I was just looking at some overall offensive numbers, and they underscore my gut feeling that we should be selecting quarterbacks a little earlier than in the past. Not only are teams passing for more and more yards and touchdowns (as rules are altered to favor offenses) but they’re also passing more at the expense of the running game.
Over the past 10 years, passing production is up by 7 percent, while rushing is down 6 percent.
On this one, I used the fantasy scoring system (at both positions) of 1 point for every 10 yards and 6 points for touchdowns. Most fantasy leagues give only 1 point for every 20 passing yards, but I’m simply trying to measure how teams are moving the ball.
Using that apples-to-apples comparison, teams in each of the last three years have put up over 67 percent of their offense via the pass. Those are the three largest years of the last 20 years. If you go back to the the 2002-03 seasons, teams were producing only 64 percent of their offense via the pass.
| PASSING VS. RUSHING (last 20 years) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Pass | Run | Pct |
| 1995 | 509.5 | 250.0 | 67.1% |
| 1996 | 480.7 | 247.2 | 66.0% |
| 1997 | 474.4 | 257.7 | 64.8% |
| 1998 | 485.2 | 256.1 | 65.5% |
| 1999 | 494.0 | 240.6 | 67.2% |
| 2000 | 478.0 | 259.8 | 64.8% |
| 2001 | 476.6 | 249.5 | 65.6% |
| 2002 | 493.3 | 272.1 | 64.5% |
| 2003 | 464.7 | 268.6 | 63.4% |
| 2004 | 497.7 | 264.6 | 65.3% |
| 2005 | 469.9 | 260.8 | 64.3% |
| 2006 | 472.4 | 267.2 | 63.9% |
| 2007 | 500.2 | 249.8 | 66.7% |
| 2008 | 479.8 | 274.8 | 63.6% |
| 2009 | 504.7 | 267.1 | 65.4% |
| 2010 | 518.8 | 258.0 | 66.8% |
| 2011 | 531.3 | 262.4 | 66.9% |
| 2012 | 535.5 | 260.7 | 67.3% |
| 2013 | 554.4 | 257.5 | 68.3% |
| 2014 | 530.2 | 249.4 | 68.0% |
One school of thought is that with offenses putting up more and more production through the air, it REDUCES the value of quarterbacks. There are lots of good ones to go around, the theory goes. But I don’t subscribe to that theory.
Looking at the numbers, it seems to me that while everyone’s production is going up, the difference between the top quarterbacks and the middle-of-the-pack quarterbacks is increasing.
Consider those same team-type numbers before. That is, I’m leaving out the running dimension of guys like Russell Wilson and Cam Newton and looking just at passing stats. And I’m also looking just at teams, rather than individual players – that way you get out of the game of trying to factor guys getting hurt or benched and playing different numbers of games.
Sticking to the team view, it’s reasonable (I think) to assume that if you choose to hang back and ignore the quarterback position, you’ll ultimately end up with a middle-of-the-pack passer. Think Ryan Tannehill, Carson Palmer or somebody of that ilk. Now look at the difference between the top quarterbacks and those kind of guys.
For the purposes of this experiment, I went with the average production of the top 10 passing teams and compared that to the average of the remaining teams that didn’t finish in the bottom 10. So the average of teams 11 thru 22. In practice, it might be more realistic to look at top-5 versus the guys ranking 12th thru 16th, but the concept is the same.
Under my assumptions, if you look at the seasons of 10-20 years ago, you typically see a difference in production of 70-110 fantasy points. That’s the statistical advantage you get by going against the grain and investing earlier in a quarterback.
In only four of the last 20 years has there been a difference of over 130 points between the top-10 quarterbacks and the middle-of-the-pack quarterbacks, and three of those four seasons have come in the last four years.
| PASSING -- ELITE OFFENSES | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Top 10 | Middle | Difference |
| 1995 | 613.1 | 499.4 | 113.7 |
| 1996 | 556.7 | 485.6 | 71.1 |
| 1997 | 544.9 | 474.6 | 70.3 |
| 1998 | 585.5 | 473.4 | 112.2 |
| 1999 | 585.4 | 482.4 | 103.0 |
| 2000 | 597.0 | 474.3 | 122.7 |
| 2001 | 558.1 | 474.9 | 83.3 |
| 2002 | 565.8 | 503.2 | 62.6 |
| 2003 | 558.1 | 458.0 | 100.2 |
| 2004 | 623.5 | 482.7 | 140.9 |
| 2005 | 556.5 | 477.4 | 79.1 |
| 2006 | 568.0 | 462.1 | 105.9 |
| 2007 | 616.5 | 493.0 | 123.5 |
| 2008 | 594.1 | 467.8 | 126.4 |
| 2009 | 631.4 | 502.6 | 128.8 |
| 2010 | 616.2 | 513.4 | 102.8 |
| 2011 | 682.6 | 507.9 | 174.7 |
| 2012 | 653.6 | 523.4 | 130.3 |
| 2013 | 665.0 | 541.9 | 123.2 |
| 2014 | 650.1 | 513.9 | 136.2 |
So in my opinion, there is a point where you select Andrew Luck or Aaron Rodgers early. Heading into my drafts, it’s not my hope to select a quarterback really early, but there’s definitely a point where they become way too productive to pass over. And I think that point comes earlier than most might believe.
Then I see a lull. Not because I don’t like any of the other quarterbacks, but because I don’t see much difference between the next seven. Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson might be the next two selected, but I don’t see them as much better than guys like Matt Ryan, Cam Newton and Eli Manning. (I’ve actually got Wilson as the bottom guy in that tier of seven players).
Should you miss out on all of those nine quarterbacks, there are four others that I think aren’t far behind – Rivers, Stafford, Flacco and Romo. Some may be surprised to see Flacco up in that group, but I think he’ll benefit from the addition of Marc Trestman.
—Ian Allan