effectiveness by snap of rushing the QB, looking at pressures, among other factors. Sacks are certainly not the most important thing when it comes to QBs, but that’s where this analysis is starting.

if you’ve liked this, you can follow me at Follow @NU_Gap. I do work pretty much every day breaking down prospects and I’ll be tweeting out interesting stats that I come across , future articles/breakdowns, or let you know when I post new things . Thanks a lot!

Smith, Barkley, Wilson, and Glennon: A Metrics Breakdown

Tyler Wilson: A Statistical Scouting Report

When writing the Tyler Wilson scouting report, I discussed at length the narrative surrounding Tyler Wilson’s ‘weak arm’. The response I received from some readers indicated that they believed Wilson’s 2011 numbers would show that he was a much superior quarterback before the many Arkansas debacles of 2012. The answer to the title of this post and their assertions is less than clear. His statistics show that his play in certain areas from 2011 to 2012 both got better and got worse, thus providing no definitive answer. However, we can still use the data to our advantage, showing that while his deep ball was better, his intermediate throws were worse.

As always, these stats are based off of me watching game film and writing down the factors that go into a play. I marked down where the ball was caught, what the formation was, why the ball was incomplete and many more factors. In each section, I’m going to post the relevant chart and then make comments on it.

Where Did He Throw The Ball?

• Wilson threw slightly less short passes in 2011 than in 2012. Although he threw less screens overall, his 1-5 yard target percentage was nearly identical. Many people have asserted that Wilson threw short so much because of his bad offensive line in 2012, the numbers show this is simply not true.
• The number of 11-20 yard intermediate passes was nearly identical as well. Throwing to this intermediate zone 15.5% of the time both years, he is well below what the average quarterback threw to what many consider the “NFL range”
• He threw deep more often in 2011 than 2012. This could be due to a number of possibilities. One is that his offensive line gave him more time in 2011, another is that his receivers were much better in 2011 and he felt more comfortable going deep.

How Accurate Was He?

The green in the color coding represents above average accuracy compared to a composite of last year’s quarterback class. The yellow represents average and the red represents below average.

• Wilson’s completion percentage on 20+ yard throws was well above-average at 56%. I gave him a hard time in his scouting report for his declining completion percentage as he threw further down field, so it’s positive to see that he was once good at it. Is this a case of his wide receivers making his play better than expected in 2011 or below-average receivers in 2012 making his play seem poorer than reality? That depends on your point of view.
• No matter how you slice it, his 11-20 yard completion percentage was consistently bad. Although he improved from 47.6% to 53.9% from 2011 to 2012, neither is even close to average from the 2011 class. The fact that this is a trend could indicate it will continue into the NFL.
• These numbers tell a mixed story about his ability completion percentages downfield ,we’d expect to see better completion percentages downfield in 2011. That holds true in the 6-10 yard and 20+ ranges, but isn’t supported by his poor completion percentage in the 11-20 yard zone. This is where you have to answer whether you believe his NFL receivers made him better than he is in 2011 or a bad offensive line in 2012 made him worse than he really is.

Where Did His Incompletions Come From?

• I also got on Wilson’s case for his large percentage of underthrows in 2012. We don’t see the same trend in 2011, which lends credence to the idea that he often was forced to throw short and quick because of a bad offensive line in 2012.
• Wilson’s decision making also got better in 2012. In 2011 we see a larger percentage of throws into single and double coverage. By and large he decreased both of these factors, indicating better decision making.
• We definitely see more drops in 2012 than in 2011, as his receivers dropped 1.4% more passes. The drop percentage in 2012 is closer to average than the 5.8% in 2011, this lines up with the fact that he had so many NFL ready receivers.

Summary

Without taking into account sacks or other such statistics, the numbers seem to support the hypothesis that Wilson was negatively affected by a poor offensive line.  However, the drop percentage and 20+ completion percentage could also show that his receivers made him look better than he actually is. As with most things in football and life, it’s most likely a combination of both.

The question you have to answer for yourself is whether these numbers tell you he was negatively affected by negative circumstances in 2011 or he just plain regressed. You have to worry about the fact that he has been consistently bad at 11-20 yard passes, which I consider to be a strong predictor of NFL success. Your confidence also has to be buoyed by his deep ball ability in 2011. In the end, it’s all about how you interpret the numbers.

I’m going to present a few more charts with no comments. Among them are play result, completion percentage by down, total yardage by quarter, and red zone yardage.

Before the stats, if you’ve liked this, you can follow me at Follow @NU_Gap. I do work pretty much every day breaking down prospects and I’ll be tweeting out interesting stats that I come across , future articles/breakdowns, or let you know when I post new things . Thanks a lot!

As a note, unlike WRs where I note only when they are targeted, I’ve charted a variety of factors on each snap when it comes to CBs. Thus, I used a 4 game sample, which is normally smaller than I’d like. However, I’m still happy with the sample and think it gets a good representation of these corners.

Where Were They Targeted?

These are the locations in which the cornerbacks were targeted. That is, it includes all outcomes such as completions, pass interference, deflections, etc.

• All of the CBs were challenged in the 1-5 yard zone a plurality of the time. Nearly 50%  of Banks’ targets came within a short distance of the LOS. Similarly Milliner’s 33% and Rhodes 43% are very high. This high percentage is likely due to shorter routes, including swing passes out of the backfield into their zones.
• Less of Milliner’s targets came in the shorter zones, instead 50% of his targets came in the intermediate zones of 6-20 yards.
• Xavier Rhodes was challenged deep most often with 19% of his total targets coming back 20 yards. This could either be indicative of the coverage FSU was playing or that quarterbacks often felt that Rhodes was vulnerable deep.

What Happened After They Were Targeted?

All of these are a function of total passes, not just targets. Thus 100 minus the percentage of No Throw would equal how often they were targeted. I’ve taken out interceptions, thus it won’t add to 100%,

• In total Milliner and Banks were targeted roughly 21% of the time, while Rhodes was only targeted on 14.5% of all passes. This is clearly a significant difference. This doesn’t necessarily mean Rhodes is the better corner. It could mean Florida State’s other CBs were bad enough to be targeted more. Still it’s worth checking out due to the drastic nature of the difference.
• Milliner deflected more balls than the others with 3.48% of all passes deflected (which works out to roughly 16% of all targets). We should note that Banks had more interceptions which isn’t reflected in this chart.
• Rhodes had a few pass interference penalties in my sample, which would actually count as worse than completions due to the distance given up on each PI call.

Where Did They Line Up?

Even though we know where they were targeted, what technique were they playing? While I didn’t try to decipher the playbooks to figure out the coverages, I at least noted where they were aligned pre-snap. As a note, the CBs had to get their hands on the WRs to count as press coverage. The yardage refers to how far they were from the line of scrimmage.

• Rhodes by far was the most “versatile” cornerback. He played press coverage nearly 21% of the time compared to only 13% for Milliner and 8% for Banks. The distribution over each zone is nearly equal for Rhodes.
• The majority of Milliner’s snaps were taken close to the line of scrimmage. Nearly 56% of his snaps were a 1-5 yard zone pre-snap look, while he played press- bail 22.6% of the time.
• Some have spoken of Banks’ physicality, while this doesn’t prove anything, around 85% of his snaps were started off the line of scrimmage between 1 and 10 yards. He almost never played press-bail at only 6% of the time.

Average Distance of Completions

This is simply the average distance in yards of a completion against each CB. Note that these are before yards after the catch.

• The average completions against both Milliner and Banks are around the 8 yard range with Milliner’s being slightly higher.
• Rhodes’ average distance is much lower at 5.7 yards. Whether that’s due to his play in the ACC or physicality, Rhodes did not give up deep passes on average.

I have a litany of other charts and data that I’m going to post below. I’m not even going to try to analyze them because you could be here for weeks reading them. Among them we have completions by down, first downs, targets by alignment, etc.

1st Downs Allowed (Before YAC):

Alignment by Side:

Targets By Alignment:

(Thus, what was their pre-snap alignment when they were targeted)

Completions By Down:

Percentage of Plays that each CB Blitzed:

Milliner: 3.5%

Banks: 10%

Rhodes: 2%

Tier 1 | Tier 2

Teams interested in a pure weapon for their offense may be looking no further than Tavon Austin. The electrifying wide receiver, running back, and return man did it all for West Virginia this year. Even with his excellent numbers, he often gets overlooked due to his diminutive size. Is this fair or do his numbers indicate that he deserves more consideration as a high draft pick this year? Is he better than Percy Harvin or Randall Cobb, both former do-it-alls in college. It’s unclear to me, but I do know it’s easy to become enamored with Austin’s quickness when watching his tape. Taking away the awe-some nature of Tavon’s play, how do his numbers stack up? Let’s find out.

Adjusting Austin’s Numbers

Everything herein is based on the idea that I adjusted Tavon’s reception and rushing numbers. If you haven’t watched much West Virginia tape or just need a refresher, the offense incorporates a “screen sweep” play. This play involves Smith taking the snap and essentially bats it forward as a receiver crosses in front of him from pre-snap motion. This technically counts as a “screen” and thus a reception, but requires no skill from either the wide receiver or quarterback. Thus, I have adjusted those receptions into rushing plays. Here are the results:

• We can see that Austin ran 28 sweep screens throughout the year. These on average went for 5.8 yards, a respectable average for a rushing play.
• While Austin’s adjusted total receptions and yardage go down, his average catch increases to 13.11 yards from 11.3 yards. The average for this wide receiver class is 14.56 yards, so he’s still below average, but closer than he was before.
• On the whole, this doesn’t decrease his average rush by much, it drops it by .88 yards. Austin’s overall rushing average for the season goes from 8.93 to 8.05.
• Interestingly, with these adjustments, Tavon has more rushes than receptions. The ratio is 100 rushes to 86 receptions. While this doesn’t make Austin a running back, does he still count as a full fledged wide receiver when he ran more than he received the ball?

Where Did He Catch the Ball?

• Of course Austin caught a high number of screens. Even after adjusting for those sweep screens, approximately 34% of his receptions were screens. This is higher than any wide receiver in this class.
• Including screens, 78% of his receptions were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. This seems high but is actually lower than Keenan Allen’s 86% within the same zones.
• Although low, Austin’s 7% of receptions past 20 yards isn’t the lowest in the class. Keenan Allen only caught 3.33% of his passes past 20 yards and Cordarrelle Patterson only caught 4% past 20 yards.

Where Did His Yardage Come From?

Here, I’ve summarized the yardage gained after catching the ball in a certain zone. Thus, when Austin caught the ball in the 1-5 yard zone, on average he caught it 3.15 yards from the line of scrimmage. After that, on average, he had 13 yards after the catch. I have only included the total yardage for screens because I don’t think a receiver should be rewarded for reaching the line of scrimmage.

• While not on this chart, Austin averaged 7.3 yards after the catch in all zones. The receiver with the next highest yards after the catch is Stedman Bailey, Austin’s former teammate. That’s an incredibly high number.
• Austin did not catch an above-average amount of passes in the 1-5 yard zone, but he averaged an insane 13 yards after the catch. Is this because when catching these short passes he was matched against college linebackers who couldn’t keep up with him?
• My concern is that Austin had below average YAC in other zones. Average YAC for this class is 5.24, so why wasn’t he able to achieve that in other zones? I worry that faster linebackers and safeties in the NFL will be able to take away his advantage on short passes and limit him in other zones.
• His yardage gained on screens is unusually low. On average, WRs in this class gained 5.8 yards per screen. Austin, despite his unquestioned shiftiness was only able to manage 3.84 yards on screens. This was bad enough for 3^rd worst in this class ahead of Justin Hunter and DeAndre Hopkins. Is this due to the fact that defenses were expecting screens from him and thus sitting on them? Something to consider.

Overall

Austin’s numbers are interesting. On one hand his yardage after the catch is well above the other wide receivers, as you’d expect. On the other hand, his yardage after the catch is below average in multiple zones on the field. Is he a one trick pony that can only catch 3 yard deep crosses? Can he continue to pull that off in the NFL? Do his lack of deep catches concern you?  Those are the questions you have to answer after looking at these statistics.

For what it’s worth, I’m more curious than ever to see what his combine numbers look like. You can be sure I’ll be revisiting some of these statistics to see if they match the results of his combine workouts. Austin is an interesting prospect, you get to decide whether he’s 1st round material or not.

Scroll down the page for a few more statistics that I couldn’t shoehorn into the rest of the post.

Drop Rate: 4.2%

Drop Comparison:

Coverage:

YPC Chart (Just a numbers version of the bar chart above):

Screen Comparison:

For this study, I only dealt with receptions and passes, no blocking. As was true with the wide receivers, I charted a variety of factors including yards after the catch and where they were lined up. For this study, I have added yards after first contact to get a feel for the strength of these TEs. Let’s compare!

Where Did They Catch the Ball?

This is only where they caught the ball, excluding YAC. Last year I worked up some of Coby Fleener’s stats, so I’ll be comparing them. Edit: Some people were unhappy that I only used Fleener’s numbers and the use was biased. I simply used his numbers because his prototype as  TE is similar to both Ertz and Eifert. However, I have now added Dwayne Allen’s numbers from last year.

• Despite Ertz and Fleener playing in the same offense, we actually see different distributions of completions. Ertz’s are weighted more heavily towards shorter passes, with 68% of his passes coming within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage.
• Eifert’s distribution resembles Fleener’s much more closely. They both have a large amount of receptions within the 1-5 yard range then a large amount of receptions within the 11-20 range. I believe this shows an aptitude for catch both dump off passes and big gaining intermediate receptions.
• Neither is the deep threat that Fleener was. Almost 17% of Fleener’s receptions were past 20 yards. Eifert had nearly half of that and Ertz only reached 12%.

Where Did Their Yardage Come From?

(For this I charted yards after contact, which means as soon as a defender contacted the TEs, I noted it)

• Eifert in general caught the ball slightly further down the field, 10.4 yards to 9.64 yards for Ertz.
• Both Ertz and Eifert had similar total yards after the catch (before contact + after first contact) at 3.94 yards and 3.6 respectively. They came in different manners though.
• The majority of Ertz’ yards after the catch came before contact, with only 1.24 yards after first contact on average. Eifert’s was much more divided with 1.96 yards coming after contact.
•  Now this doesn’t seem like a big difference, but I believe this is a larger indicator for projection into the NFL. We see Eifert with more effort and strength after the catch compared to Ertz. The players won’t get smaller in the NFL, so the stronger the better.

How Do They Compare in Other Aspects?

• We have to  examine drops. This is probably the most glaring difference.  Ertz had almost double the drops of Eifert at a drop rate of 10.68% to only 5.26% for Eifert. That drop rate would give him the second best hands out of this wide receiver class behind only Keenan Allen. Impressive for a TE.

• Both of their catches came from very similar pre-snap alignments. Neither one has more experience or an advantage in a particular alignment. Anyone who tells you one has more experience from the outside or slot is misinformed.

Both of them converted a similar amount of third downs. From my sample, 64% of both of their passes were caught for 1^st downs. I also calculated whether they picked up their first downs through the air or after the catch and the numbers were nearly identical. No distinguishing.

Overall

Both tight ends have their own positives and negatives. Eifert has better hands and more power after the catch. Ertz has better overall yards after the catch and is a bigger deep threat than Eifert. There are things to like and dislike about each prospect. When making your evaluation based on these stats, you have to first figure out what’s more important to you in a TE. Do you want a guy who is more of a potential game breaker, a guy who is solid after the catch with good hands. Do you value power or speed more? These are the things that will define your evaluation.

Many scouting sites will tell you there is a right and a wrong answer. There probably is. However, I don’t know it and no one will for a year or two. Hopefully though, will these statistics, you can be that much closer to figuring out the right answer for yourself.

Before the charts, if you’ve liked this, you can follow me at Follow @NU_Gap. I do work pretty much every day breaking down prospects and I’ll be tweeting out interesting stats that I come across , future articles/breakdowns (CBs are most likely next), or let you know when I post new things (Tavon Austin individual breakdown) . Thanks a lot!

I’m going to put up two more charts just to give you a feel for their yardage by down and quarter.

What I’m looking for when I examine these numbers are any positive or negative trends through the two years. Do we see improvement in any particular area or did everything get worse? My system last year for collecting data on QBs was relatively primitive, so all I have are completion percentages, drops, targets, and adjusted completion percentage. However, I believe those to be enough to judge Barkley on a solid level. As a note, this will be my last QB post for a while, after this I plan on posting breakdowns of Ertz v. Eifert and then the top 3/4 CBs in this draft.

Did He Change Where He Threw The Ball?

• Barkley threw less screens this year, instead throwing more 1-5 yard passes. In USC’s offense where 5 yard slants are frequent, this actually represents a step up in difficulty for Barkley. There is no doubt in my mind that having to hit first read slants is much harder than hitting screens more often.
• He threw more intermediate passes. Barkley upped the amount he threw in both the 6-10 and 11-20 yard range by about 3% in total. This is pretty statistically insignificant and doesn’t represent a huge change in either zone.
• Those throws came at the expense of the deep ball. That 3-4% in the intermediate zones came from the 15.5% of deep balls he threw in 2011 to move it down to 11.5%.

How Did His Accuracy Change?

(Drops were factored out for both years)

• I cannot stress this point enough. If Barkley completed screens at the same rate as he did in 2011, his overall yearly completion percentage would have been slightly higher than 2011 at 70.88% for 2012.
• Think about that. If his completion percentage was higher than it was last year, do you think there would be as much negative hype surrounding Barkley in this draft season?
• He threw the deep ball more accurately. Not only was he very similar to last year, the one point people harped on constantly (his ‘noodle arm’), actually got better. By 12% points. I don’t see how you can complain about this particular attribute if it got better. I’m not saying you have to like Barkley’s deep ball, but if it wasn’t a problem last year for you, it wasn’t this year either.
• Nothing else changed significantly. We see some slight drops in the 1-20 yard ranges, but only between 1 and 3% points which aren’t particularly significant.

Other Interesting Bits

• His wide receivers had nearly identical drop rates in 2011 and 2012. In 2011 his receivers dropped 6.64% of balls and 6.59% in 2012. While dropped balls don’t even remotely begin to account for receiver skill, there’s nothing drastically different here.

Overall

This is going to be shorter than my normal scouting reports because I don’t have nearly the same amount of data to compare. However, I felt it was important to write because the hype about Barkley’s “bad year” is incredibly frustrating. Sure, there are things on tape that might warrant such a label, but it’s not all bad. We actually see improvement in a crucial area and only a significant drop in his screen game. Nothing else changed. Someone other than I can go look at the quality of his offensive line and how long he had to throw the ball to see how that matches up. Frankly, I don’t see anything to indicate he had a particularly bad year.

I’m not trying to tell you to like Barkley if you don’t. What I’m saying is, if you liked Matt Barkley last year, you should like him this year too. Look at film and the numerous other factors to understand why he got worse, but it wasn’t anything particular in his passing. Make informed decisions and understand what happened with Barkley, but don’t instantly buy into the combined fan and media hype that Barkley was much worse this year.

Ryan Nassib | EJ Manuel | Zac Dysert

I’ll admit, I saw Zac Dysert in person in 2009 when Miami (OH) played Northwestern at Ryan Field. That game, as a freshman, Dysert went 17/36 with 3 interceptions. Needless to say I didn’t think I’d be writing about him four years later as a legitimate draft prospect after watching that game. Nevertheless, here we are. Dysert, like all of these second tier prospects, is extremely intriguing and partially confusing. What do we make of his high completion percentage down field and his generally weak competition? I can’t answer the second question (I guarantee there will be much pontificating upon that subject by talking heads), but I can look at the first one.

As always: these stats are based off of me watching game film and writing down the factors that go into a play. I marked down where the ball was caught, what the formation was, why the ball was incomplete and many more factors. In each section, I’m going to post the relevant chart and then make comments on it.

Where Did He Throw The Ball?

• Over 58% of Dysert’s passes were between 1-10 yards. This compares to only ~45% for the AvgQB. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, however I would have preferred those extra attempts hadn’t come at the expense of the deeper throws.
• Only 26% of his passes were past 10 yards. Like I said in the overall breakdown, this is tied for lowest in the last two classes with Matt Barkley. However, the deep percentage is quite low at 8%, the lowest of anyone in the last two classes.
• The intermediate and deep targets will come into play later. Keep these in mind as we move on to the completion percentage, because they will remain important.

How Accurate Was He?

• The answer is, pretty accurate overall. After adjusting for drops Dysert comes out at an average completion percentage of 69.7%, very respectable.
• His 11-20 yard and 20+ yard accuracies are insanely high. As I noted above, this is where the amount of targets come into play. The high completion percentages are likely a factor the offense only calling deep pass plays that were ‘easy’ to complete. I don’t think it’s likely he can keep those up on a consistent basis more often and against tough NFL defenses.
• His 6-10 yard completion percentage is astonishingly bad. This is by far the worst completion percentage in that zone in the last two classes. Given that he threw here 25% of the time, we can safely assume that with increased targets his completion percentage downfield is going to decrease dramatically. I think this will apply dramatically as he starts to throw more downfield in the NFL.

Where Did His Incompletions Come From?

• There’s almost nothing significant or interesting here. The majority of his incompletion distribution is pretty standard for this class. Both his overthrows and throws into single coverage are slightly high, but close enough to average to not worry.

Any Other Positive/ Red Flags?

• Just like Nassib, Dysert’s 3^rd down completion percentage is quite low. At 47.6%, he didn’t even complete half of his attempts on third down. It’s not even like his receivers dropped an excess of targets, so I’m not quite sure why this happened. This definitely requires more tape study, because I don’t understand how you could drop off so drastically under pressure.

• He probably shouldn’t throw out of the pistol in the NFL. This is another one of those random things. He was actually above his overall completion percentage under center and in shotgun, but his inaccuracy in the pistol dragged his overall completion percentage down.

• The average distance of a completion was 7.43 yards. This actually makes me feel slightly more comfortable with Dysert’s accuracy further downfield. What this likely means is that his throws within the 1-5 yard and 6-10 yard zones were neared to 5 and 10 than they were 1 and 6. That is, he threw deeper in those zones rather than shorter. This is good for second highest in this class behind Mike Glennon.

Overall

As is true with every single one of these prospects, I’m going to try to let you decide what you think of these stats. I’ve seen multiple interpretations of the statistics in every one of these posts I’ve put up. Some people will be inclined to say this shows Dysert can project his excellent deep accuracy to the NFL, others will say it’s a fluke. For whatever its worth, Dysert scares me a little bit. I mentioned that Barkley threw a similar amount of deep passes, but I feel more comfortable with Barkley’s body of work and competition.

When I see Dysert playing some overall weak teams and don’t see a good distribution of passes, I instantly get nervous. To me, Dysert is a poor man’s Nassib. Both have similar issues on third down and have higher completion percentages downfield on limited attempts. Unlike Nassib, I don’t think Dysert has some of the prerequisites to make me rank him higher than the other QBs with these numbers. However, people will interpret these stats differently and that’s the joy of the evaluation process.

If you’ve found this kind of thing interesting, you can follow me at Follow @NU_Gap. I do work pretty much every day breaking down prospects and I’ll be tweeting out interesting stats that I come across , future articles/breakdowns (CBs are most likely next), or let you know when I post new things (Tavon Austin individual breakdown) . Thanks a lot!

Nassib | Manuel | Dysert

The saga of EJ Manuel is an interesting one to say the least. Backing up future first round pick Christian Ponder, he was thrown into the fire multiple times when Ponder was injured. Manuel led the Florida State team to multiple wins, but never fulfilled the promise of Florida State’s preseason rankings. What does that all mean for his stats? Nothing, but it makes Manuel all the more interesting as a prospect. Does he get a lower grade in the draft because of people’s perceptions? Is he worthy of something higher?

As always: these stats are based off of me watching game film and writing down the factors that go into a play. I marked down where the ball was caught, what the formation was, why the ball was incomplete and many more factors. In each section, I’m going to post the relevant chart and then make comments on it.

Where is He Throwing the Ball?

• He didn’t throw deep very often. Between the 11-20 and 20+ yard zones, Manuel only threw past 10 yards 26% of the time. This ties Matt Barkley for the lowest in the last two classes.
• Most of that was a factor of him not going to the 11-20 zone often. He was actually close to average in how often he threw 20+ yards, but threw in the intermediate zone 10% of the time less than the AvgQB.
• EJ threw within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage 52% of the time. Again this ties Matt Barkley for the highest within these zones in the last two classes. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we have to check out his accuracy to ensure those aren’t the only locations he can throw.

How Accurate Is He?

• This is where it gets interesting. Manuel completed 73.33% of his passes in the 11-20 yard range. This would be the second highest in the last two classes behind RGIII. However, as we saw above, he hardly ever threw there. Does this make it a fluke or was Jimbo Fisher’s offense keeping him from reaching his full potential?
• However, when he had to throw past 20 yards, his completion percentage fell. This is what makes me think the 11-20 yard completion percentage is a bit of an anomaly. You aren’t able to throw intermediate passes extremely well and then suddenly become below-average at deeper balls. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
• His shorter zone accuracy was quite good. He was hitting average to above average in the 1-10 yard routes, which isn’t anything to complain about. His 6-10 yard completion accuracy is the highest in the last two classes, besting Andrew Luck for the highest. If he can capitalize on that in the NFL, I guarantee an OC can find work for him.

Where Did His Incompletions Come From?

• His receivers were excellent. At least in terms of not dropping the ball. The drop rate of 4.59% is below average for the majority of NCAA squads.
• The lack of throws into double coverage is a positive. There’s no epically bad decision making going on, with a .92% rate that means we only saw 3-4 passes into double coverage all year.
• Manuel’s overthrows and throws into single coverage are about average. His throws into single coverage is about 1.5% higher than the average for this class, but that’s not something to be worried about.

Any Other Positive/Red Flags?

• A large percentage of Manuel’s yardage came in the 3^rd quarter. I’m not sure what this means, but 44% of his yardage came in the 4^th quarter. This statistic is usually a function of how often a team is ahead or behind in a game, so it’s probably nothing except the flow of FSU’s game.

• His completion percentage under center and in shotgun are relatively even. It’s not even really worth posting the chart, he’s solid in both formations which bodes well for an NFL career. You don’t want to see a tendency to be bad in one formation and good in another going into a new offense.

Overall

Like Nassib, EJ statistically grades out as one of the better QBs in the draft. This of course is why we use statistics to complement film study, but like Nassib it gives me a little pause. Even given that his receivers clearly gave him a lot of help, he still comes out with some of the best completion percentages among the zones. There really aren’t any huge red flags on Manuel statistically. We can worry a little bit about the fact that his deep ball is around 42%, but Tannehill’s last year graded out at 33%.

It’s interesting that thus far, the ‘top tier’ QBs are the ones that have come out with more statistical red flags than either Nassib or Manuel. For instance: Glennon has a huge amount of overthrows, Smith throws into double coverage a lot, and Wilson underthrows the ball often. However, we look at Manuel and don’t see anything that is truly concerning. This doesn’t make him the top pick by any means, but we have to then go to the tape to find what’s causing his draft stock to be lower.

If you’ve found this kind of thing interesting, you can follow me at Follow @NU_Gap. I do work pretty much every day breaking down prospects and I’ll be tweeting out interesting stats that I come across , future articles/breakdowns (CBs are most likely next), or let you know when I post new things (Tavon Austin individual breakdown) . Thanks a lot!

Ryan Nassib | EJ Manuel | Zac Dysert

‘Ryan Nassib seems to have two distinct camps, he’s either worthy of a second round pick or later or he’s the best quarterback in the class. Granted the latter group is under-represented, but he still has supporters to spout his credentials as a top tier QB. This post might actually help the latter group make their case a little bit. While we know that statistics are not the end all, be all – they’ve certainly made me pause and take another look at Nassib.

As always: these stats are based off of me watching game film and writing down the factors that go into a play. I marked down where the ball was caught, what the formation was, why the ball was incomplete and many more factors. In each section, I’m going to post the relevant chart and then make comments on it.

Where is He Throwing the Ball?

• He throws significantly less screens than the AvgQB. Throwing screens on 7.7% of the time, Nassib’s offense did not push the screen game much.
• As is true with many QBs in this class, he throws the 1-5 yard pass often. This is pretty easy to see on tape, similar to Barkley, Nassib throws the 5 yard slant often. Good for 37% of his total passes, the 1-5 yard pass is second highest in this class behind Tyler Wilson.
• Interestingly, Nassib threw the 11-20 yard ball 26.5% of the time. This is actually a good sign for Nassib, he’s throwing “NFL depth passes” more than anyone in the last two classes

How Accurate Is He?

• He isn’t below average in any particular zone. To be fair, I don’t really count accuracy in the screen game because I think that’s more variable than any other factor. However, he’s still average to above-average in every zone.
• Given how often he threw the 11-20 yard ball, his 58.5% accuracy is excellent. Anyone throwing a difficult ball often, and doing it well should get serious consideration as a serious prospect.
• His deep ball is excellent at 62.5%. Like Barkley, Nassib gets the “smart, leader” labels applied liberally. Those are really code for weak armed, game managers. His deep ball completion percentage of 62.5% doesn’t indicate that.

Where Are His Incompletions Coming From?

• A ridiculous amount of his passes were dropped. Nearly 10% of his passes were dropped. His overall completion percentage would have gone up drastically had these passes been caught at a normal rate.
• There don’t seem to be any other trends. All QBs in this class tend to hover around 10% for overthrows. His throws into single coverage may be a little high, but it’s not overwhelmingly alarming.

Any Other Red Flags/Positives?

• His 3^rd down completion percentage is a woeful 50%. I’m not sure why it’s so low or if it would translate to the NFL, but you want your QB to be converting 3^rd downs more often than that.

• Nassib’s completion percentage under center and in shotgun are wildly divergent. He’s much more accurate under center than in shotgun. Which is interesting, because it tends to be the opposite for most QBs. 

Overall

Under Tyler Wilson’s scouting report, I wrote that people wanted to like him to find a dark horse. Anyone who is looking for a dark horse needs to stop looking at Tyler Wilson and check out Nassib. I don’t think Nassib is the number 1 pick or even the number 1 quarterback, but I don’t see how you can look over some of his stats. People are concerned about his arm, but he’s completing 62.5% of his deep passes. That’s cognitive dissonance at its finest.

You have to make your own decision, but make sure to question the prevailing narrative when looking at Nassib. His statistics suggest he may have more abilities than some people like to give him credit for. Maybe he’ll turn out to be exactly what they expect, nothing more than a game manager. However, in the interim I think you should take a second look at Nassib with these stats in mind.

If you’ve found this kind of thing interesting, you can follow me at Follow @NU_Gap. I do work pretty much every day breaking down prospects and I’ll be tweeting out interesting stats that I come across , future articles/breakdowns (CBs are most likely next), or let you know when I post new things (Tavon Austin individual breakdown) . Thanks a lot!