Though we certainly miss football during the offseason, it’s always a good time to take a step back and analyze our plethora of data.
We’re often so busy grading and collecting data during the season that we’re unable to put a lot of the information to good use. With that said, we’ve decided to declare June as “QB Month” as we break down NFL quarterbacks every which way.
We’re going to examine quarterbacks from a number of situations before looking at each of them individually. The grades and numbers should reveal each quarterback’s strengths and weaknesses from the 2013 season.
As we go through this series, it’s important to understand the relationship between QB Rating (NFL’s version) and PFF Grade.
While QB Rating is obviously supposed to be a QB statistic, it’s actually a better gauge of what the entire offense did in a given situation. This is the type of information that is actually extremely valuable to our NFL team customers as their game planning efforts must go towards stopping an entire passing offense, not just the quarterback.
If the quarterback throws an easy dump off pass to the RB who then weaves through the defense for the touchdown, it’s certainly not a great indicator of quarterbacking skill as it is the running back and defense accounting for the majority of the work on the play. Of course the QB Rating will look quite shiny in that situation.
On the other hand, PFF Grade is a good indicator of how well the quarterback actually performed in a given situation. Whether they throw an accurate pass that was dropped, or perhaps an inaccurate one that should have been intercepted and the defense dropped, the PFF grade will account for those situations with a positive and a negative grade respectively while QB Rating will simply reflect the 0-for-1 passing.
It’s important to distinguish between QB Rating and PFF grade, though there’s a good chance they’ll match up in most situations.
After taking a look at the entire league in various situations, it’s time to break down each quarterback individually.
Jay Cutler
All categories with a * are normalized so that the league average is 0.0.
Positives
• Ranked fourth on third downs at +11.5 including a +4.9 grade on 3rd-and-Long
• Among the league’s best on throws of 20 or more yards (+5.3), throws in the 31-to-40-yard range (+4.6). Top grade on throws of 30 or more yards at +7.4.
• Fairly even splits on passes to the left (+6.1), middle (+6.8), and right (+5.6).
• Second-highest grade on drop-backs of 9 or more yards (+13.5).
• Best grade came on passes in the 3.1-to-3.5-second range (+7.1).
• Showed well when throwing to wide receivers (by alignment) at +20.1 and tight ends lined up in the slot at +5.5.
• Graded at +10.4 on go routes
Negatives
• Graded at -3.5 on 2nd-and-Long
• Struggled throwing in 21-30-yard range (-1.3).
• Graded at -4.4 when pressured including -5.3 against blitz pressure.
• Graded at -2.1 on 7-to-8-yard drop-backs.
• Lowest graded route was crossing routes at -0.3
Tendencies
• Faced third down blitzes only 30% of the time, fifth-lowest in the league.
• Dropped back at least 9 yards on 36.7% of drop-backs, seventh-highest in the league.
• Threw 17.1% of passes at least 20 yards in the air, third-highest in the league.
• Threw fourth-highest percentage of passes at least 30 yards in the air (6.6%) and third-highest percentage of passes at least 40 yards (3.3%).
• Threw 24.3% of passes in 2.6-3.0-second range, third-highest in the league.
• Threw higher percentage of passes outside the numbers to the left (22.7%) than passes outside the numbers to the right (19.3%).
• Only 3.9% of targets were slants, second-lowest percentage in the league.
• 25.7% of attempts were hitches, highest percentage in the league.
Josh McCown
All categories with a * are normalized so that the league average is 0.0.
Positives
• Graded at +6.5 on passes in 11-20-yard range.
• Showed well on 2nd-and-Long (+3.9) and 3rd-and-Long (+4.4).
• Threw well to the middle (+9.9) and right (+6.4).
• Posted league’s highest grade when pressured: +8.9.
• Graded well against the blitz (+9.0) and against a traditional rush (+8.5).
• Was at his best on 7-to-8-yard drop-backs (+15.7).
• Excelled in the 2.6-to 3.0-second range (+12.5).
• Graded at +18.1 when throwing to wide receivers (by alignment) including +9.5 to the slot and +8.6 to outside wide receivers.
• Best routes were hitches (+5.9) and go routes (+7.0).
Negatives
• Graded at -1.4 on designed rollouts.
• Posted an average +0.1 grade on passes in the 31-to-40-yard range.
• Graded at -0.9 on 4-to-6-yard drop-backs.
• Graded at -0.6 on slants and -0.9 on post routes.
Tendencies
• Faced the blitz only 27.6% of the time, eighth-lowest in the league.
• Above the league average with 21.4% of drop-backs coming in the 4-to-6-yard range.
• 17.3% of drop-backs lasted 3.1-3.5 seconds, highest percentage in the league.
• Threw only 40.1% of passes outside the numbers, sixth-lowest in the league.
• Threw 78.3% of passes to wide receivers (by alignment), fourth-highest in the league.
• Threw only 14.5% of passes to tight ends, tied for the lowest percentage in the league.
• 11.6% of targets were slants, second-highest in the league.
For the entire set of “Quarterbacks in Focus” posts, click here.
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