This post will not be as research intensive; instead I want to provide some visualizations on the performance trends for the most relevant 2019 NFL passers. I compiled the rolling averages in 50 play increments for the most frequent passers in the 2019 season and threw them all in the same chart for clarity and ease of comparison.
Players have peaks and valleys. That is the nature of the beast with a small sample game played with a weirdly shaped ball. This applies to everyone except Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes somehow remained comfortably above average and often elite (plus one standard deviation from the mean) throughout the entire season with little to zero dips in production. Even Lamar Jackson during his excellent MVP campaign had a bit of downturn about a quarter of the way through the season. Jackson's best stretches were better than some of Mahomes' best, hence the MVP award. I should note, because it applies to Jackson, that these rolling averages include plays where the quarterback is the ball carrier because quarterback rushing attempts (unlike their running back counterparts) are drivers of efficient offense and yield a high percentage of positive EPA plays. Given Jackson's talent is a ball carrier, his EPA per play numbers are always going to be juiced compared to some of his more statuesque peers (though if you isolate his passing Jackson was still great in 2019). This seems like a great time to mention Josh Allen. Allen, like Lamar, adds value through his proficiency as a ball carrier in the Buffalo offense. Given his reputation (and frankly ability) as a passer, one might expect Allen to look at bit worse. But since rushing is included, he looks merely fine.
Jameis Winston has the reputation of being a roller coaster where at times he is making deep completions all over the field and looks like he can play with the best the league has to offer and other times he looks like he forgot how to play football. His former teammate Ryan Fitzpatrick is similar in this way, but the range of outcomes is muted. Oddly enough, for someone who many evaluators think is one of the best quarterbacks in the league Rodgers was both inconsistent and not great especially towards the end of the season. This has been a trend since his MVP season in 2014 and subsequent bouts with staying healthy. Perhaps the most inconsistent player this past season was the number one overall pick Kyler Murray. Basically half the season he was awesome and half the season he was dreadful. Given some of the skill players around him with the addition of DeAndre Hopkins, our prior on him as a prospect, and some of his excellent play, I think we should expect a big season out of Murray.
From Murray let's jump to the other two rookies. Going into the year I was not excited about Daniel Jones after his time from Duke. I would say he was a little better the expectations, but he was still a mediocre to bad quarterback for most of the year. If the Giants hope to avoid being one of the worst teams in the league for the fourth straight season, Jones is going to have to break out in a big way and totally blow my prior out of the water. Haskins is not on the chart due to his lack of completions. Here is what his season looked like:
He steadily improved after he was named the starter in Washington. As I alluded to in my last post, I would be weary of extrapolating a few good games toward the end of the season and predicting Haskins to be an above-average starter in 2020. Nevertheless, I would say it is better that he improved upon his wretched start then continuing to play poorly.
Other players of note: Goff and Wentz are going to have to be better if they want their teams to compete for a division title in the NFC West and East, respectively. They are both facing up-hill battles in the form of either brutal competition (San Francisco and Seattle) or one offensive juggernaut primed for regression after an unlucky set of close games (Dallas). Goff's struggles last year are a bit overstated (he had 7 throws where the receiver was tackled at the one yard line. If those were touchdowns the narrative would be different). For Wentz it comes down to health.
Mayfield and Darnold need to play well to cash-in on big extensions. I am way more confident in the former than the latter. Darnold fared much worse than Mayfield last year and that is without accounting for Mayfield's excellent stretch of play in his rookie season. Here is the same visualization as the one at the start of the post, but with 2018 included:
Mayfield was great in 2018 and had a nice end to 2019. Similar to Murray, though he is further removed from the draft, if you still lean on our prior for him as a prospect plus you consider he has been more good than bad in the NFL, I am expecting Baker to establish himself as an high-end starting quarterback this season.
Finally, look at Ryan Tannehill's run of play in 2019, especially compared to 2018. Tannehill, despite the narrative surrounding Tennessee, was the driver of the success of that offense once he was inserted as the starter. I am expecting a healthy amount of regression in 2020, but if Tannehill is even 80 to 90 percent of the player he was in 2019, I think Tennessee should be heavily favored to win that division despite the additions made by Chris Ballard in Indianapolis.
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