ESPN - Redskins QB thoughts: Kirk Cousins and more

[SpacePenguin]

ncr, nobody cares what you think. Seriously, you're like a boring broken record that's pretty much always wrong.

You're wrong. I care. He has an an agenda, but so do around 90% of ES posters. At least his posts consist of more than gut feelings or blind worship. You can argue his methodology, for sure, but I don't see posts like this quoted one from you as adding anything more substantive than his usually do.

*shrugs*

[mistertim]

You're wrong. I care. He has an an agenda, but so do around 90% of ES posters. At least his posts consist of more than gut feelings or blind worship. You can argue his methodology, for sure, but I don't see posts like this quoted one from you as adding anything more substantive than his usually do.

*shrugs*

Has he ever been right about anything? 

[SpacePenguin]

Has he ever been right about anything?

Probably. Everyone is right every now and then. That's not really the point though. This forum would be a ghost town if being right was a prerequisite for posting one's opinion.

[MartinC]

While I appreciate the amount of time it probably took to put that statline together, I'm not really sure what it tells us. QB rating is not a very good statistic to use when evaluating the difference between rg3 and cousins,

 

I tend to agree that QB rating is not a great way to compare QBs generally as there are many variables outsde of just the QBs perfromance which impact that rating. But when comparing QBs on the same team in the same season its indicative. You need to add context though and watch the film to confirm what you think that stats are telling you of course.

 

What those stats suggest to me is that the low rating for both Cousins and RGIII when the pass takes longer than 2.6 is indicative of QBs who struggle when they have to come off their first read. McCoy rates much better in that regard.

 

On the 3rd down and second half issues with Cousins its not small sample size, you see the same picture in 2013. As for 3rd down stats not being important - its the most important down in football on either side of the ball. The drop off on 3rd down is also not something all QBs are subject to the way you see it in Cousins numbers. Both McCoy and Griffin put up significantly better numbers on 3rd and passing downs than Cousins.

 

Cousins did move the ball - on 1st and 2nd downs with big plays. But to move it consistently when it really matters - on 3rd downs and in the second half when defenses are playing pass he has to imnprove a LOT or he will be a career backup. There are reasons he was benched for Colt McCoy and its not just that he was turning the ball over though that was clearly a big part of it.

Probably. Everyone is right every now and then. That's not really the point though. This forum would be a ghost town if being right was a prerequisite for posting one's opinion.

 

I think its important for all posters to realise (and this includes me as much or more than any) we are just fans posting on an internet message board. All of us are entitled to our opinion and to post that opinion - but its just an opinion. I think too many posters confuse opinion for fact.

[skins island connection]

 Give em both a full time QB coach and lets see what happens.

 

 In defense of Cousins, IMO, in the back of his head he knew once Griffin was healthy he would be sitting down and Griffin would step in. With the limited amount of constant playing time, which is 5+ games back to back, I can see where it would be difficult to pick up on the flow of the offense. Has he had a chance to actually and honestly take over the permanent starting position? I don't think so, and I think he knew as well his time would be limited. Once the slump started, it was more of a mental battle than physical.

 

On Griffins defense, he's had alot of injuries, and alot of pressure to perform. 2012 was more of a combination of himself, Morris, and defenses not knowing how to defend the RO; once defenses caught up, his game dropped off too.

 

But bottom line, a full time QB coach is desperately needed, especially with these 2 guys. Both have alot to offer, and IMO both are more than capable of leading this team, provided they get the coaching and guidance they need. Cousins seems to be the one who needs the lesser amount, but as everyone has said, Griffin's ceiling is higher. Question is, can he get there?  Is it worth getting rid of one or the other to appease the other? NO. No way.

[darrelgreenie]

While I appreciate the amount of time it probably took to put that statline together, I'm not really sure what it tells us. QB rating is not a very good statistic to use when evaluating the difference between rg3 and cousins, as rg3 led the league in failed completions whereas cousins had the 4th fewest. If we keep that in mind, it would tell us that Cousins generally makes extremely sound decisions that move the offense forward in meaningful ways. Which is more or less what the majority of fans say when they compare cousins to rg3 - when cousins is in, our offense moves the ball, whereas with rg3 we're dink and dunk at best but more often than not we just can't move it period. 

No worries it didn't take long at all. PFF provides numerous QB metrics. You don't have to focus on the QB ratings there essentially the same for Kirk and Griff with Griffs being slightly higher..but lets not even discuss QB rating I don't think its the meaningful aspect of those stats.

 

What I found interesting is that Kirk throws 60% of his passes in 2.5s or less. I would posit its because (a.) he knows the offense/makes better pre-snaps reads (b.) he implicitly sticks throws to the first with greater trust and anticipation. I give Kirk credit in this area; its one of the benefits from playing in rhythm drop back offense in college and being relatively physically limited to the point where he is scheme reliant.  But for me this gap is easy to close because it comes down to knowledge and trust in the offense.

 

You mention 'failed passes' but even the creator of the failed passes metric acknowledges that calling a 4 yard pass on 1st and 10 a "failure" is a dubious proposition in football circles. However 3rd downs I think we can both agree is meaningful?

 

Kirk--- 33.3% failure rate on 3rd/4th down which accounted for 41.7% of his failures

Rob---45.5% failure rate on 3rd/4th down which accounted for 30.6% of his failures

Colt wasn't listed but his overall failure rate was about the same as Rob:

 

So Kirk has a lower failure rate of 3rd downs BUT his DVOA on those passes is 4th worst. So while Kirk may have fewer 3rd down failures when he fails its bad....critical interceptions or pick 6.....but you didn't need me to tell you that you saw the games too. This is disconcerting for 2 reasons (a.) Cousins  knows the offense better and should know to avoid these mistakes (b.) Kirk being more experienced as rhythm drop back passer or "pocket passer" he should again know better how to avoid these back breaking negatives plays.

[darrelgreenie]

I missed your response to the 2.6s or more stats? What's your take on those?

 

And you never answered about where Russell Wilson fits in your volume based assessments?

[Bishop Hammer]

RG3's last 14 games:

240/370 64.9 comp% 2728 yds 11 TDs 9 ints 11 fumbles

Cousins last (only) 14 games:

240/407 59 comp% 3030 yds 18 TDs 19 ints 6 fumbles

It's not like you can tell from looking at these numbers which has the vastly superior skill set and the greater potential...

Bingo. Neither QB has solidified their status as the main guy. Both have had the same glaring holes since day one (Cousins INTs and Griffin to numerous to get into) which should have been shrunken by now.

Jon Gruden put it best; "potential means you don't have it yet."

[ncr2h]

Your interpretation of the 2.6+ seconds stats hinges on the assumption that the QBs are going through their reads at similar rates. At 2.6 seconds, Cousins might be on his 3rd or 4th read, whereas Griffin is either still on his first read or is finally getting around to the read that Cousins would have made presnap. We don't really know these things so it's not really that useful imo. And you still run into the problem of QB rating, which rg3 pads by taking lots of sacks, fumbling at a league leading rate (both of which are drive killing plays that don't show up in QB rating), or making a pass that doesn't get meaningful yardage (which shows up as a positive play in his QB rating, and he led the league in this statistic whereas cousins was near the bottom). So I'm not really sure how meaningful the 2.6+ stats are.

As for Russell Wilson, to my knowledge (I'm away on vacation right now and don't have my spreadsheets handy nor a computer to do meaningful research), he has never in his career thrown 37+ passes in a game, which would give him an "incomplete" grade from a volume standpoint rather than the fail that rg3 has. Putting the stats to the side, I see Russell as a solid starting QB but not someone who is going to be anywhere near worth the contract he will get due to his star status. In salary cap based leagues, the best way to win is to have the cumulative value of your players exceed the amount you are paying by the largest amount - in other words, the team that is underpaying it's players by the largest amount would generally be expected to win the most games. In a salary cap driven league, having a solid NFL starting QB (generally worth $12-15m as a rough guesstimate) playing on a 3rd round draft pick salary nets your team a lot of value. That's all about to disappear over the next 2 or 3 years as Wilson, Sherman, and whomever else they need to resign enter the meat of their 2nd contracts. In my opinion, Russell Wilson isn't a bad player but will have a contract that will torpedo (or at least hinder significantly) his team's chances of winning it all again - similar to Joe flacco. Now, those are 2 excellent front offices so maybe they can overcome those albatross contracts, but it will not be easy.

I haven't been following the off-season news so forgive me if Wilson resigned at a super reasonable rate.

[ncr2h]

Martinc just because 2 QBs are on the same team in the same year does not validate QB rating (unless you're referring to ESPN QB rating) as a reasonable stat to compare them on. QB rating factors in completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage. While that may appear to be fair and balanced at initial glance, remember that it completely ignores basic box score stats like sacks allowed and fumbles lost, both of which are under a QBs control to a very significant extent (as I will demonstrate below), as well as advanced stats such as failed completions and the like that darrellgreenie and I were discussing (I. E. Some measure of the quality of the QBs completions).

Why is this relevant? Rg3's ineffectiveness is generally confined to (a) taking an insane number of sacks, and ( fumbling at a league leading rate. Neither of these stats are factored into QB rating,and therefore his QB rating generally overstates the quality of his play (and this is before we look at quality of completions, which he was not good at this year either). Cousins, on the other hand, is outstanding at avoiding sacks (and therefore also fumbles at a lower rate than rg3, as fewer QB sacks means fewer fumbles), and this is not factored into his QB rating, which means that Cousins QB rating understates his performance (before adjusting for quality of passes).

QBs do have significant control over sacks allowed. In fact, I firmly believe that the greater portion of the blame for a sack is with the QB than with the o line. Observe that rg3 was on pace for 82 sacks allowed in 2014 behind the exact same o line for which cousins posted one of the lowest sack rates in redskins history (if cousins had started all 16 games and maintained his sack rate, I believe he would have had the 3rd lowest sack rate by a redskins day 1 starter since Rypien in 92). And cousins faced 2 defenses ranked in the top 3 in sacks, so if anything his sack rate was overstated. How is this possible? My theory is that there is a baseline sack rate that is going to happen regardless of whether you've got Peyton Manning or John Beck behind center. The remaining sack rate is the fault of the QB. In the case of Griffin and cousins, let's say that griffin's sack rate was 10% and cousins was 3% (ballpark figures - don't have my stars handy). I would propose that there is some baseline sack rate that the Redskins line was going to give up regardless, and the rest is attributable to the QB. So just as an example, let's say the Redskins line has a baseline sack rate of 2%. Then cousins would be responsible for adding an additional 1% and Griffin added an additional 8%.

Some people have gone for the simplistic explanation of, "Griffin took a lot of sacks, but Cousins'low sack numbers were due to him just throwing the ball up in the air to avoid sacks." That can't be true because Cousins went 2 entire games without throwing a pick (one against the sack-happy Jaguars defense, the other against the vaunted Seattle defense - side note, these were the only two turnover free games by redskins QBs in 2014). If he were just chucking the ball up in the air to avoid sacks, how come the ints are basically confined to 2 games? You might argue that Cousins WAS chucking it up there but only NYG and Arizona knew how to take advantage of it, which would make sense if his only turnover free game were Jacksonville. But Seattle couldn't figure out how to take advantage? They're way better than NYG. Second, even in the 2 games where he threw all those picks, the picks weren't spread throughout, as you might expect if he were chucking it up there all the time to avoid sacks. They were concentrated in short bursts during the second half of games, just as the games appeared to be out of reach. Desperation seems like a more logical conclusion.

As for the nonsense about 3rd down being the most important down in football, rah rah rah... Why is one down any more important than another down? If cousins can drop 34 on the Eagles relying solely on 1st and 2nd down passing, why is that any less valuable the if he had done it on 3rd down. The goal of the game is to move the ball and put points on the board - which Cousins did and Griffin/Mccoy struggled to do. Saying one down is more valuable than any other down doesn't make sense to me and strikes me as the sort of neanderthal thinking that holds back the growth of football advanced stats, which imo are lagging way behind baseball and basketball. It's the same sort of neanderthal nonsense that had Jay Gruden praising Griffin's Eagles victory in 2014 and strongly implying that it was more impressive than Cousins' Eagles loss, which imo was one of the most impressive displays of passing by a redskins QB that I've seen since I started following the team in 2003.

[MartinC]

I have no argument with you on the sacks issue. RGIII takes too many and that has to change if he is going to develop into an effective long term starting QB.

 

Some reading around why 3rd down is so important. Bottom line there is a very strong correlation between 3rd down conversion percentage and points scored. Advanced stats really do help answer SOME questions.

 

http://www.seldomusedreserve.com/?p=5783

[Wildbunny]

3rd down ratio is important because that's this down that will tell if you can go on or not.

2nd and 3rd are here to make up for your inability on 1st and 2nd down.

Failing on 3rd and you're punting. Means your drive is over.

You don't have any try left. Make it happen or leave it to the opponent.

[ncr2h]

I'm not sure I buy the argument that 3rd down has increased importance over 1st and 2nd. The article doesn't seem to address that bad offenses tend to be bad on not only 3rd down, but also 1st and 2nd downs. Looking at 3rd downs in isolation, you would expect the good teams to generally have better 3rd down percentages and the bad teams to have worse percentages, just like you would expect if you looked at 1st down in isolation or 2nd down in isolation.

Stepping back for a second, think of it this way - why would we say that the offense that scored 30 points, totaled 500 yards, and did all of this on 1st and 2nd down exclusively is any worse than the offense that put up the same stats but on 3rd downs exclusively?

[TSO]

I agree with your general sentiment, ncr2h, but I believe the disconnect here is with the focus.

If you're talking about an offense in general, I think you're right. There is technically nothing that should make 3rd down more important than the other downs previous to it. If you can move the ball and/or score consistently it simply doesn't matter which downs you're doing it on. Outside of emotional intangibles, 3rd down is no different than 2nd or 1st down.

It's like the last hole in golf. That hole is not a special one. It doesn't count for more or less. But it can be incredibly intense based on what you've done previous to it. It can also be a relaxed, easy finish to a course well-played.

Now, some might argue that emotional aspect of it is not something you should take out... that that's what makes it a "different" down. And I think that's valid... but, for the sake of argument, let's take the intangible nature of emotions out of this and stick with the technical aspect of it being no different in terms of overall offense.

Still, for the QB position in particular, 3rd down often signifies a passing play and, thus, the success of an offense on 3rd down is heavily based on the QBs play. I'd assume that's where the correlation between 3rd down success rate and points scored occurs. I'm willing to bet that a team with a high 3rd down success rate correlating with a lot of points scored also happens to have an elite QB.

There are, of course, exceptions like with anything. And if an offense or QB is doing so well on 1st and 2nd down that he rarely gets the team into 3rd downs, then who cares... but that's a statistical anomaly. Teams get into third downs consistently throughout a game, and I doubt many teams stray from the average.

I could be wrong there, of course. It'd be interesting to see the numbers on that.

But if 3rd downs are accepted as passing downs (which they generally are nowadays) then, yes, you'd have to consider it a more significant down for a QB (again, not for an offense) than the other ones.

I will say that I agree with you that Kirk's game against the Eagles was far more of an impressive display of QB play than Griffin's game against them. Not even close to me. That was easily one of the best Redskin performances for passing the ball I've ever seen. The spots he was putting the ball in at times were just ridiculous. People should go back and look at that game to remind themselves.

I'm with Martin, however, in that Kirk's mental issues seem insurmountable at this point. That was really hard for me to watch unfold this past season, since I really thought we had something special in Kirk. I just got the sense that the pressure was too much for him. But, who knows how things will go from here on out.

[MartinC]

 

I'm not sure I buy the argument that 3rd down has increased importance over 1st and 2nd. The article doesn't seem to address that bad offenses tend to be bad on not only 3rd down, but also 1st and 2nd downs. Looking at 3rd downs in isolation, you would expect the good teams to generally have better 3rd down percentages and the bad teams to have worse percentages, just like you would expect if you looked at 1st down in isolation or 2nd down in isolation.

 

It may seem counter intuitive but study after study has found that there is much higher correlation between success on 3rd down and points scored than 1st and 2nd down. Go take a look - a simple google search will find you several.

 

In any case my point in this thread was more specific I was not taking about offenses as a whole - I was explaining the evidence I have used to come to my opinion about Kirk Cousins. 3rd and 4 plus IS a passing down and as thesubmittedone says the weight then falls on the QB. Same deal in second halves when in pass first situations.

 

My opinion is that Kirk is a career backup based on what he has shown so far. I really hope he proves me wrong and solves our QB problem.