Who's Teammates are Really Dropping the Ball?
Draft season is officially upon us and one of the main topics of discussion is quarterbacks. The game footage is reviewed and stats analyzed, yet, analysts seem to rarely come to consensus on any one issue. One of the topics recently bouncing around social media is quarterbacks suffering from wide receiver drops. Player "Camps" are defending their dudes, citing stone-handed receivers impacting their prospect's play. The following attempts to clarify those who are really impacted by WR play by looking at the complete picture.
The Dropsies
Perhaps you've seen a version of the following list:
QBs with Most Dropped Passes
- Josh Rosen - 35
- Lamar Jackson -33
- Mason Rudolph - 30
- Sam Darnold -19
- Josh Allen - 12
The table above is representative of most I've seen, which try to isolate the popular media QB names for NFL Draft 2018. So Mike White's 43 dropped passes are often overlooked as well as Riley Ferguson's. Perhaps this is warranted, given White, the Western Kentucky product, threw 521 passes, 64% more than the average QB in our sample (which included all FBS starters for the majority of the season).. Or is it?
Krummie's Axiom
A million years ago, I worked with a guy we called Krummie; not because we thought little of him, but it was a shortening of his last name. At any rate, Krummie had a saying, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." I am fluent in Brooklynese and will translate. In short, figures should be framed in the proper context or they can easily be misleading.
The most obvious way to look at who was hurt and who was helped would be to look at Attempts/Drops ratio - the smaller that number is, the more the QB suffered.
The Oven Mitt Award Goes To....
Not Rosen, although he was close at 5th out of the 19 draft eligible players in the survey. Mike White and Lamar Jackson tie in getting the least help from their receiving corps, each suffering through one dropped pass every 12.1 pass attempts, twice the butter finger rate as Danny Etling of LSU who had the best ratio. .
Although the quarterbacks are named on this list of dropped pass ratios, it is critical to keep in mind these figures are more an indication of receiver play. While ball placement and touch definitely have impact on dropped passes, the list might be better used to measure WRs and TEs (the lower on the list, the fewer drops) than provide to provide the "poor supporting cast" argument for QBs.
Shameless Self Promotion
IT'S TIME FOR THE 2ND ANNUAL DRAFTTWITTER TOP 100 SURVEY!!!
Last year, 25 amateur, semi pro and professional scouts clicked through a simple Excel based ballot and created a Top 100 list of players that has successfully (thus far) proven to a better value than the players picked by our favorite GMs last year.
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