Friday, April 30, 2004

What if Roethlisberger starts in '04?
The chances of Ben Roethlisberger starting at QB this season are at best remote, especially when compared to two of his first round counterparts, Manning and Rivers, who will be the go-to guys from day one. But in the last 14 years there has been a number of rookie QBs that have stepped immediately into the starting role -- with varying degrees of success.

Remember Jeff George? He was taken first by the Colts in 1990 and started immediately and he didn't have an awful first season -- he threw for 2,152 yards, 16 TDs and 13 INTs in 13 games. But there was the whole Health Shuler debacle in Washington, too. His first year totals were: 11 games, 45.3% completion percentage, 1,658 passing yards, 10 TDs and 12 INTs.

So obviously there is some variation among players and I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the kind of offense they ran in college, the quality of their opponents, coaching, and their 'football smarts' (however you choose measure it -- and I'm not convinced that the Wonderlic is the right way). Anyway, here is a partial list of QBs who played in at least 4 games as rookies (with the notable exception of Dan McGwire and Todd Marinivich -- they each started 1 game -- but I included them for nostalgic reasons).
name g comp att pct yd td ints
george 13 181 334 54.2 2152 16 13
ware 4 13 30 43.3 164 1 2
mcgwire 1 3 7 42.9 27 0 1
marinivich 1 23 40 57.5 243 3 0
hollas 8 32 55 58.2 310 1 4
klingler 4 47 98 48 530 3 2
maddox 13 66 121 54.5 757 5 9
erickson 6 15 26 57.7 121 0 0
graham 6 42 97 43.3 470 1 4
bledsoe 13 214 429 49.9 2494 15 15
mirer 16 274 486 56.4 2833 12 17
shuler 11 120 265 45.3 1658 10 12
dilfer 5 38 82 46.3 433 1 6
collins 15 214 432 49.5 2717 14 19
zeier 7 82 161 50.9 864 4 9
banks 14 192 368 52.2 2544 15 15
kanell 4 23 60 38.3 227 1 1
plummer 10 157 296 53 2203 15 15
wuerffel 7 42 91 46.2 518 4 8
manning 16 326 575 56.7 3739 26 28
leaf 10 111 245 45.3 1289 2 15
batch 12 173 303 57.1 2178 11 6
couch 15 223 399 55.9 2447 15 13
mcnabb 12 106 216 49.1 948 8 7
smith 7 80 153 52.3 805 2 6
mcnown 15 127 235 54 1465 8 10
king 6 89 146 61 875 7 4
vick 8 50 113 44.2 785 2 3
brees 7 15 27 55.6 221 1 0
carr 16 233 444 52.5 2592 9 15
harrington 14 215 430 50 2294 12 16
ramsey 10 117 228 51.3 1539 9 8
So, back to the point. How would Roethlisberger (or maybe more importantly, Rivers or Manning since they'll actually be playing) do if he started in '04? Well, I took the above list and looked at how these players performed their first year in the league and compared it to their subsequent year peformances and here's what I found:
yrs in nfl pct yds/g td/g int/g td_diff/g
1 52.2 118.6 0.67 0.78 -0.11
2 53.8 135.6 0.70 0.78 -0.08
3 50.2 124.4 0.65 0.78 -0.13
4 51.2 129.3 0.68 0.76 -0.07
5 55.4 126.9 0.67 0.62 0.05
6 60.3 150.2 0.76 0.72 0.05
7+ 55.2 172.7 0.92 0.75 0.16

*td_diff/g: touchdowns minus interceptions per game.
Surprisingly, there's little difference in completion percentage based on experience (52% as a rookie, 55% for 7+ experience, with a high of 60% for 6 years experience). There is also little difference in interceptions per game based on experience (0.78 per game for rookies, 0.75 per game for 7+ years of experience).

A couple of things stick out however. First, yards per game increase as QBs gain more experience (and some of this is a result of more experienced QBs playing the entire game, instead of maybe playing part of the game as rookies). Maybe more interesting though, is that while interceptions per game remain constant across experience, touchdowns per game increase by 37% from the first year to the seventh year of experience. This indicates that QBs are getting a better grasp of what they are trying to do offensively while at the same time better recognizing what the defense is doing in trying to create confusion. As a result, QBs are completing more passes for TDs that might otherwise fall incomplete, result in sacks, or even interceptions.

I have no way of knowing, but I'm guessing that interceptions thrown by rookies are a lot different than those thrown by veterans. Rookies probably throw more interceptions because they incorrectly read a coverage as opposed to veterans who might throw more downfield interceptions or have more tipped passes that result in interceptions.

Also, a really big part of a QBs success is the program they're going into in the NFL. A lot of these guys will be playing for really bad teams (see David Carr and Joey Harrington) and they would be expected to struggle more than a player going to an average team. Knowing that, which players from the first table above had more touchdowns that interceptions their rookie season? Seven. Four had one more TD than INT, while Couch had 2 more, Jeff George had 3 more and Charlie Batch had 5 more. George is out of the league (he was drafted 14 years ago) and both Couch and Batch are backups, even though Batch has a lot less luggage (perceived or otherwise) than Couch. To really get an idea of how good or bad the rookie QBs performed, it's probably best to compare their performances to all QBs who sat and learned the system for a year or two before being thrown to the lions (I'll put that on my to-do list).

But what does this mean for the QBs of 2004? Well, on average, they should complete about 50% of their passes, throw for roughly 120 yards per game throw 2 TDs every 3 games and throw 3 INTs in every 4 games. Of course these are averages and doesn't account for the players surrounding the rookie QB. Even though San Diego plays in the same division as Kansas City and Denver, I wouldn't be surprised to see them win more games with Rivers than New York does with Manning (of course, being in a division with Philly and Washington doesn't help either). The good news is that both of these players have a lot of experience -- Rivers started 50 games in a row in college and Manning is well, a Manning.

If Roethlisberger did end up starting in 2004, I'm guessing his ride might be a little bumpier on the field, but he would certainly be embraced by the fans and the media -- and I'm pretty sure the same case can't be made for Manning.