Mile High Report
The average starting QB took 2.81 seconds to throw the ball last season according to NFL Next Gen Stats. That was the exact value obtained by both Patrick Mahomes and Kyler Murray. Bo Nix took 2.91 seconds on average to throw the ball last season. The QB who got the ball out the fastest last season was Tua Tagovailoa at 2.42 seconds. Lamar Jackson took the longest to throw the ball at 3.14 seconds but Jalen Hurts was pretty close at 3.13.
SISdatahub.com has what they call “pocket time” which is the average time in the pocket before a QB gets pressure. So the QBs with the biggest difference between the two numbers is the one that does the best at moving in the pocket to create time. Notice that Lamar Jackson got pressure at 2.50 seconds on average, but didn’t throw until 3.14 seconds so on average he “created” 0.64 seconds in the pocket. Bo Nix had a difference of 0.41 which was almost exactly average (0.42 seconds). The QB who did the worst job of creating time was Mason Rudolph and it wasn’t close. He only created 0.20s on average. The next worst was Cooper Rush at 0.25s.
Other QBs who were good at creating time were Anthony Richardson, Justin Fields, Caleb Williams and (a surprise) Aidan O’Connell. O’Connell only scrambled three times on 256 dropbacks – 1.2%. That was one of the lowest scramble rates among starting QBs. The other guys all had high scramble rates. Only Matthew Stafford, Kirk Cousins and Joe Flacco scrambled less often. The two QBs who scrambled the most often last season were both rookies, Jayden Daniels (12.2%) and Drake Maye (10.8%). They were the only two who scrambled more than 9% of the time on dropbacks.
Tua’s OL did him absolutely no favors as he was pressured on average 2.10 seconds after the snap. The fastest sack of the season in 2024 was 2.18s by former Bronco Cody Barton, meaning that when Tua got pressure it was almost aways immediate. That being said, Tua was only pressured on 13.6% of his dropbacks which was the best value among starting Qbs. Andy Dalton, Baker Mayfield, Gardner Minshew and Joe Burrow all only got 2.20s last season before they were pressured. On the other side of the spectrum, Jalen Hurts got 2.70s of clean pocket which lead the league. Rudolph, DeShaun Watson and Sam Darnold were all tied for second at 2.60s. Bo Nix was tied for third with a whole host of other QBs at 2.50s.
One of the things that made both Peyton Manning and Tom “deflated balls” Brady great was their ability to move slightly in the pocket to create time enough for their intended receiver to get to the spot needed for them to make the throw. While athletic ability is needed to avoid pressure in the pocket, neither guy was a “running” QB, but they both were masters at “feeling the pocket” and knowing when to step left,...
