Sneak Peek: Football Outsiders 2018 QB Class Projections

[Tour2ma]

Here's a tabulation from an Insider and a link to the currently public article: http://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/story/_/id/22870189/2018-nfl-draft-projecting-booms-busts-top-quarterback-prospects

The full article will be posted for public viewing on www.footballoutsiders.com next week.

==============================================================================================

Mayfield has the #4 QBASE projection of all time (behind Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers, and Donovan McNabb) and is far and away the QBASE leader in this class.

Allen carries the highest bust potential. Darnold interestingly carries the lowest Elite potential.

Table of projections:

QB	Bust %	Adequate Starter %	Upper Tier %	Elite %
Mayfield	29.3%	21.8%	20.7%	28.2%
Rosen	46.9%	24.8%	18.0%	10.4%
Darnold	51.9%	29.0%	15.1%	4.1%
Allen	62.7%	20.7%	11.5%	5.2%
Jackson	46.2%	26.9%	18.5%	8.5%
Falk	54.5%	23.6%	14.4%	7.6%
Lauletta	56.0%	24.7%	14.0%	5.4%
Rudolph	54.2%	24.8%	15.5%	5.6%

 

Baker Mayfield

Baker Mayfield's stats at Oklahoma were completely ridiculous, so it's no surprise that a stat-based projection system such as QBASE loves him with the heat of a thousand suns.

One of the stats included in QBASE is adjusted passing yards per attempt. This metric looks at yards per attempt, then adds 20 yards for each touchdown and subtracts 45 yards for each interception. Mayfield is the only quarterback in FBS history to top 12.0 APYA in a season, and he's done it twice: 12.3 APYA in 2016, and then 12.9 APYA in 2017. Mayfield also completed more than 70 percent of his passes as a senior, and Oklahoma's offense was No. 1 in Football Outsiders' passing S&P+ rating.

On top of this, the No. 1 predictor of NFL success for top quarterback draft picks is still how many years of starting experience they had in college. Mayfield is the only one of this year's top prospects with four years of starting experience. (Luke Falk, likely to be drafted later, started for three and a half seasons.)

As with Rosen, QBASE docks Mayfield a bit because he played with high-quality teammates. Both OT Orlando Brown and TE Mark Andrews are likely to be drafted in the first three rounds this year, and WR Marquise Brown and G Ben Powers are likely to go in the first three rounds of the 2019 draft. However, Mayfield does not get docked for playing an easy Big 12 schedule. Because of the Big 12 championship game, the Sooners had to play twice against TCU, which at No. 15 in S&P+ was the Big 12's best pass defense. Mayfield also had to face Ohio State (No. 12) and Georgia (No. 6), so the average pass defense he faced was ranked 52.8, the same as Rosen and better than any of this year's prospects other than Darnold.

Josh Allen

Like Darnold, Allen was only a two-year starter in college. But Allen's statistics are horrifying compared to Darnold's.

Allen has an obscenely powerful arm, but it's a howitzer without a targeting system. He completed just 56.3 percent of his passes last year. Here is the list of quarterbacks chosen in the top 100 picks since 2005 despite having a completion rate below 58 percent in their final college season: Andrew Walter (2005), Jake Locker (2011), Christian Hackenberg (2016), Connor Cook (2016) and C.J. Beathard (2017). That's it.

Last year, Wyoming finished 119th in passing S&P+, out of 130 teams in FBS. That will be the lowest rank ever for a quarterback chosen in the top 100 picks of the NFL draft. Yes, I know, Allen wasn't playing with a bunch of NFL-bound talent around him. He also wasn't facing a lot of NFL-bound talent on defense. The average opponent faced by Wyoming ranked just 83.5 in pass defense S&P+. Allen's performance against top opponents was brutal. He threw two interceptions and zero touchdowns against Iowa, with just 4.35 yards per attempt. He completed just 9 of 24 passes with 64 yards and a pick against Oregon. He completed 44 percent of passes with two picks and only 131 yards against Boise State.

Since 1997, there have been 27 quarterbacks chosen in the top 100 with QBASE ratings below zero. The best of these quarterbacks was either Josh McCown or Brian Griese. It's a terrible group of quarterback busts. Negative-QBASE passers chosen in the first round include Mark Sanchez, Josh Freeman, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman, J.P. Losman and Patrick Ramsey.

Allen supporters talk about how his 2016 season was much better than his 2017 season, and it was. In 2016, Wyoming finished 52nd in passing S&P+. Allen still couldn't complete more than 56.0 percent of his passes. If we pretend Allen's 2017 season never happened, then Allen has a QBASE of 161, still the worst of this year's top prospects.

Sam Darnold

Based on Football Outsiders' passing S&P+ stats, the USC Trojans had college football's No. 3 passing offense when Darnold was a redshirt freshman in 2016. That dropped to 10th in his sophomore year -- but 10th out of 130 FBS teams is still pretty good. So why is Darnold's QBASE lower than that of other prospects expected to be chosen after him in this year's draft?

The problem is that Darnold has only two years of experience as a starting quarterback in college football, and the track record of top-100 quarterbacks with only two college years started is downright lousy. The best among them are Cam Newton, Joe Flacco, Michael Vick and Alex Smith. Aaron Rodgers could count as either a two-year or three-year starter, since like Newton, he also had a year starting in junior college. But for the most part, highly drafted quarterbacks with only two years of college starting experience have underperformed their draft position. Included on the list are some of the biggest busts in NFL draft history: JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, Blake Bortles, Mark Sanchez and so forth.

Of course, there was a two-year college starter selected in the later rounds of the draft who turned out to be pretty successful in the NFL: Tom Brady. But Brady is the historical outlier of all outliers, not a historical precedent on which you base a top-five draft pick.

To overcome this penalty in QBASE, a prospect needs to have dominating statistics. Cam Newton did. Alex Smith did. Sam Darnold did not. His stats don't particularly stand out when compared to Josh Rosen, Lamar Jackson or Mason Rudolph.

All college quarterbacks are a risk in the NFL. Does Darnold's lack of college experience somehow negate what scouts see on film? No, but we're trying to determine here which quarterbacks are high-risk and which quarterbacks are really high-risk.

In Darnold's defense, the track record of two-year starters may look a lot better with a couple of more years of data. Carson Wentz was a two-year starter, as were Deshaun Watson and Jameis Winston. Also, Darnold faced the most difficult 2017 schedule of any of this year's top quarterback prospects, and his raw statistics are a little more impressive in that light. But that element is already factored into Darnold's QBASE rating.

Josh Rosen

Rosen is a very typical first-round quarterback prospect. That's not meant to be a negative statement. The average QBASE for first-round picks since 1997 is 620; Rosen is at 623. The average first-round quarterback has 2.7 years of starting experience; Rosen has three. Rosen's APYA (adjusted passing yards per attempt) of 8.5 and completion rate of 62.6 percent are a little below average for a first-round quarterback prospect, but not by much. (The averages are 9.0 and 64.0, respectively.)

Rosen played a slightly harder than average schedule, but also gets docked by QBASE because he had a lot of high-rated talent around him at UCLA. OT Kolton Miller and TE Caleb Wilson are likely to be first-round picks (Miller this year, Wilson in 2019). C Scott Quessenberry and WR Jordan Lasley are also likely to be drafted this year.

Lamar Jackson

QBASE is projecting only a quarterback's passing performance, so it doesn't care about Jackson's phenomenal running abilities. But QBASE also clearly thinks that talk of Jackson switching positions is kind of silly. He's just as good a quarterback prospect as any of this year's other young passers not named Baker Mayfield.

Jackson has one stat that lags far behind his others: a completion rate of just 59.1 percent in 2017 and just 57.0 percent for his three-year college career. But his AYPA (8.7) and Louisville's passing S&P+ (11th, right below USC) peg him as a late first-round pick. And unlike other prospects who led top passing offenses last year, Jackson didn't have a lot of great talent around him. Any Louisville receivers and linemen who are drafted (perhaps OT Geron Christian this year and WR Jaylen Smith next year) are likely to be Day 3 picks.

 

[SD_Tom]

The ucla offense took a hit when Wilson went down early... And then Lasley missed 3 games.  Wilson is legit. Was Rosen best target I think... Njoku would be a nice target. 

The more Jackson film I watch,  the more I wanna see him play.  Best athlete at that position I've ever seen   he can sling it.  Teams will be scared of him.  Almost impossible to contain,  and runs like ted ginn Jr.... He just flies.  Jukes guys,  cuts back,  fun to watch.  He's played some  good teams.  

[7moses7]

Jackson is RG3  2.0

[boo fagley]

Stats are so midleading.

RG3 and Johnny lit it up.

 

 

[mjp28]

7 hours ago, boo fagley said:

Stats are so midleading.

RG3 and Johnny lit it up.

 

 

Famous last words......

......... Recent history is littered with teams that drafted a quarterback high, only to find out that player couldn't play at the NFL level......  ~AND~

"You're going to need a bigger boat".......

Stats are basically just a bunch of formulas and any other data they can cram into charts and graphs but the wild card is always what is in the hearts, minds, desire and drive of the individual about to jump into this brutal professional game.

 

 

[Tour2ma]

10 hours ago, boo fagley said:

Stats are so midleading. RG3 and Johnny lit it up.

Not as misleading as an ignorant comment the attempts to lump an advanced analytics approach into "stats".

QBASE was not around in 2014, but the preceding LCF system was... and Manziel was projected to bust.

Griffin? Projected to succeed, which he certainly did for one year.

[D Bone]

Do they have an analytic that can measure what's in an athlete's head and heart?

Someone should make an app for that and instantly retire a multi-zillionaire. 

[boo fagley]

17 hours ago, Tour2ma said:

Not as misleading as an ignorant comment the attempts to lump an advanced analytics approach into "stats".

QBASE was not around in 2014, but the preceding LCF system was... and Manziel was projected to bust.

Griffin? Projected to succeed, which he certainly did for one year.

The big knock on Allen from the mouth breathers is his completion rate. You have done quite well informing everyone of those numbers.

 

Allen has an obscenely powerful arm, but it's a howitzer without a targeting system. He completed just 56.3 percent of his passes last year. Here is the list of quarterbacks chosen in the top 100 picks since 2005 despite having a completion rate below 58 percent in their final college season: Andrew Walter (2005), Jake Locker (2011), Christian Hackenberg (2016), Connor Cook (2016) and C.J. Beathard (2017). That's it.

[Dutch Oven]

1 minute ago, boo fagley said:

The big knock on Allen from the mouth breathers is his completion rate. 

Don't forget his horrible mechanics, his inability to deal with pressure, and his laughable performances against decent competition.

He's Jake Locker all over again - a guy getting drafted way too high based on his athletic tools, not his ability as a QB. 

[jcam222]

I was listening to Sirius NFL the other day discussing this ranking system. It sounded pretty legit. Overall I do have a gut feel that if we pass on Mayfield it will be another thing we regret a long time. 

[Tour2ma]

37 minutes ago, jcam222 said:

I was listening to Sirius NFL the other day discussing this ranking system. It sounded pretty legit. Overall I do have a gut feel that if we pass on Mayfield it will be another thing we regret a long time. 

As predictive analytics go it's not bad and has the requisite feedback loop to improve over time.

1 hour ago, boo fagley said:

The big knock on Allen from the mouth breathers is his completion rate. You have done quite well informing everyone of those numbers.

Allen has an obscenely powerful arm, but it's a howitzer without a targeting system. He completed just 56.3 percent of his passes last year. Here is the list of quarterbacks chosen in the top 100 picks since 2005 despite having a completion rate below 58 percent in their final college season: Andrew Walter (2005), Jake Locker (2011), Christian Hackenberg (2016), Connor Cook (2016) and C.J. Beathard (2017). That's it.

FO's illustrative comments are just that...

[D Bone]

1 hour ago, boo fagley said:

Allen has an obscenely powerful arm, but it's a howitzer without a targeting system. He completed just 56.3 percent of his passes last year. Here is the list of quarterbacks chosen in the top 100 picks since 2005 despite having a completion rate below 58 percent in their final college season: Andrew Walter (2005), Jake Locker (2011), Christian Hackenberg (2016), Connor Cook (2016) and C.J. Beathard (2017). That's it.

Boy, if that list doesn't get you all pumped up about taking Allen, I don't know what will.