ESPN insider request: KC Joyner article on JC

[mhd24]

http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/columns/story?columnist=joyner_kc&id=2686827&action=upsell&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnfl%2finsider%2fcolumns%2fstory%3fcolumnist%3djoyner_kc%26id%3d2686827

[smitty71]

you must be a member to read the rest of the article...

[tennisacerg]

yeah, i can't get the rest; sounds interesting though

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Here you all go.

At the beginning of the season, many people were lamenting the dearth of young talent at the quarterback position. With the numerous lineup changes made the past few weeks, however, a number of first-year starting quarterbacks have emerged. I did a metric analysis on four of the most successful new quarterbacks to find out just how good they really are.

Tony Romo sits to pee

To get a good sense of how much Romo sits to pee has improved the Cowboys' passing game, compare his metrics with Drew Bledsoe's (keep in mind that my metrics are slightly different than the official statistics because I cut out throwaways and spike pass plays):

Tony Romo sits to pee

Deep Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA

Short 134 100 808 8 5 2 11 6.1

Medium 34 26 459 1 1 1 5 13.6

Deep 44 20 647 4 1 2 31 15.4

Total 212 146 1914 13 7 5 47 9.3

Drew Bledsoe

Player Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA

Short 116 72 715 2 2 6 16 6.3

Medium 20 5 106 0 4 0 0 5.3

Deep 22 11 322 5 1 4 134 20.7

Total 158 88 1143 7 7 10 150 8.2

There are two key differences. The first is the medium pass yards per attempt. Bledsoe's 5.3 figure for an entire season would be a candidate to finish last in the league. Romo sits to pee didn't just improve the Cowboys' productivity in that department; he more than doubled it.

The second key difference is the number of medium and deep pass attempts. Bledsoe threw 42 medium or deep passes in 5½ games, while Romo sits to pee has thrown 78 in 6½ games. Bledsoe supporters claimed the Cowboys' offensive line couldn't pass block well enough to give Bledsoe time to find the vertical receivers, but Romo sits to pee's vertical pass numbers are proving Bledsoe was the biggest problem.

Philip Rivers

Most pundits, myself included, thought it would take Rivers at least half a season to get fully acclimated to the Chargers' offense. This scenario certainly seemed to be playing out through the first three weeks of this campaign, as the San Diego offense was very conservative. Rivers only dropped back to pass 70 times in these first three games and half of those came against the weak Titans' secondary.

Starting in Week 5, however, Marty Schottenheimer and Cam Cameron opened up the Chargers' passing attack. Now Rivers' metrics are actually better on a yards per attempt basis than Drew Brees' metrics from 2005:

Philip Rivers

Depth Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA Brees

Short 213 167 1384 7 2 3 16 6.6 5.9

Medium 81 52 812 5 3 2 10 10.1 9.8

Deep 40 14 384 4 0 2 58 11.1 13

Total 334 233 2580 16 5 7 84 8.0 7.2

Despite these excellent numbers, Rivers isn't receiving quite the same praise his predecessor received. Brees was considered something of a dark horse MVP candidate last season. Given that Rivers has improved on Brees' YPA by nearly one yard, while leading his team to a 10-2 mark, maybe Rivers should get some MVP consideration as well.

Jason Campbell

The interesting thing about Campbell's performance this season is how he has performed against the blitz. Here are his passing metrics against a blitz, and against no blitz:

Jason Campbell

Defense Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA Sacks

Blitz 33 13 214 2 3 0 0 6.5 4/29

No blitz 66 35 317 3 0 0 0 4.8 0/0

All of Campbell's interceptions and sacks have occurred against blitzing defenses, so that says the only way to get a big play against him is to bring pressure.

The flip side of that argument is that six of Campbell's 13 completions against the blitz have been for 15 or more yards, and two of those have been for 40-plus yards. One of these was the 66-yard touchdown pass to Chris Cooley near the end of the Carolina game that gave Washington the win. In contrast, Campbell has only four plays of over 15 yards when not facing a blitz. Blitzing Campbell seems to be a double-edged sword at this point.

Vince Young

Young's metrics have to be the most surprising of this entire group. What is surprising is the number of medium and deep passes Young has thrown.

Vince Young

Deep Att Comp Yds TD INT Pen P-Yds YPA

Short 136 88 688 3 2 1 1 5.1

Medium 56 26 452 3 3 1 18 8.4

Deep 47 14 337 1 1 1 36 7.9

Total 239 128 1477 7 6 3 55 6.4

Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow typically operates a short passing scheme. In 2005, Steve McNair threw only 73 medium and 49 deep passes in his 14 starts.

Young has started only nine games and has already thrown 103 medium or deep passes. McNair's receiving corps was quite banged up last season, so that accounts for part of the discrepancy, but one would not expect this many vertical passes from a rookie.

That is probably the common denominator of all of the quarterbacks in this article. The common wisdom on first-year starting signal callers is that they are apt to play it safe at first. Each of these four is proving that theory wrong with his highly aggressive play.

[musky99]

I love the reporters who can just pick Campbell apart after just 3 games. Just like the idiot Thomas Boswell from the Washington Post. I'm from New York and I thought the writers in New York were bad but these Washington Post guys have all the answers after the fact. Yes it's true Campbell made a couple of mistakes in the 2nd half but Jesus after those 2 mistakes now according to Boswell he is a project.

Give me a break he completes 1 more pass for a TD at the beginning of the 2nd half against the Falcons and he would be sitting at 6 TD's and 1 Pick through 2 and half games at that point. I guess Boswell had 2 stories to pick from at that pointL 1. If he throws that 6th TD he's the second coming of Peyton Manning and if he blows the game 2: He becomes a project.

The guy has looked damn through three games with his 5 TD's passes. 1 play against Atlanta was a mistake and he should have ate the ball and the 2nd pick was almost bound to happen with the Redskins resorting to 15 play so called no huddle offense with Atlanta having 7 guys sitting in the secondaty waiting for a bad throw.

The guy has looked solid. Not great but solid with alot of room to improve so just let him be. These writers are like hounds looking for blood. Your going to write then write professionally. He didn't lose that game the defense did. They couldn't stop anyone again when it mattered. Put it this way I rather have my offense out there in a close rather then the defense at this point. And I would also take my chances with Campbell over anyone in the division starting next year even with Romo sits to pee and the roll he is on right now. Just my opinion but I see a lot of McNabb in Campbell.

Let's also compare Campbell first 3 games started vs Manning vs McNabb. In no way am I saying he is in their league at this point but I am just countering the retarded article by Boswell where I guess he's trying to say Gibbs will be sticking around but Campbell is also a project now.

Campbell 5 TD's 3 INT's

Manning 2 TD's 8 INT's

McNabb 1 TD's 3 INT's

Lay off the kid as he is doing a darn good job and he doesn't need the idiots at the media trying to peck away at his confidence!

[SkinsNoles21]

as long as the skins dont do anything to screw this up....I think Campbell is the best shot weve had in a long long long long long time to be our franchise qb.

Anyone who says Gus Frerotte did well at the beginning too should be banned from watching football. We all knew he was nothing more than a backup playing better than he could sustain.

Although...if he doesnt bang his head on that wall...who knows!?!?!?!?!

[Drunken Master III]

He also pointed out that blitzing Campbell can be a double-edged sword. When Campbell has made mistakes defenders have had clean shots at him without even being chipped. How about that one playaction? He just finished his fake and turned around only to see the defender in his grill already. Just give this kid some time (milliseconds) and we would see those mistakes vanish.

[redskinsunshine]

as long as the skins dont do anything to screw this up....I think Campbell is the best shot weve had in a long long long long long time to be our franchise qb.

Anyone who says Gus Frerotte did well at the beginning too should be banned from watching football. We all knew he was nothing more than a backup playing better than he could sustain.

Although...if he doesnt bang his head on that wall...who knows!?!?!?!?!

I think Frerotte had a lot of trouble transitioning from being the backup boy wonder, to the starting QB with a big contract. It seemed to me that as soon as he got that big contract ($18 million?) he became distracted with buying a house in Great Falls, the local advertising/endorsement opportunities, and so on. He wasn't the same on the field after that, and then he banged his head into the wall.

Not only does Campbell have far greater potential than Frerotte, but to me Campbell's attitude and his demeanor suggest that he is very grounded, and that he is well-equipped to handle all the attention and pressure that comes with being a starting QB here in DC.

[cougarskins]

I think the Eagles will be the real test. They are suppose to be a blitzing team.

We need to throw more on 1st downs when they probably will be expecting Betts. Playcalling is critical. It needs to be less obvious what our play will be. Otherwise it will be BLITZ CITY and mistakes will be made.

[Warhead36]

All that tells me is if we can just give Campbell decent blitz protection, Campbell can light teams up.

Can't wait till Portis returns....

[Morneblade]

Nice article. Lets give the kid a chance before talking about drafting ANOTHER QB in the draft.

[Uno Boss]

I think the Eagles will be the real test. They are suppose to be a blitzing team.

We need to throw more on 1st downs when they probably will be expecting Betts. Playcalling is critical. It needs to be less obvious what our play will be. Otherwise it will be BLITZ CITY and mistakes will be made.

Blasphemy...

Thats not redskins football and the media and ES fans will not stand for it..

You must run on first down at all cost...!!!

[redman]

This article says about Campbell exactly what we'd want it to say. He's avoided mistakes when he's had time to throw, and he's made blitzing a high risk, high reward prospect for the defenses, which is exactly as it should be. Good for him.

[jtyler42]

I think the Eagles will be the real test. They are suppose to be a blitzing team.

We need to throw more on 1st downs when they probably will be expecting Betts. Playcalling is critical. It needs to be less obvious what our play will be. Otherwise it will be BLITZ CITY and mistakes will be made.

This is exactly what we need to do...Teams typically play their base vanilla defense on first down, i.e: Cover 2 zone or Cover 2 man D...when you get into 2nd and 3rd and long situations is when teams will typically let loose w/the blitz...

[Clark84]

I don't see where the article was running down Jason. It was an analysis of him vs. the blitz. I think it is a pretty interesting statistic. Let's just hope we can pickup the blitz better in the future.

[Bang]

I didn't see them running him down either.

Basically what i got out of it is

Blitz Jason Campbell at your own risk. You might get him, but he just as easily might light you up.

Considering one of his INTs was not much more than a glorified fumble, I'm not too worried. Campbell is cool under fire for the most part, and he'll only get better.

~Bang

[Tarhog]

Thats about as fair an assessment of JC as you're going to find. Anyone who has a problem with that rather positive assessment is simply a homer.

[bleedburgundyandgold]

I love the reporters who can just pick Campbell apart after just 3 games. Just like the idiot Thomas Boswell from the Washington Post. I'm from New York and I thought the writers in New York were bad but these Washington Post guys have all the answers after the fact. Yes it's true Campbell made a couple of mistakes in the 2nd half but Jesus after those 2 mistakes now according to Boswell he is a project.

Give me a break he completes 1 more pass for a TD at the beginning of the 2nd half against the Falcons and he would be sitting at 6 TD's and 1 Pick through 2 and half games at that point. I guess Boswell had 2 stories to pick from at that pointL 1. If he throws that 6th TD he's the second coming of Peyton Manning and if he blows the game 2: He becomes a project.

The guy has looked damn through three games with his 5 TD's passes. 1 play against Atlanta was a mistake and he should have ate the ball and the 2nd pick was almost bound to happen with the Redskins resorting to 15 play so called no huddle offense with Atlanta having 7 guys sitting in the secondaty waiting for a bad throw.

The guy has looked solid. Not great but solid with alot of room to improve so just let him be. These writers are like hounds looking for blood. Your going to write then write professionally. He didn't lose that game the defense did. They couldn't stop anyone again when it mattered. Put it this way I rather have my offense out there in a close rather then the defense at this point. And I would also take my chances with Campbell over anyone in the division starting next year even with Romo sits to pee and the roll he is on right now. Just my opinion but I see a lot of McNabb in Campbell.

Let's also compare Campbell first 3 games started vs Manning vs McNabb. In no way am I saying he is in their league at this point but I am just countering the retarded article by Boswell where I guess he's trying to say Gibbs will be sticking around but Campbell is also a project now.

Campbell 5 TD's 3 INT's

Manning 2 TD's 8 INT's

McNabb 1 TD's 3 INT's

Lay off the kid as he is doing a darn good job and he doesn't need the idiots at the media trying to peck away at his confidence!

whoa there brother. boswell is one of the best columnists in the nation. he's not being hard on campbell at all. he's just pointing out that he is essentially a rookie and all rookie qb's struggle at times. i think he's actually been very supportive of campbell.

if you think the media, and the fans, arent going to point out the mistakes campbell makes, you are crazy. he points them out himself, learns from them and moves on.

he's a highly paid pro not a high school kid. his confidence isnt going to abandon him just because someone points out that he heaved up a dumb ball against atlanta and gave up that bad int. the kids got a huge amount of confidence in himself and amazing poise. im not worried about him taking a few knocks in the papers. (even though he hasnt really taken any yet).