Midseason Review: Young Quarterbacks
Has Trevor Lawrence arrived? When will Pittsburgh see the truth about Kenny Pickett? How long do Washington, Atlanta, Carolina wait to see what they have?
This season half of the teams in the NFL are playing “young” quarterbacks: quarterbacks who are 26 or younger, who are not in their athletic prime. The logic for playing young quarterbacks is sound.
If you don’t have a good quarterback, then you should play someone who has a chance of becoming a good quarterback in the future.
At the very least, playing a young QB can help the team understand who they have. Do they have someone worth working with or should they move on?
When we think about young QBs, we break them down into four categories:
Stars
Starters
More Information Needed
Move On
And when we evaluate QBs for these categories, we look at four measures: age, EPA/play, P(100), and games played.
Age is the player’s age. This helps us understand how much they could reasonably improve.
EPA25 is the expected number of points contributed by that player on an average play, multiplied by 25, to give an estimate of how many points the player is worth over a typical game.
P(100) is the probability of the quarterback having a QB rating of 100 or more over a 4-game stretch. This is a measure of consistency and suitability for playoff football.
Games Played is the number of games a quarterback has played in their career. This helps us understand how much information we have about them.
For our analysis of young quarterbacks, we include only quarterbacks who are 26 years old or younger. These quarterbacks have not yet entered their physical prime, so we expect to see further improvement in their abilities.
Tier 1: Stars
QBs: Brock Purdy (SF), Tua Tagovailoa (MIA)
There are two young quarterbacks right now who we consider stars: Brock Purdy, and Tuatagovailoa. Purdy and Tagovailoa helm two of the most high-powered offenses in football and—despite athleticism concerns about each—share accuracy, the ability to play with timing, and make good decisions under pressure.
They are both consistent, positive contributors to their teams efforts.
Purdy has the highest P(100) of any quarterback in the league not named Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers. And now, in 16 career starts across two seasons and a playoffs, Purdy is averaging a quarterback rating over 100. His EPA is highest of any quarterback in football, with an EPA25 of 8.0. Suggesting he may be worth more points to the 49ers than the mainstream sports media is willing to admit.
Even in Purdy’s “recent downswing”, he threw for more than 270 yards twice with a completion percentage over 70%, and recorded a passing touchdown in each game.
Purdy turns 24 in December and has plenty of room to mature.
Tagovailoa, in contrast, is starting to look more and more like a finished product. Now with 43 starts under his belt, the former Alabama quarterback is repeating his performance as the best statistical passer: leading the league in yards and quarterback rating through 9 games this year. Tagovailoa’s EPA25 and P(100) are less than Purdy’s, and Tagovailoa has suffered with injuries—but there is no question that a Tagovailoa team can have the offensive firepower to win a Super Bowl.
Winning in the playoffs is hard. And the Dolphins have yet to record a win over a winning team this season—but there’s no reason to believe Tagovailoa isn’t following in the Drew Brees pattern: a great stat accumulator, takes home a singular Super Bowl over the course of a long career, but is always seen as the second or third best quarterback in the league behind more winning players (e.g., Mahomes).
Tier 2: Starters
QBs: Jalen Hurts (PHI), Justin Herbert (LAC), Lamar Jackson (BAL), Trevor Lawrence (JAK), C.J. Stroud (HOU)
Moving on our Starters tier, there are five young QBs who we believe will be at least solid starters in the NFL: Jalen Hurts, Justin Herbet, Lamar Jackson, Trevor Lawrence, and C.J. Stroud.
Some of these players are already at solid starter level—Hurts, Herbert—and others need to improve—Jackson, Lawrence, Stroud—but for one reason or another, all of them will be with us for a while.
Hurts, Herbert, and Jackson have big, new contracts. While Lawrence and C.J. Stroud were top 2 picks.
Among the 5, Lawrence is probably the player you would like to have the least—he has the lowest EPA25 and the lowest P(100) score. But he is also one of the youngest players on the list and has been playing on the worst team the longest.
Stroud, similarly, is playing on a rebuilding Houston team—but has played some truly impressive games as a rookie.
Both Stroud and Lawrence lack the game-to-game consistency of a good NFL starter. But they have room to grow into it.
Hurts, Herbert, and Jackson are more known commodities. Hurts is the youngest and has played in the fewest games, but is also the best of the three. The question there is his consistency—and how he will adjust as the Eagles’ talent decreases over the next few seasons.
Hurts, at his best, is a dual threat rockstar. But inconsistency has been a problem throughout his short career.
Herbert is in many ways the same quarterback. His highs are high, his lows are low, but you’re not sure what you’re going to get from him week over week.
Both Hurts and Herbert are worth about 4 points, by EPA25. Hurts is the more consistent player by P(100).
And lastly we come to Lamar Jackson. Jackson for too long, relied on his legs to propel him as a quarterback. This season, he’s turned that around: running less, and passing to completion much more. Jackson’s completion percentage is 70% this season versus a 60% career average.
Jackson’s EPA25 and P(100) have been creeping up this season as a result. He’s worth 2.4 points per game by EPA25 and has a 27% P(100) score. The former is just above average for “old” quarterbacks—while the latter is just below average. Which is about where Lamar Jackson should be. Average.
And that’s why he’ll be a starter in this league for a while. He’s average. And average is going to beat below average.
Tier 3: More Information Needed
QBs: Sam Howell (WAS), Jordan Love (GB), Desmond Ridder (ATL), Bryce Young (CAR)
There’s not too much to say about our More Information Needed group, which contains four quarterbacks: Sam Howell, Jordan Love, Desmond Ridder, and Bryce Young.
These players are all bad to mediocre; but, they are young and they haven’t played very much. Jordan Love is the oldest in the group, but this is his first season taking snaps in the NFL.
Sam Howell has shown the most promise early on, with some good games and some bad games. But Howell was a 5th round draft pick for a team that has a losing record after going through the easy half of their schedule.
Ridder and Young are not playing like players who will be in the league for very long. Young—the worst performer of Tier 3—gets the benefit of the doubt for his draft status. While Ridder is playing ever game for a spot in the league.
Right now, I would wager that Howell and Love find spots in the league as backups. Bryce Young starts for a few years before becoming a backup. And Ridder is out of the league within 3 years.
Tier 4: Move On
QBs: Justin Fields (CHI), Mac Jones (NE), Kenny Pickett (PIT), Zach Wilson (NYJ)
Lastly, the Tier 4 quarterbacks: Justin Fields, Mac Jones, Kenny Pickett, and Zach Wilson. These quarterbacks are the worst in the league. Smart people can debate about the order—but why bother? If any of these guys is your starter, you’re not winning the Super Bowl anytime soon.
Each of these QBs has played enough that we should have seem some improvement—and yet they have abysmal numbers. Justin Fields tops the list a 10% chance of averaging a passer rating of 100 over a four game stretch, and manages to only cost his team 1.5 points per game, by EPA25.
That’s 3 points worse than the average starting quarterback older than 26. It suggests that starting Fields spots teams with good quarterbacks anywhere from a field goal to a touchdown.
The worst two of the list—Kenny Pickett and Zach Wilson—are truly atrocious. Pickett, who many have been reluctant to criticize because of Pittsburgh’s reputation and status as an AFC North also-ran, is my pick for the worst of the young QBs.
In 20 starts he has had only 1 game with a passer rating over 100. And the only time he ever threw for more than 270 yards he averaged 6.5 yards per attempt in a 38-3 loss to the Bills.
Zach Wilson is better. But only in the sense that Group of 5 conference Mountain West football is better than FCS Big Sky football: one may we don’t expect elite performance from either of them.
What to watch for…
The potential for Brock Purdy and Tua Tagovailoa to get worse is fading with each game, and each has upside left. Tagovailoa, especially, has the type of accolades that suggest there is yet unrealized potential.
Jalen Hurts, Justin Herbet, and Lamar Jackson are in the land of average. For the most part, you’re happier with them then without them, but only just. If evidence starts accumulating strongly in either direction, we might update—but we’ve seen a lot of these three now. Jackson, in particular, won’t be on the young QB watch list next year.
Lawerence and Stroud are the most interesting players to watch. They should have the highest upside—but are not playing up to their potential as of yet. Can they reach it?
Lawrence is trending upwards fast. His EPA25 since October 1st is 7.2, and his passer rating over that stretch is 100. Is this a spike? Or the new normal?
An ascendant Lawrence changes the league, and gives Patrick Mahomes yet another foil in the highly competitive AFC. That’s something to watch for.