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.
Chad Henne
All categories with a * are normalized so that the league average is 0.0.
Positives
• Graded at +0.9 on third down.
• Graded at +0.6 on passes in the 1-to-10-yard range.
• Showed well when throwing to the slot (by alignment) at +2.8.
• Graded at +2.9 on slant routes.
Negatives
• Fifth-lowest grade on first down (-9.1) and third-lowest grade on second down (-8.6).
• Among the league’s worst on passes in the 11-20-yard range (-8.9).
• Lowest grade on passes thrown at least 20 yards in the air (-9.4) and passes thrown at least 30 yards in the air (-7.1).
• Graded at -7.2 on passes thrown outside the numbers to the left.
• Ranked last with a -13.2 grade in a clean pocket.
• Struggled on 7-to-8-yard drop-backs (-7.2) and drop-backs of at least 9 yards (-5.3).
• Graded at -6.5 on drop-backs lasting two seconds or less and -5.2 on drop-backs lasting 2.6 to 3.0 seconds.
• Graded at -4.6 when throwing to tight ends.
• Graded at -2.4 on crossing routes and -1.8 on post routes.
Tendencies
• Broke the pocket on only 1.5% of snaps; second-lowest in the league.
• Threw 32.1% of passes outside the numbers to the left; highest percentage in the league.
• 55.3% of passes were thrown outside the numbers; third-highest in the league.
• 64.4% of drop-backs lasted 2.5 seconds or less; well above the league average of 51.0%.
• Threw screens on 15.0% of attempts; second-highest in the league — including a league-high 11.3% of attempts going to wide receivers on screens.
• 16.5% of attempts were go routes; second-highest in the league.
For the entire set of “Quarterbacks in Focus” posts, click here.
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