RedZone QB Play Breakdown

This has been a really interesting season in RedZone for QB play. The best QB’s have not been high volume passers. This intuitively makes sense; if you only pass in ideal situations and/or when the defense is gearing up for the run, you will generally be more successful. However, this is not how it works in reality. The highest volume passers, generally, are the best passers. This is likely because if a team is really good at something, it only makes sense to do more of it. Conversely, if a team stinks at passing, they’ll usually try to mitigate this by running more and making shorter, safer throws.

I’m going to break down QB’s in 5 different categories: raw stats, sack %, interception %, TD %, and advance stats. Let’s go!

Raw Stats

Only 3 QB’s have a traditional QB rating over 100: Jameis Winston, Carson Wentz, and Jared Goff. None of those 3 are in the top 10 in passing yards this season. While Wentz and Winston have both missed time due to injury, they also play for ball control offenses that rely on the run game and defense, same as Jared Goff.

4 QB’s have thrown 20 TD’s this season: Lynch, Milner, Noble, and Hundley. All 4 of those QB’s have a rating in the 80’s. Noble is ranked the highest of them in QB rating at 10. Lynch, Noble, and Milner are all top 4 in yards thrown as well.

Bengals’ rookie Quessenberry has been impressive at 3rd in passing yards and 5th in passing touchdowns. With that said, I think the best quarterback this season by raw passing stats has been Detroit’s rookie QB, Hayden Peek. He’s 5th in QB rating at 94.2, but the only QB in the top 9 to have thrown for 3000 yards. Peek is also 5th in passing TD’s and has thrown a respectable 11 interceptions on the year.

Sack Percentage

Some QB’s do a great job at no putting their offense in bad position by avoiding sacks. Unfortunately for some, they end up hurting their team far worse by forcing passes and or checking down too often. Of the top 10 in lowest sack %, only 5 have an average QB rating or better. The most impressive are Brody Doman and Jared Goff, who have both managed to avoid sacks and throwing interceptions. Doman has thrown just 6 interceptions this season, and Goff has been even better with 4.

On the other side, a few QB’s that have been terrific this season have given up a bunch of sacks. Wentz, McLeod, Sloan, Winston, and Terra have all been sacked on more than 9% of their dropbacks but have QB ratings at or above 90. Of those, only Wentz and Winston fare well in advance stats, which will get to later.

Interception Percentage

Interceptions can be extremely detrimental to a team. However, their negative impact can be overrated at times as well. For example, an interception 30 yards downfield on 3rd and long basically has no negative consequence, as it is not materially different than a punt. But an interception on 2nd and medium in the red zone is disastrous for helping your team win. My point is, this doesn’t tell the whole story.

6 of the 8 QB’s with the lowest interception % would be in the playoffs if they started today. Winston, Goff, Doman, and Mathieu on limited playing time, all have an interception % below 2. Of the 11 QB’s that have an interception % of 4 or higher, only one is in playoff contention, the Giants Hundley.

Touchdown Percentage

Now we’re getting into the meat and potatoes. Virtually all methods of evaluating QB play put a heavy emphasis on touchdown passes. This doesn’t need explanation. The best QB’s throw a bunch of TD’s. The best teams score a lot of TD’s. So you want a team and QB that do both.

So who throws touchdowns on the highest percentage of dropbacks? Basically the same names you’ve been hearing throughout this article. Winston, Wentz, Sloan, and Goff. What’s surprising is that not one of those players is in the top 6 in TD passes this season.

One player who has played great this year but just hasn’t put the ball in the end zone is Brody Doman of Steelers. He has a 93 QB rating, nearly 3000 yards, and a very low interception % of 1.5. But having thrown just 14 touchdowns puts him at a below average 3.6 TD %.

Advance Stats

Let’s talk about ANY/A (adjusted net yards per passing attempt) and AY/A (adjusted yards per passing attempt). These two ratings are exactly the same except for the former takes into account lost yards due to sacks. Both stats look at TD’s, interceptions, and yards per attempt. The best QB’s make the most of each opportunity. Meaning, they throw for more yards and touchdowns per pass, while limiting interceptions per pass.

It has been shown that QB play affects sacks much more than o-line play does. The best QB’s get the ball out before taking sacks, without turning the ball over and keeping it moving down the field, regardless of how the line is playing.

With that said, let’s look at AY/A first, to determine how a QB plays when he isn’t taking sacks. The first 3 are a surprise to no one: Goff, Wentz, and Winston. The next 4 will likely make people look twice: Wilson, Sloan, Peek, and McLeod. What is surprising is that only one of these 7 QB’s has more than 3000 yards or 19 touchdowns, Hayden Peek.

When we factor in sacks with ANY/A, Goff takes a bigger lead over Wentz and Winston for 2nd and 3rd, respectively, and Peek jumps up to 4th thanks to his stellar 3.7 sacks %. Doman jumps up to 6th, while Sloan and McLeod both take steps back due to their 9+ sack %.

The last stat I’ll look at here is TD/INT ratio. 4 players have a ratio above 2.33 (they throw 2.33 TD’s for every interception): Winston, Goff, Wentz, and Doman. While we’ve been seeing these names on a lot of these lists, it’s instructive to see that none of the 20+ TD guys have a TD/INT ratio above 2.

So who has the best QB been this season? I’m going to answer with two QB’s: Jared Goff and Hayden Peek. Goff is right there with Winston and Wentz for most efficient in just about every single category, but he’s thrown for substantially more yards and touchdowns and has the higher ANY/A and AY/A.

I’m putting Peek up there as well because while his rate stats are just one step below those 3, he has put up much bigger raw numbers and has arguably had a bigger impact on his team. Doman is another QB that has balanced efficiency and output this season. I don’t think anyone would argue that these 5 QB’s have clearly been the best, in some order.