Stampede Blue
Thanks to the nflFastR project, Pro Football Focus and NFL NextGen Stats for the timely sources of data.
For those of you new to this, I will publish key QB stats each week judging how well the upcoming opponent QB has performed. Yes, O-Line, receivers, and play-calling impact these numbers but they are primarily QB measures. I will probably modify the charts throughout the season. Commentary will be brief but feel free to let me know in the comments that stats aren’t everything. (click charts for larger view)
I want to talk about incompletions. I am seeing a lot of coping, excuses and moving of the goalposts when it comes to Anthony Richardson’s completion rate. Certainly, one could blame receiver drops or play-calling for some of his problems, but that is really just trying to sweep the issue under the rug. His 2024 completion rate is 44.4%. No amount of rationalization is going to improve that number to an acceptable level.
Let’s just say it. He has a problem completing passes. There, that wasn’t so hard. It doesn’t mean he is a bad QB nor does it mean he can’t get better. In a recent article, Chris Shepherd made this point:
“He worked his reads, found the open man, got his feet right and threw the ball. The problem wasn’t his accuracy it was that from the time he found his receiver to when he actually made the throw it took too much time, allowing the defensive backs to make a jump and break up the passes.”
I rely on Completion % Over Average (cpoe) to measure a QB’s “accuracy”, but that really is a misnomer. CPOE doesn’t know if a ball was on target or not, nor does it know if it was dropped by a receiver or batted down at the line, so me equating cpoe to accuracy is, well, inaccurate.
However, what cpoe does very well is account for variables like down, distance, passing depth etc., to determine what the completion rate of an average QB in those situations would be. Richardson’s 2024 cpoe is -13.9%, which is the worst in the league. Part of that number is inaccuracy, but to Chris’ point, just because his cpoe isn’t getting better, it does not mean he is not improving. It just means that he hasn’t improved to the point where it presents itself in outcomes.
We know he has a completion problem. We don’t need to shift the blame to other players, coaches or opponents. Myabe he will get better or maybe not. Just keep an eye on his cpoe, when that starts steadily improving, then we know, he will have turned a corner.
(Use the right-left arrows to toggle between stats for the week and the season).
