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Inside The Data: What Kind Of QB Is Jalen Hurts When He Attempts More Passes? · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hello, welcome back to Inside the Data. On Inside the Birds,
• 0:12
  I'm Jeff Motion. Of course, when we're talking about data
• 0:15
  and analytics and metrics, that means we got our man,
• 0:18
  Sam Finkel, or analytics expert. Please continue to submit your
• 0:21
  questions inside the Birds at gmail dot com, direct them
• 0:25
  to Sam, and be as analytically specific as possible. And
• 0:28
  the question says, this season, many expect Barkley, save one
• 0:32
  barc Leay, to regress and the young defense to fall
• 0:34
  short of last year's number one ranking. I'm not sure
• 0:37
  if everybody expects that. I don't mean I think there's
• 0:39
  some natural regard, like, yes, it's hard to have the
• 0:42
  greatest season ever and then go again and have the
• 0:46
  greatest season ever. I understand the point, but I don't
• 0:49
  think that people are expecting this team to just completely collapse.
• 0:52
  But the question says for the team to succeed, it
• 0:54
  will likely come down to Jill and Hurts and the
• 0:57
  offense carrying the load. I'm interested in tracking Hurts to
• 0:59
  develop as a passer. Beyond the obvious stats like passing
• 1:04
  yards and touchdowns, are there more telling metrics that indicate
• 1:08
  indicate growth, particularly ones that showed improvement in similar quarterbacks
• 1:14
  like Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, or Cam Newton during their
• 1:17
  transition to more effective passers. I chuckle little because Jason Levant,
• 1:23
  who you know, is part of our inside the Birds family.
• 1:26
  He got to play with Cam Newton when he went
• 1:28
  over to Carolina, and I think he would challenge the
• 1:31
  question of saying Cam Newton's was really all that much
• 1:34
  more improved as an efficient passer. But nonetheless, I know
• 1:38
  he did win an MVP one year, and he did
• 1:40
  he did have things rolling that year they went to
• 1:42
  the Super Bowl. But let's let's talk about the question itself. Sam,
• 1:47
  give me a yes, no or maybe so on are
• 1:51
  there metrics that can indicate growth beyond the obvious of
• 1:55
  passing yards and touchdowns?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Listen, Okay, this question is a very tough one. First off,
• 2:02
  there are no NFL next Gen stats when Cam Newton
• 2:04
  was playing, or at least when he went on the
• 2:07
  MVP run, So I had to take Cam Newton just
• 2:09
  out of this equation. I'll just say that at the beginning,
• 2:12
  I would have loved to see his stats from the
• 2:14
  twenty fourteen to twenty fifteen season. I just think that'd
• 2:16
  be awesome to see the advanced metrics, let's be clear,
• 2:19
  because they obviously were the basic statistics there. So I
• 2:23
  attempted to answer this question in two ways. Right, So
• 2:26
  I attempted to answer it head on by looking at
• 2:28
  my two favorite advanced metrics for quarterbacks, which is the
• 2:31
  ones we talked about last week, which was the completion
• 2:34
  percentage over expectation and the expected points added per dropback.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: I love those two stats, and so I looked at
• 2:43
  the three guys he suggested besides Cam Newton and including Hurts.
• 2:48
  In the beginning of this, but as we discussed this question,
• 2:52
  we kind of came up with this really cool research
• 2:54
  project that honestly, I feel like you should describe because
• 2:58
  I think it was really a cool idea and you
• 3:01
  came up with it and I ran with it, and
• 3:03
  it was such a fun concept.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what I wanted to do was it's tough,
• 3:10
  because you're right, it's so tough to evaluate this. We
• 3:14
  weren't trying to take any credit away from the Eagles
• 3:16
  offense being run oriented, but the spirit of the question
• 3:20
  is passing metrics that would show And so I felt like,
• 3:23
  what if we took games right where where Jalen Hurts
• 3:28
  had to throw the ball more so around the league
• 3:31
  average than last year, when he was throwing it at
• 3:33
  well below the league average. And no, and part of
• 3:38
  me knew some of that was a little bit unfair
• 3:41
  because they run the ball the way for two reasons,
• 3:45
  One because they have Saquon Barkley and they can in
• 3:47
  that offensive line. And two And I think I'm it's
• 3:50
  fair to say this. You know, in the past, going
• 3:53
  into last year, there were times where they threw the
• 3:55
  ball more and there were more turnovers. Now I think
• 3:59
  Jail it's actually improved his ability to secure the ball
• 4:03
  because he took a shitload of sacks last year, more
• 4:06
  than he ever has and one of the highest sack
• 4:08
  taking percentages in the league. And he never almost never fumbled,
• 4:12
  which is different than an interception. I get it, but
• 4:14
  I don't know. The point was. We wanted to find
• 4:17
  times and situations where he did have to throw the
• 4:20
  ball similarly to other quarterbacks who throw the ball around
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  or hire the league average, and see what the data showed.
• 4:27
  Is that fair?
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  Speaker 2: That's fair? This was a really fun research product. It's
• 4:31
  definitely we kind of created our own advanced stats. You
• 4:34
  and I. That's kind of what happened.
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  Speaker 1: I thought of the concept you created the stats. I
• 4:40
  don't want to take any credit for that.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody comes up with, you know, ideas come for both
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  of us, and I definitely think you deserve credit for
• 4:48
  this one because it was a really cool idea.
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad I sent you to dig it into the crates.
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  So I'm going to bring up some of the first
• 4:55
  charts that we showed and then let you get right
• 4:58
  into it. One second. Okay, So here are three charts,
• 5:11
  grafts tables. However you want to describe them, and you
• 5:14
  go ahead and describe what we're all looking at.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's kind of ignore the third chart just
• 5:19
  for a second, because I think that relates more to
• 5:22
  the second part of the question. But at least are
• 5:25
  analysis of this question. The first two are pretty good.
• 5:29
  So first off, let me just give a reminder of
• 5:32
  what completion percentage over expectation and expected points added per
• 5:37
  drop back actually means. Right, So, completion percentage over expectation
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  is the difference between quarterbacks actual completion percentage and expected
• 5:45
  completion for level, accounting for difficulty of throw each basically
• 5:50
  each time, and expected points added per drop back is
• 5:54
  the average points added by a quarterback per drop back.
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  It's just you know, how much are they actually contributing
• 6:00
  to points based on every dropback that they take?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Right, and again real to get real into the weeds
• 6:07
  on that. It's like a throw that has enough yardage
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  on it to put a team in either a fueld
• 6:14
  goal or a touchdown position or actually become one.
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  Speaker 2: Right precisely, Yes, it's it's very nuanced, but that is
• 6:21
  the best way to look at it.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, this is all we got after you know, there's
• 6:24
  passing yards of completion percent. We need to find nuance
• 6:27
  at this point.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And that's kind of what the question asked, right
• 6:30
  They wanted the nuance they did, and so what I
• 6:33
  did was I just wanted to look at the changes
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  from you know, when these quarterbacks took a leap. You know,
• 6:38
  it may not be fair to look at Lamar Jackson
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  from twenty eighteen when he was a rookie to twenty nineteen,
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  but he's been pretty consistent after that twenty nineteen year.
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  But that's the year I chose, and Allen made a
• 6:49
  huge jump from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty. And again,
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  it's probably not fair to look at Hurts from last
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  year to this year, because I feel like he's also
• 6:55
  been pretty consistent. But we're just gonna we're gonna look
• 6:58
  at that from this framework because that's what I chose
• 7:00
  to do. So if you look at it, all these
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  quarterbacks made it jump, right. So if you look at
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  the completion percentage over expectation, Jackson went up five point
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  twenty four, Allen went up eight point three, Hurts went
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  up two point five.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, Jackson and Allen certainly made jumps, right, because
• 7:21
  I think that's when they did. And if you look
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  at their ePaper draft back, Jackson was plus zero point
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  three four and no, this is not a typo. Allen
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  was plus twenty four point oh five.
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  Speaker 1: That is that's staggering, that's amazing.
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  Speaker 2: And you know what the funniest part is, you look
• 7:38
  at that second chart. If you look at the the
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  bottom middle column, you see twenty nineteen was minus twenty three.
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  Speaker 1: Night, oh my god. So he literally went from one
• 7:49
  end of the spectrum to the other. He was costing
• 7:51
  his team points because the turnovers right, turnover exactly it
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  and then all of a sudden, putting his team in
• 7:57
  great scoring positions. That's great stuff.
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  Speaker 2: And I wouldn't even say it's that great scoring positions.
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  He was zero point twenty five, right, and that's that
• 8:03
  is good. But going from costing them twenty three points
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  to zero point twenty five is a twenty four point jump.
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  Speaker 1: That's a good point. The number in itself point two
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  five isn't high. It's just the improvement from minus twenty
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  three point that made it a plus twenty four drop.
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  You're right, he stopped taking massive amounts of points away
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  and started just putting good points on the board. That's good.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And then you see Hurts at plus point one
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  pin one, right, So look, all these two quarterbacks made
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  tremendous jumps. I don't know if I would say Jalen
• 8:35
  made tremendous jumps, right, I think. But that's not to
• 8:39
  say he's been doing bad. I just think he did
• 8:42
  well last year as well. Yes, that's that's the only
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  point I would make with that part of the argument.
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  Speaker 1: And you can and as we'll see in the seconds,
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  I don't want to jump the gun on you, but
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  obviously he's actually box or chart shows that in twenty
• 8:56
  twenty three. It's not like he was a minus twenty
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  three three point eight, like like Allen was with his
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  EPA or CPOE completion percentage over expected it was minus
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  four point one, which showed that he struggled in twenty
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  twenty three when he had I'm meant to ask you,
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  by the way, as we get into this advanced date,
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  is this again only factoring in games where he threw
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  around the league average or is this just.
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  Speaker 2: All this is everything right?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Here?
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  Speaker 2: Is everything?
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  Speaker 1: Okay? Okay? So it showed in twenty twenty three, which
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  we knew he struggled a bit in those departments, Yeah,
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  but not so much that he needed to bridge a
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  minus twenty three point eight gap like like Josh Allen.
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  Speaker 2: Did exactly and what yeah, exactly. And what's interesting is
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  he led the league in EPA per play eighty per
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  drop back in twenty twenty four, so a pretty dramatic shift.
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  Speaker 1: So right, all right, good stuff. So he led the
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  expected points out per play in twenty twenty four, so
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  which shows you, again, limited throws, but I think that
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  really illustrates his ability to connec downfield a lot if
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  a lot of his throws are directly leading to plays
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  that will result in points or did result in points.
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  It shows you that he puts them. When he puts
• 10:08
  the ball in the air, he's accurate with it and
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  it usually is an explosive play. Is that kind of
• 10:14
  like a fair summation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely a fair summation for sure. And now
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  that I'm thinking about it, it might have been the I
• 10:21
  actually think it was the CPOE that he led the league,
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  and I don't I think that's a mistype, Okay, because
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  I'm looking at it. It was the six point six number,
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  which is the CPOE. That's just a mistype. Ignore that.
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  So his difficulty of throws, he was making throws that
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  are extremely difficult at a very high percentage higher than
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  expected over the league.
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  Speaker 1: It does seem he compares favorably in from twenty twenty
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  three to two thousand to last year to Lamar Jackson
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  a little bit more because Lamar in twenty eighteen minus
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  five zero four completion percentage over expectation and then twenty
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  nineteen point two, so he goes from negative to positive
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  like Hurts went from minus four point one to six
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  point six last year, and then in EPA per play
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  Jackson twenty eighteen minus point zero two to the next
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  year point three to two hurts also in twenty twenty
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  three minus point oh one two last year of point
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  one two. That's those two guys seem a little bit
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  more similar.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, actually that that also, I actually realized that's that's
• 11:27
  it should be that four point one.
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  Speaker 1: Oh well, and even better.
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  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think when I copied it over,
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  it took Lamar's number, but it was four point one, okay,
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  so even better.
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  Speaker 1: He improved, he was doing alright, And that.
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  Speaker 2: Didn't sound right. I'm not gonna lie. That didn't sound right.
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  Speaker 1: And yeah, I was a little surprised too, because even
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  when they struggled in two uny twenty three, it wasn't
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  he wasn't inaccurate. It's not like he had like fifty
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  two percent you know, completion percentage games.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that that is actually the accurate depiction of
• 11:54
  between the you know, twenty twenty three and twenty twenty
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  four to six. Apologies for that.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And that's why we can do this. We can't fix
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  it with this, and we can tell people we're fixing it.
• 12:05
  That's great. Yeah, all right, So the next round is
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  sort of a win loss comparison, right, featuring all those
• 12:13
  guys and some more. What does this tell you.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: So this is what we're getting ready for the big
• 12:19
  part of this analysis. You're ready. So I took and
• 12:23
  we talked about this, but I took hurts Mahomes, Alan Burrow,
• 12:27
  and Jackson. And the reason I did that, and the
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  reason we talked about it is because when you perceive
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  the top four quarterbacks in the NFL, you're saying Mahomes, Alan, Burrow,
• 12:37
  and Jackson. And again we've talked about how saying top four.
• 12:41
  We don't love that, right, because it's not a great
• 12:44
  way to look. But you know, consensus wise, those are
• 12:47
  the people that people are talking about. And so what
• 12:51
  you see with what you see with these guys is
• 12:57
  hold on one second, and you know, we just we
• 13:06
  don't love the term top quarterback, right. It's not that's
• 13:10
  that's not a great brand of analytical football. And really
• 13:14
  any quarterback can be the top quarterback that day. It's
• 13:17
  it's it's a consistency thing. I get it, and Pete right. Colloquially,
• 13:21
  people love those debates and who's the top quarterback, but
• 13:24
  realistically it doesn't really exist, right, that's not right. I'm
• 13:28
  sure you have a very similar opinion on it.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I yes, I don't have a ranking where
• 13:35
  one guy is number one and the other guy's number
• 13:37
  two and the other guy's number three. I do think
• 13:39
  Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in the NFL. And
• 13:42
  then after that you can throw a couple of guys
• 13:44
  in a blaze, you know, like you said, any other week,
• 13:46
  it's it could be a different person. But so, yeah,
• 13:50
  that's that's why we do this, to have to avoid
• 13:53
  just saying someone is definitively one and two and three
• 13:56
  and four.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And but just because you know they're people, think
• 14:00
  associate that label with those guys. Figured might as well
• 14:03
  compare hurts to them.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, And so this is a win loss comparison chart.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're probably like, why why is that where
• 14:11
  you start?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Because this is not I'm not a big quarterback. Wins
• 14:16
  is a thing, guy, But go ahead.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: And the reason so I had one giant chart that
• 14:22
  I started with, and I said, I need to break
• 14:26
  up this chart into several smaller charts. So this is
• 14:30
  just the first part of it. And the reason I
• 14:31
  have it here is because I think it'll provide context
• 14:34
  later in the analysis. So I think it's important to
• 14:37
  realize that Hertz has the best winning percentage and Burrow
• 14:41
  has the worst and everyone else is pretty close.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, all right, good stuff. Okay, so then we'll move
• 14:47
  on to the next chart. Yes, shut it up a
• 14:53
  little bit there, okay. So this is what's the first one.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: So the first chart is the average attempt comparison. So
• 15:02
  the first thing I did was look at the average
• 15:05
  attempts in the NFL over a three year period. And
• 15:08
  that number you get is thirty two point three to one.
• 15:13
  So an average NFL quarterback that starts will put up
• 15:18
  thirty two point three to one attempts per game. And
• 15:21
  when we started this analysis, your your number that you
• 15:24
  gave was twenty five. Are you surprised randomly, no, I know,
• 15:27
  But are you surprised to see that the that the
• 15:30
  average is thirty two point three one?
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Ah? Yeah, I kind of. I mean, you could have
• 15:37
  told me that it's going to be higher than twenty five,
• 15:39
  but thirty two it was surprising me. Sure. Yeah.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: So what I did next was I did an average
• 15:47
  of their attempts. And so if you look at Hurts,
• 15:50
  his average attempts per game is twenty nine point four
• 15:52
  to six. Holmes is thirty seven point twenty seven Allen
• 15:56
  is thirty three point twenty four, Burrow is thirty eight
• 15:59
  point twenty four, and Jackson is twenty eight point four. Right,
• 16:03
  so just by looking at them, you know, Hurts and
• 16:08
  Jackson are both below average. The other three are above average.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Average attempts passing per game.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, correct, yes, right, there's going to be a lot
• 16:17
  of average thrown around in this, but we're not referring
• 16:20
  to the quarterback skill most of the time. We're going
• 16:23
  to be using average. It's in relation to these attempts.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, And I've learned that we have to repeat things
• 16:28
  like that or else. Sometimes some people get very skep
• 16:32
  sensitive about words you're using that they think you're using
• 16:35
  in a different context. But yes, absolutely, all right, this
• 16:39
  is the numerical average.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. And so then what I did was I went
• 16:45
  through every single game of the last three years of
• 16:48
  these players, and I said, how many games were these
• 16:53
  quarterbacks above average attempts? Herts was above average on fifteen
• 16:59
  mahomes thirty nine, Allen was twenty five, Burrow was thirty one,
• 17:04
  and Jackson was thirteen. And so if you look at
• 17:08
  that as a percentage of the games that they played,
• 17:11
  Hertz was only above average on attempts on thirty two
• 17:15
  point sixty one percent of his games. Mahomes was seventy
• 17:19
  nine point five nine percent of his games were above
• 17:22
  average attempts.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Allays and Andy Reid likes to throw the ball out,
• 17:26
  Oh everybody.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Allen was fifty one point oh two percent, Burrow was
• 17:32
  seventy three point eight one percent, and Jackson was the
• 17:36
  lowest at twenty nine point five to five percent.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, good stuff, So they're all above average. Well no, no, no,
• 17:44
  hold on, wait, this is the percentage of games that
• 17:48
  they were above average?
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Correct?
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I gotta make okay? All right, right, So in thirty
• 17:54
  two called thirty three percent of Jalen Hurd's games, he's
• 17:59
  throwing more than the league average, not his average, right,
• 18:04
  the league average?
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Correct?
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, So in thirty two percent of his games he's
• 18:08
  throwing more than thirty two passes per game. And same
• 18:12
  thing with Lamar Jackson's only doing it about about thirty
• 18:15
  percent of the time, So that's pretty close.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, it's it's interesting because you have Hurts and
• 18:20
  Jackson on the one side, you have Burrow and Mahomes
• 18:23
  on the other side, and you have Allen kind of
• 18:24
  smack dab in the middle. I think he gives a
• 18:27
  pretty good picture of what we're looking for. Then I
• 18:30
  was like, how many wins did the Eagles generate with
• 18:34
  Hurts having to throw above average? So Hurts when when
• 18:39
  he had to throw above the NFL average was thirteen
• 18:42
  and two, which was the best among the rest of
• 18:46
  the quarterbacks. He when he had to throw above average,
• 18:49
  he won eighty six point six to seven percent of
• 18:51
  the games.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Great stat like that.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: I knew you would. I had a feeling you were
• 18:55
  gonna like that one. But again, it's it's a volume
• 18:58
  thing because right, because Mahomes was thirty and nine verse
• 19:02
  thirteen and two, right, which again he won seventy six
• 19:05
  point nine two percent, And then you had Burrow at
• 19:10
  the worst with eighteen and thirteen. But again his team
• 19:13
  is in a much different state. Uh, and he only
• 19:16
  won fifty eight point six percent.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Awesome. That's really interesting. So then it's up to the
• 19:23
  mathematicians and some of the speculators to say, well, if
• 19:27
  Mahomes had to do it close to forty times over
• 19:31
  average past per game and Hurts only fifteen, I what
• 19:35
  would it look like if Hurts had to do it forty,
• 19:37
  and then it's like, Okay, my head is dizzy. Can
• 19:39
  we just stay with what we know?
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And that's why I didn't do an extrapolation. I could have,
• 19:45
  but it would have been all theoretical at that point.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, that's when you start taking analytics a little
• 19:50
  too far, because it's all, like you said, all theoretical.
• 19:52
  Oka ahead.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: But then the last thing I'll say on this chart is,
• 19:55
  then I did how many what were the what was
• 19:57
  the wins when below average? And you know, Hurts was
• 20:02
  twenty four and seven. Mahomes actually went nine and one,
• 20:06
  so he had the best when he had to throw
• 20:08
  below average, blow the NFL average, get ninety percent win rate.
• 20:12
  And Burrow again had the worst, just because again it's
• 20:16
  just hard with that team.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, they can't run, they have no offensive line.
• 20:19
  He I have to throw to win the game with
• 20:22
  what they've got.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, And so then we can go to the next
• 20:27
  chart if you'd like, Yeah, let's have more comments about
• 20:31
  that one.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: No, I thought that was exactly what we were looking for.
• 20:35
  Go ahead.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I thought it'd be kind of fun to look at
• 20:38
  the home and away splits. Okay, So, and there was
• 20:41
  a reason why I kind of had a hypothesis with
• 20:44
  it and it was kind of interesting, and I did.
• 20:48
  I will admit I counted Brazil as an away game.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I think that's fair because you know, if the spirit
• 20:53
  of the stat is whether you're on your home turf
• 20:56
  and you're comfortable and you know, like with the surroundings
• 20:59
  and every it is more like an away game. Yeah,
• 21:02
  so I just want to wear a neutral site if
• 21:04
  you if you you.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Know, absolutely so the way stat will consider neutral size too.
• 21:08
  I just wanted to be transparent on that. That's all yep.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: So out of the so it hurts.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: They all pretty much as you would expect, are pretty
• 21:19
  even on home and away splits. But home games having
• 21:24
  to throw above average hurts through five at home and
• 21:31
  ten away. And so my hypothesis with this, and and
• 21:36
  maybe no way to actually prove it is when he
• 21:39
  has to throw above the average, it's because of other factors, right,
• 21:44
  because you're you know, you want to run when you're comfortable,
• 21:47
  when you have the crowd, when there's certain factors that
• 21:50
  you don't necessarily have, and away feel, and so I
• 21:53
  think that's just an interesting dynamic to kind of bring
• 21:55
  into this. Most of the quarterbacks kind of followed this
• 21:59
  past right of you know, having throwing above average away
• 22:04
  and then not having to throw above average at home
• 22:08
  except for Mahomes. Mahomes breaks that narrative he throws more
• 22:12
  at home than away. But I just think that's an
• 22:15
  interesting perspective that I didn't originally anticipate taking this in
• 22:19
  that direction. But I just think it's a fun little
• 22:22
  pivot for this analysis.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I like it. I like it. It shows you're trying
• 22:26
  to find a little bit, you know, Listen, we gotta
• 22:28
  dig for the answer sometimes, you know, and you have
• 22:30
  to find more.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on it? On the home and away
• 22:34
  and having to throw more. Do you think that's just
• 22:36
  because of the nature of the way the game is,
• 22:38
  or what do you think explains that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I almost think we'd have to go into who they're playing,
• 22:47
  you know, it becomes it becomes part of that more
• 22:50
  too deep into the woods too, and then come up
• 22:52
  with theories. I don't I don't. I don't know why
• 22:55
  you would on average throw more away than at home.
• 23:02
  It's harder usually I would think the opposite. You want to,
• 23:05
  you know, because you got the silent count on the road,
• 23:07
  so it's easier to run the ball.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Sure, I don't know.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: That's I would imagine that there's a lot of different reasons.
• 23:15
  I mean this is a three year average too, So
• 23:16
  you have three different offensive coordinators, right, You're playing three
• 23:22
  different types of schedules against three different divisions and conferences,
• 23:26
  you know, the ones that you don't play per year.
• 23:28
  So I don't know, it could be an outlayer. Yeah.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Look, it's a very interesting part of the analysis. And
• 23:35
  I wouldn't have included it if it didn't give these results,
• 23:37
  because I don't think it would have been relevant. But
• 23:39
  I do think it's relevant because it's interesting, So I
• 23:43
  like it all right.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So now the next chart is more just a statistical
• 23:47
  comparison of all of those five quarterbacks for the last
• 23:50
  three three years.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Yep, this is our final chart of the analysis. And
• 23:56
  so what this does is it compares actualatistics right so
• 24:01
  yards when they are above average attempts which is the
• 24:07
  AAA or you know, the average below attempts right to
• 24:13
  the ABNA, and so it just kind of looks at that.
• 24:16
  So what you see when the attempts are below average
• 24:21
  and if they're above average, how they kind of compare.
• 24:24
  And again it's a volume statistic because if you look
• 24:26
  at Mahomes, he has eleven thousand yards when he has
• 24:30
  to throw above average and only two thousand when it's
• 24:33
  below versus someone like Hurts who's four thousand and six thousand,
• 24:39
  or Lamar who's three thousand and six thousand.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Right, So I feel like the Lamar comparison is a
• 24:46
  little easier than the Mahomes one, right because of the
• 24:52
  similar I don't know if it's because the data is similar,
• 24:55
  but because these two are the ones that have the
• 24:59
  lowest average attempts per game compared to the league average. Right, Yeah,
• 25:04
  so why go ahead?
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Their play style, not that they're like similar quarterbacks and
• 25:09
  how they play, but just in how they attack, how
• 25:14
  they have to attack a defense is a little bit
• 25:16
  you know, you can compare it a little bit better.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Right, So when both of those quarterbacks are asked to
• 25:23
  throw the ball above the league average, which is not
• 25:25
  as much as Mahomes and Borrow, but when both are
• 25:29
  asked to they have I mean, Hurts has a seven
• 25:32
  point seventy two yards per attempt, right and Jackson's at
• 25:36
  seven oh eight. That's the lowest of the five, and
• 25:39
  Hurts is the highest of the five.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: And what's interesting is his yards per attempt, regardless of
• 25:45
  if he's above average or below average, is relatively the same, right,
• 25:51
  And I think that's fascinating.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: That is fascinating. They're relatively the same. And I think
• 25:57
  that what I make of that is that there's not
• 26:00
  a lot of variance to the strengths and the weaknesses
• 26:04
  of Jalen Hurts, whether he's throwing a lot or he's
• 26:07
  not throwing a lot. He's a deep ball thrower. So
• 26:09
  that's why I think the yards per attempt is high
• 26:11
  even when he's throwing the ball over the gaverage, because
• 26:14
  it means he's throwing it to aj Brown and DeVante
• 26:17
  Smith and outside the numbers where he really excels. We
• 26:22
  know that Lamar, when he does throw the ball a lot,
• 26:25
  his targets tend to be Andrew's and likely like the
• 26:30
  middle of the field, he runs around a lot, buys
• 26:33
  a lot of time. But I don't I don't see
• 26:36
  Lamar as this uh I guess superior outside the numbers
• 26:41
  deep ball thrower the way I see h Jalen Hurts.
• 26:45
  I do think he's an amazing tight window thrower. Lamar
• 26:48
  when he wants, when he can be and he does
• 26:50
  throw in the numbers inside the numbers a little bit
• 26:52
  more than hurts. But that's like kind of a totally
• 26:54
  different where they throw the ball in the field is
• 26:57
  not this.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Point of the uh the exercise here, but I think
• 27:00
  it's relevant and I appreciate you bringing it up with
• 27:03
  Jackson though, Like when he is asked to throw below
• 27:07
  the average, he is the highest yards per attempt, right,
• 27:11
  which ends, yeah, I'm so good. I just think it
• 27:14
  means that he's distributing efficiently when even on limited throws.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, So, so I wanted to ask you about the
• 27:22
  touchdown to interception ratio when both when all of these
• 27:25
  quarterbacks throw above the league average, the one point five
• 27:29
  to four is that that is you have that in red,
• 27:32
  but that that's a good thing, though, right, he's the
• 27:33
  best thing.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It's the worst out of these quarterbacks among the quarterbacks.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: It's the lowest out of the quarterback correct, meaning the.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Best, right, No, because you'd want more touchdowns to interceptions.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I had You're right. I'm thinking just
• 27:51
  interception percentage, not touchdown to interception percentage. Okay, so that's
• 27:55
  interesting because these numbers are really far. Where is the
• 28:00
  the Lamar Jackson ones are similar comparisons. When both of
• 28:03
  these quarterbacks have to throw the ball more than the
• 28:07
  league average, Lamar throws far more touchdowns than Jaalen.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Hurts, at least relative to interceptions.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, yes, correct, far more touchdowns to interceptions than
• 28:19
  Jalen Hurts. And when they're below the league average, they
• 28:24
  are their numbers are a little closer.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about one touchdown away. Yeah, you'd expect lamarady
• 28:32
  have one more relative to an interception.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of blown away by the Burrow number there,
• 28:37
  fifteen compared to everybody else's three, one, two or four.
• 28:41
  So when when Burrow doesn't have to throw the ball
• 28:44
  that much, he throws way more touchdowns and interception way more.
• 28:50
  He's just pretty good at not throwing interceptions anyway.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: I think that's also right. It's a volume thing. A
• 28:56
  lot of his statistics are diluted just because of volume. Right, Like,
• 28:59
  when you're throwing the ball fifty times a game, you're
• 29:01
  more likely to get intercepted, whether it's your fault or not. Right,
• 29:05
  an interception that hits your receiver's hands and then falls
• 29:08
  into the defensive back's lap is still an interception, right,
• 29:11
  And that's a huge gripe I have with the interception
• 29:14
  system because and I think a lot of people have
• 29:16
  with the interception system. But you know, when you throw
• 29:20
  the ball, regardless if it's a perfect throw, you're putting
• 29:23
  it in jeopardy. That's just a nature of football. So
• 29:27
  when you throw a lot, your statistics on interceptions or
• 29:32
  might go I mean they're likely to go.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Up, right, Well, I would have liked now that I
• 29:36
  think I'm not knocking your data collection at all, but
• 29:39
  I wonder about interception percentage for all five of these
• 29:43
  quarterbacks on above the average attempts versus below average attempts
• 29:47
  to go along with the touchdown interception. But because I
• 29:50
  find this sort of fascinating, that hurts when he has
• 29:54
  to throw more than thirty two times a game, is
• 29:57
  consistently still among the you know, higher as high as
• 30:01
  any of these guys, the highest in his yards per attempt,
• 30:07
  but yet fewer touchdowns per interceptions. It's almost it's almost
• 30:13
  like they're budding heads here, you know what I'm saying,
• 30:15
  Because it's like he's throwing the ball deep and long,
• 30:18
  but he's not throwing the same rate of touchdown interception
• 30:23
  as the other guys are.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's probably interceptions that weighs it down. Yeah,
• 30:28
  if I had to get I could pull up I
• 30:29
  have the raw data.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: You're you're right, I mean it could be the same number.
• 30:32
  But the point is he throws more interceptions per touchdown
• 30:37
  interception ratio when he's asked to throw the ball more.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Which we know, right, yeah, he he is better when
• 30:47
  he actually for a touchdown interception perspective, when he has
• 30:50
  to throw it less, which is interesting, right, Yeah, Okay.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: So I think that helps a little bit with that
• 30:58
  spirit of the question of metrics. We see that when
• 31:01
  he I think people think that when this guy has
• 31:04
  to throw the ball a lot, it's a disaster, and
• 31:06
  that's not the case at all. There are really positive
• 31:09
  numbers here that we see that when he has to
• 31:11
  throw the ball a lot, it's either just as good
• 31:14
  as when he's not or a little bit better, and
• 31:16
  it coincides, well, it matches up well with these four
• 31:20
  other guys who are considered elite dudes. But then to
• 31:24
  answer part of that question, Yeah, the interception thing, which
• 31:27
  we knew was kind of an issue that went back
• 31:29
  from twenty twenty three and the start of twenty twenty four.
• 31:32
  I think he had two against Green Bay and the
• 31:34
  opener in Brazil. I think he had two more in
• 31:37
  the second game, and then they kind of like scaled
• 31:41
  back and went to Barkley heavy approach. Really week four,
• 31:43
  week five on right, then you saw more efficiency out
• 31:47
  of them. All right, well, man, they asked, you delivered.
• 31:50
  That's about as detailed of a breakdown on Jalen Hurts
• 31:55
  and his passing data. That's what we wanted to do.
• 31:58
  When he throws the ball more what do we get?
• 32:01
  And I think the answers were really interesting, and Sam,
• 32:03
  we thank you so much for all the hard work
• 32:06
  and the effort and the number crunching you put in.
• 32:09
  That is going to do it for this episode of
• 32:10
  Inside the Data for Sam Finkel. I'm Jeff Mosher. Catcha
• 32:14
  on the next one.