mistertim

Most NFL QBs do not get hit like this every Sunday As @Rufus T Fireflynoted it's also the way he takes hits and how his body reacts to them. Some guys have a natural instinct to get compact and tighten up when they get hit, but some guys are the opposite and basically splay out and flop like ragdolls when it happens. That's how Daniels seems to be. It was also how RG3 was. It's a bit concerning because that's going to open you up to more potential ligament and joint damage.

It very well could be other factors at play. IIRC his coach from ASU stated something along the lines of he was coached to run. Not sure if anyone said that with LSU, though. The problem with that is that, even though he may have been coached to do it, at least early on, it's still all we have to go on. So we don't know if he would do that if left to his own devices. We don't know how easily it could be coached out of him. We don't know if pulling his eyes down is an instinct thing or a coaching thing. Sort of like the lack of tight window and anticipation throws. He has done it, but not much. So we have no clue if it's something he can do consistently like he'll have to at the NFL level. What's on the tape is what's on the tape, and on tape he bails very quickly when pressured. And yes, the same thing can be said for Maye and his footwork and short area accuracy issues. He has done it, but we don't know if it can be fixed or how easily. But that's where I weigh those things and personally think that the issues Maye has aren't quite as daunting when it comes to unknowns, but obviously opinions between the two will vary. As far as it being a negative vs positive, it's sort of like a guy who has a huge arm and often throws ill-advised bombs into coverage. When it works, it's awesome and a huge "wow" play. When it doesn't work, it's just a big cringe. The running quickly thing worked well for Daniels in college because he was just so much more gifted than most of the guys he was playing against. But IMO he's going to be facing a much tougher time in the NFL if he runs that often when pressured (and since he's probably going to get pressured much more in the NFL than he did at LSU). Even if he does manage to pick up some really good runs, he's still going to get hit a lot, just by the nature of basically turning into a RB when he bails from the pocket and takes off. And with a guy with his frame, every single hit is going to have us all wincing and watching to see if he gets up this time.

Do you think it's a bad idea to assume that a tendency in college may very well continue as a tendency into the NFL? At least until that tendency can be coached out? I mean, I get the hyperbole here, but you're not really even addressing the point, just mocking it without offering an alternative explanation or theory.

Pressure to sack ratio isn't a "twitter analytic" insofar as I assume you mean some random stat made up for the specific purpose of pushing an agenda. It's been around for many years and most analytics houses, including PFF, do a pretty good job of going through the tape when they compile it. As far as Daniels, I think he'll get sacked a fair amount and hit a lot, because of those two intertwined numbers I noted. I think he's going to face pressure he never faced in college, and even with a really good OL he still rarely threw when pressured and often immediately dropped his eyes and looked to run. IMO that worrying tendency is going to be magnified in the NFL. And that's bad news for a guy who's as slight of build as Daniels and who has shown a propensity for not protecting himself very well.

I mean...I guess this is one way of dealing with the issue. Just make it vanish? "Evanesco pressure-to-sack ratio!"

I am concerned about it with Maye. The reason I'm more concerned about it with Daniels is that I think it directly ties in with another worrying statistic, which is how rarely he throws vs runs when pressured. He is historically bad in this category. You can see it on film as well. The majority of the time when he's pressured he tends to almost immediately drop his eyes and look to run. And that was with a really good OL who usually gave him plenty of protection; he probably isn't going to have that in the NFL, at least at first. I just don't think that's at all sustainable in the NFL, especially running it that much with his slight frame.

Oh my god. You have to be trolling me. You have to be. Why is this so difficult to understand? The pressure to sack ratio is about the number of sacks relative to pressures. So when a guy is pressured, how often is he sacked? If he gets sacked a lot relative to how many times he's pressured then that's a concerning thing because it may mean he responds very poorly to pressure. If a guy is sacked 22 times but was pressured 160 times, then that sack number isn't that concerning because he had a low percentage of times he got sacked when pressured. If, on the other hand, he was sacked 22 times but was only pressured 90 times, then that's an issue because there were a very high percentage of times that he was pressured that he took a sack. Low numbers of pressures and sacks can have many causes. Often it has to do with being behind a very good OL, for example. That's why it's the ratio that's important, and not so much the raw number.

You're going back to the same argument he had, which was "well, he didn't take many sacks" Who cares? The entire point of the statistic is the number of sacks relative to the number of pressures. The raw number of sacks is definitely a number with no context. As I mentioned, the context can also be thought about in terms of how little he passes when pressured compared to running. So if he runs a lot when pressured, obviously he's not throwing it up for grabs to avoid sacks and obviously he's not going to throw a lot of INTs since...well, since the ball is never in the air. That's why those are two problematic stats that are IMO intertwined and will potentially cause a lot of problems in the NFL.

I think there is more to it, but it ties in with another problematic issue, which is how often he immediately looks to run when pressured vs. pass. That probably contributes to the pressure to sack ratio. So there may be more context, but IMO it's not actually good context.

This is an issue. "Doesn't feel like" "Doesn't believe" It's basically people acknowledging the problem but then hand waving it away without a second thought.

Nobody has debunked anything. It's a factual number. Replying to it and basically saying "well, I don't buy it" doesn't count as "debunking".

The analytics stuff would cut both ways though. You can't (or I should say shouldn't) rely on analytics for one QB and then ignore them for another. Daniels has a lot of red flags in his analytics. Breakout age, pressure to sack ratio, percentage of times he runs vs throws when pressured.

A consistency problem means it's on and off, hence "every so often" Either way, that's still an utterly bizarre reason to pass on a guy who ticks pretty much every box for a franchise QB prospect, because that sort of thing is literally why coaches exist. To pass on a guy because of that one thing would mean they truly believed it was SO bad and indicative of a much larger underlying issue that it would be more or less impossible to fix.

This would be an utterly bizarre reason to pass up on a guy who ticks pretty much every single box. "Sure, he's big, strong, has a huge arm, is very mobile, smart, calls protections, can read defenses, regularly makes NFL level tight window and anticipation throws, is a hard worker and good leader, has more big time throws than pretty much any other prospect over the last several years............but man, every so often he'll miss pretty bad on short throws in the flat. PASS!"

"Herbert lite" for Maye is an interesting take. I guess in terms of actual size, sure. I think their arm strength is comparable. But Maye is much more aggressive than Herbert was, so I think he's actually closer to Josh Allen in that regard. There was some tweet posted here not long ago that was funny: "Maye = Herbert after doing 6 lines of coke"

RG3's endorsement should basically be a hint that we should draft Maye.

This is one of my biggest concerns with him. He usually had pretty clean pockets, but when he didn't have one he didn't often navigate / climb it and get passes off or break the pocket and make off-platform throws. The most common result of pressure was him very quickly pulling his eyes down and running. Many times it worked out for him, but it shouldn't be assumed that that success rate will carry over into the NFL. That's why I said I think he's likely to be running a lot early in his career, because he's probably going to be facing pressure way more often than he did in college. So more running, more hits, more injury chance.

I think the video does show him going through progressions and there are some nice throws in there. But he definitely tended to have very clean pockets and a ton of those were to guys who didn't have a defender within 2 yard of them, which is almost never going to happen in the NFL. Something else in there that I've noticed when watching Daniels is that he often appears (emphasis on that, as I could be wrong) to get a bit frantic once his first read isn't open. His feet get super bouncy and his head seems to dart all over the place really fast. He also rarely throws at the top of his drop. Part of that may tie in with how he also rarely throws to guys until after they get open.

Again, Allen is a great passer first, runner second. Cam was a great runner first, passer second. That's why in 11 seasons Cam threw more than 25 TDs exactly once, and in 6 seasons Allen has done that 4 times, with most of them being 30+ TDs. The comparison is silly.

I'd guess the same as most other teams: great arm, good accuracy, terrifying injury history, already 24 years old so may have mostly peaked with limited upside.

Sure, it's a part of his game and it helps him, but the difference between JA and Cam is that once you take away Cam's legs he's basically no threat. Once you take away JA's legs, he can still destroy you with his arm.

Allen is nothing like Cam. Cam was an overall mediocre-at-best passer who's main threat was his legs. Once his legs weren't a big threat anymore he did nothing and was out of the league. Allen is an elite passer first, but can run second. Those are the kinds of guys who stick around for a long time and have long term success in the NFL. It's a nonsensical comparison.

I'm not necessarily resigned to it, but I am starting to get a bit of a sinking feeling. I really do enjoy watching Daniels play, but the more I watch the more difficulty I have convincing myself that picking him would be a good move. There are just so many red flags for me that it seems other people are ignoring. As I said above, it could be that I'm just clueless, that those aren't actually the red flags they seem, and that the people making the pick should be trusted as they have way more experience than I do. But at the same time, scouts and coaches also completely whiff on QBs plenty of times.

I find it interesting that it seems almost nobody in these "scout / former coach / assistant coach / personnel executive, etc" analyses of Daniels brings up stuff like pressure to sack ratio, how often he runs as soon as he's pressured vs throwing, how few tight window and anticipation throws he made, especially on the second level between the numbers, how unsettled he seems when there's pressure in general. They just talk about concerns with his frame. Which is a legitimate concern, but to me is a secondary concern and is more an issue along with the above problems. Because IMO the above problems mean that he's much more likely to run a lot when he gets to the NFL, which means more hits, which means more injury chance with that thin frame. So maybe I'm just clueless and they know lots of stuff I don't; it's always possible. But those concerns also have analytics to back them up. So maybe they just really like Daniels and his electric running ability / wow plays, and are simply ignoring the other stuff because of confirmation bias.

I certainly don't know as much about football as NFL scouts or coaches but good lord. Some of those takes on Daniels and Maye just sound so dumb to me. Like they watch Maye and do nothing but focus on bad things he does and watch Daniels and do nothing but focus on the good things he does and everything else goes out the window.