Zach has 142 attempts with 14 throwaways, which would give him 10.14 attempts per throwaway (Att/TA). Just to compare, Cousins (13.2 Att/TA), Derek Carr (13.16 Att/TA), Patrick Mahomes (14.61 Att/TA), Matt Ryan (16.5 Att/TA), Tom Brady (22.67 Att/TA). So sure, Zach's got the lowest Att/TA than anyone in front of him but is that 3-4 attempt per throwaway difference justification for him being 11.4%, 8%, and 12% worse in completion percentage than those 3? IMO no. Zach is not a statistical outlier in terms of throwaways. Highest in the league, sure and if his Att/TA was like 5, or some ridiculous figure, you might have a case that his throwaways are severely undermining his completion %.
Agreed. Was it Parcells who would coach Simms out of bad habits by standing right next to him in the pocket and screaming at him to throw the ball or whatever? Zach needs someone like that in his ear, breaking those bad habits on the field. Considering his quickness, he can be a real threat moving around IN the pocket. He’d also have a better shot at seeing his receivers and noticing running lanes should he want to take off.
While I agree with you the Jets team is really talented I disagree the Jets will be making a decision on Zach after this year. If you draft A QB high 1st round you commit to developing him for at least 3 years if not 4. He will get this year and next to develop and likely a 4th year.
There was a Fitzpatrick article where Fitz said he has one big red flag about Zach and is that his mental state was so fragile that he had to bring in John Beck last year to help him. I ma not saying that is true but addressing his mental issues in not panicking, not relaxing, getting too hyped and getting frustrated with throwaways is certainly a valid issue. the mental issue of being able to relax and just play vs panicking and pressing is what differentiates the good and bad Zach. I think only he can help himself on this issue. Maybe some counseling and mediation might be a good idea as well. Just learning how to relax and be calm would help him a great deal.
Again, stats are one measure of evaluating how someone is doing, but they are not the only measure, perhaps not even the most important measure. As always, stats are a past measure used to attempt to try and predict future results. Within limits they can do that, but that also depends on who is interpreting them, and what their end purpose is. As Twain said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damnable lies, and statistics". In the case of Zach, the only interpretation that matters is Douglas, Saleh & the CS. And they aren't simply relying on numbers to tell them how to evaluate him. They're taking into account other non-measurables, like how the team responds to him, how well he takes coaching, is he improving in the their estimation, will they be better off with someone else, is there someone else reasonably available if the answer to that previous question is yes? All this discussion about his stats is simply crawling into the weeds and not seeing the big picture.
If he looks like how he did the last 3 games, for the next 9, there will be competition at the QB spot going into camp. Fitzpatrick is a fucking idiot. They brought in Beck mid season because they didn’t have a QB coach after Knapp passed away. Beck is the guy that made the most sense.
Buffalo's defense is 6th in opponent passing yards per attempt, 5th in opponent passing touchdowns per game, and 9th in opponent passing yards per game. All while being middle of the pack in opponent passing attempts per game (because Buffalo often plays with a lead so their opponent has to pass). Buffalo's pass defense is very good. Regarding the throwaways - we can't just look at them as non-events for Wilson. Part of what leads to throwaways is not being able to find open receivers quickly enough, and we've had receivers open all season. Throwaways aren't something we can just say are working against Zach, because a certain % of them are basically his fault anyway.
They brought in Matt Cavanaugh after Greg Knapp died. Not sure if Beck was connected to it Nonetheless, I don't buy Fitz's premise. Unless I'm missing something, sounds like a lot of speculation
This only applies when the stats don't match the eye test. That's when it's time to dive in further to see what's causing the discrepancy. With Zach we've all seen him hold the ball too long, miss open receivers, not see open receivers, flee the pocket too soon, etc. The stats all back up what we've seen. All that means is that the stats are highly likely to be legitimate. Not sure how you're agreeing with people who take stats from single quarters as gospel and then disagree with people who are giving stats from the sample size of the entire season. The larger sample size stats are much more relevant because outlier games/quarters are averaged out. Context is largely automatically taken care of in a larger sample size.
Ok so as far as “stats needing context” is concerned, can we all agree that over a large sample size including a full season and multiple seasons that a QB that throws a fair amount of touchdowns, doesn’t turn the ball over and completes at 64%ish+ is playing well enough to be considered a starting NFL QB? The missing element here is that he’s not even passing the eye test. He’s not missing throws by a little. He’s airmailing balls ten yards over receivers heads and breaking the pocket versus no pressure.
also, one of tannehills greatest strengths is his athleticism. zach isnt close to him in that department
Maybe they activate Bam Knight too...Might as well go back to what was working for us instead of Air LeFleur
Also - if we want to continue to use the context thing, Wilson throws the ball away at such an unbelievably high rate because he breaks the pocket when there’s no pressure, runs himself to the sideline cutting the field in half and wings the ball out of bounds. Sometimes the function of throwing the ball away means it was a bad QB play or they did a bad job recognizing the pressure.
I'm not taking any stats as "gospel". Just because I agree with some posts that include stats in an effort to counter other stats doesn't mean I think they're "gospel". They're more in the vein of offering a different interpretation. In any case, however any of us use the stats is neither here nor there as far as how Douglas and Saleh use them. The other problem I have with relying on stats to evaluate Zach is that they're gathered from a relatively small sample size, and that's also been affected by other factors outside Zach's control. And this is also true for all the younger QBs whether they've succeeded or not - Burrow was an immediate HOF inductee after Year 1, now in Year 3 maybe not so much as an example. Another issue is that as i mentioned before, stats are a measure of the past used to attempt to predict the future. What I didn't mention then is that the "future" rarely happens the way the present is. For the past 5-6 years the best teams - the team challenging for the SB - have relied heavily on passing attacks, relying on a great QB, but when the Bucs beat the Chiefs a change began happening - a turn back towards relying on a stout defense and an offense that doesn't make mistakes. Frankly, I love the high flying offenses and don't like teams that rely on defense and "boring" offense, but it's far easier to construct a winning team that way because there just aren't that many great QBs available. Whether Zach can become a great QB then as measured by stats like Comp %, TDs, etc. becomes less important than whether he can run an offense with few mistakes. Up until last week we saw how this could work. The point is that using stats to determine if Zach can be the next Mahomes or Allen or Burrow become almost moot if the Jets aren't looking at him to be that type of QB. IMO they're looking for a new and improved version of Sanchez for lack of a better comparison that comes to mind: they want him to be able to manage the game and not put the team in the hole with mistakes, but also be capable of putting the team on his back from time to time if necessary. So to compare the failure and success against Pittsburgh under Sanchez and Zach, when the defense faltered with Sanchez he couldn't bring them back, but Zach was able to. All this said, Zach is not a finished product, and he's still making mistakes, but that's what all young QBs do. Some teams are better than others in helping their young QB grow through them than others. We'll see if the current Jets team and Zach can do the same.
Sometimes. You - and others - make these statements as though this is what Zach does ALL the time, when in fact he doesn't, when in fact there are more times that he completes passes, and even some "big boy" passes that a lot of other QB struggle with. And the further implication you and others make is that this is Zach's ceiling, that this is as good as he'll ever be. IDK how anyone can make that call at this point.
This is true, but also reinforces the point that stats by themselves don't tell us much. Stats never predicted Mahomes, or R. Wilson, or Rodgers, or Favre, or Prescott, or Montana, or Kurt Warner, or many of the great QBs, or what timetable they would "arrive". There are a lot of other aspects, key aspects. that are hard or maybe impossible, to measure, but people are making a decision about Zach based on stats which may or may not be measuring the right things in the right way.
I don't think they make a decision on him this offseason but if doesn't improve, he can't go into 2023 as the unquestioned starter.
I absolutely agree with you here. More importantly, I felt like it changed Zach's mental state and caused him to press more. He actually played ok up until that pick IMO. His stats right before the pick were 10-17 152 yards 1 TD. Felt like that pick just changed everything with him. Including the first pick, he finished 10-24 203 yards 1 TD 3 INTs.
He almost never steps up into the pocket. If he stepped up in the pocket, he’d have so many easy 5-10 yard chain mover runs. The offense would be so much better.
