The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

At the beginning of the season, many people were lamenting the dearth of young talent at the quarterback position. With the numerous lineup changes made the past few weeks, however, a number of first-year starting quarterbacks have emerged. I did a metric analysis on four of the most successful new quarterbacks to find out just how good they really are.

Tony Romo
To get a good sense of how much Romo has improved the Cowboys' passing game, compare his metrics with Drew Bledsoe's (keep in mind that my metrics are slightly different than the official statistics because I cut out throwaways and spike pass plays):

Tony Romo
Deep Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA
Short 134 100 808 8 5 2 11 6.1
Medium 34 26 459 1 1 1 5 13.6
Deep 44 20 647 4 1 2 31 15.4
Total 212 146 1914 13 7 5 47 9.3

Drew Bledsoe
Player Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA
Short 116 72 715 2 2 6 16 6.3
Medium 20 5 106 0 4 0 0 5.3
Deep 22 11 322 5 1 4 134 20.7
Total 158 88 1143 7 7 10 150 8.2

There are two key differences. The first is the medium pass yards per attempt. Bledsoe's 5.3 figure for an entire season would be a candidate to finish last in the league. Romo didn't just improve the Cowboys' productivity in that department; he more than doubled it.

The second key difference is the number of medium and deep pass attempts. Bledsoe threw 42 medium or deep passes in 5½ games, while Romo has thrown 78 in 6½ games. Bledsoe supporters claimed the Cowboys' offensive line couldn't pass block well enough to give Bledsoe time to find the vertical receivers, but Romo's vertical pass numbers are proving Bledsoe was the biggest problem.

Philip Rivers
Most pundits, myself included, thought it would take Rivers at least half a season to get fully acclimated to the Chargers' offense. This scenario certainly seemed to be playing out through the first three weeks of this campaign, as the San Diego offense was very conservative. Rivers only dropped back to pass 70 times in these first three games and half of those came against the weak Titans' secondary.

Starting in Week 5, however, Marty Schottenheimer and Cam Cameron opened up the Chargers' passing attack. Now Rivers' metrics are actually better on a yards per attempt basis than Drew Brees' metrics from 2005:

Philip Rivers
Depth Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA Brees
Short 213 167 1384 7 2 3 16 6.6 5.9
Medium 81 52 812 5 3 2 10 10.1 9.8
Deep 40 14 384 4 0 2 58 11.1 13
Total 334 233 2580 16 5 7 84 8.0 7.2

Despite these excellent numbers, Rivers isn't receiving quite the same praise his predecessor received. Brees was considered something of a dark horse MVP candidate last season. Given that Rivers has improved on Brees' YPA by nearly one yard, while leading his team to a 10-2 mark, maybe Rivers should get some MVP consideration as well.


Jason Campbell

The interesting thing about Campbell's performance this season is how he has performed against the blitz. Here are his passing metrics against a blitz, and against no blitz:

Jason Campbell
Defense Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA Sacks
Blitz 33 13 214 2 3 0 0 6.5 4/29
No blitz 66 35 317 3 0 0 0 4.8 0/0

All of Campbell's interceptions and sacks have occurred against blitzing defenses, so that says the only way to get a big play against him is to bring pressure.

The flip side of that argument is that six of Campbell's 13 completions against the blitz have been for 15 or more yards, and two of those have been for 40-plus yards. One of these was the 66-yard touchdown pass to Chris ey near the end of the Carolina game that gave Washington the win. In contrast, Campbell has only four plays of over 15 yards when not facing a blitz. Blitzing Campbell seems to be a double-edged sword at this point.

Vince Young
Young's metrics have to be the most surprising of this entire group. What is surprising is the number of medium and deep passes Young has thrown.

Vince Young
Deep Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA
Short 136 88 688 3 2 1 1 5.1
Medium 56 26 452 3 3 1 18 8.4
Deep 47 14 337 1 1 1 36 7.9
Total 239 128 1477 7 6 3 55 6.4

Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow typically operates a short passing scheme. In 2005, Steve McNair threw only 73 medium and 49 deep passes in his 14 starts.

Young has started only nine games and has already thrown 103 medium or deep passes. McNair's receiving corps was quite banged up last season, so that accounts for part of the discrepancy, but one would not expect this many vertical passes from a rookie.

That is probably the common denominator of all of the quarterbacks in this article. The common wisdom on first-year starting signal callers is that they are apt to play it safe at first. Each of these four is proving that theory wrong with his highly aggressive play.