Should a Rookie QB Start?

by abender20 on May 19, 2009 8:31 AM PDT in Seahawks News & Rumors

Carson Palmer sat. David Carr didn't. Risk Mirer started. Drew Brees didn't. For every highly-drafted rookie quarterback, there is a debate about whether they should get the keys to the offense or the clipboard. Brian Burke at Advanced NFL Stats took a look at quarterback success based on whether or not the quarterback in question sat for a year or played right away. As always with these, click through to view the charts and tables.

The underlying assumptions attempt to account for the potential of a quarterback, as better quarterbacks should have a higher chance of starting earlier as well as a greater chance of long term success. Given that we don't live in Madden, Burke used draft position as an indicator of QB potential. Standard disclaimers about imperfect information apply.

Burke's metric of choice is a tweaked version of Career Adjusted Yards per Attempt. By regressing Career Adj. YPA versus draft position, Burke found a fairly clear downward trend. He then calculated the Career Adj. YPA Above Expected for each QB in the sample.

Depending on your stance on the issue, the result is somewhat surprising:

As it turns out, it appears that QBs with more rookie starts tend to enjoy greater career success, even accounting for draft order.

Some of you might have noticed that what I've really done here is a crude multivariate regression. Holding for draft order, I estimated the effect of games started. What if we just do the regression directly?

As expected we get a small negative effect with draft order. (The higher the pick number, the worse the expected stats.) The Games Started variable is positive and significant at p=0.03. The model as a whole has an r-squared of 0.15--small in absolute terms, but considerable given the highly random individual variance in QB careers.

Even when Burke adjusted the grouping to break at various numbers of games played as a rookie, the results remain the same. Quarterbacks appear to benefit from starting as many games as possible as a rookie.

Given this analysis, there is no reason for a coach to arbitrarily keep a rookie QB on the bench. He should start his best QB, rookie or not, and not worry about incubating him under a ballcap on the sidelines. In the end, it should be the coach's qualitative judgment on the readiness of the player.

As an aside, there are ancillary effects not covered here, such as the potential damage to a career caused by starting too early. For a late round pick like Mike Teel, starting right away could result in such a poor showing that they could play themselves out of the league as a rookie. With lesser investments in late round picks, teams would be less inclined to hang onto someone who showed nothing.

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Seems counterintuive.

Starting could be a learning experience or a crippling experience for a rookie. I don’t see how being on the bench could be a negative experience. Also, it seems like QBs with more college experience, who were in pro style offenses, and had less mechanical flaws (good footwork, not throwing side arm) would be the type to start in their rookie year. Some guys, like Josh Freeman or Mark Sanchez (though he is expected to start) seem like they would need a year to sit.
That being said, I value numbers over intuition, though I’ve never heard of a non 1st or 2nd round QB starting in their rookie year.

2010 Seahawks Mock: 1A: Eric Berry S, 1B: Ndamukong Suh DT, 2: Charles Brown OT, 4:Zac Robinson QB, 5: Stafon Johnson RB 6: Will Tukuafu DE, 7: Kerry Meier WR
Also acceptable, trade for Patrick Chung and draft Ed Wang so everyone can Wang Chung tonight.

by LantermanC on May 19, 2009 8:51 AM PDT reply actions

That's why he attempted to normalize with respect to draft position.

You don’t see many quarterbacks with severe flaws get drafted early (Well, Vince Young).

by abender20 on May 19, 2009 9:36 AM PDT up reply actions

Big surprise.

Kelly Stouffer and Dan McGuire near the bottom of the list. Rick Mirer not far from it. .

This was an interesting read. Going back into the 80’s I wonder if the pressure to start a rookie QB was less then than in more recent years with contracts being so outrageous in dollar figures.

by Misfit74 on May 19, 2009 9:36 AM PDT reply actions

Good read

And definitely seems counterintuitive

But my gut still tells me there needs to be a way to factor in surrounding talent. Some of that is going to show up in the data – QB’s chosen later in round 1 are likely to be heading into better situations. For the top-10 picks, it’s harder to judge. And even going back 20 years the sample size is so small that it’s tough to make blanket statements, and it’s tempting to still take each on a case-by-case basis.

For example, P. Manning joined a 3-13 team, but the Colts were just one year removed from 2 seasons of play-off runs. Same thing with Elway, drafted #1 overall but then sent to a Bronco’s team that was just a year off from a steady string of 10-6 seasons.

Personally, I don’t think sitting a QB the first year necessarily helps their individual development. I don’t buy into the reasoning that they somehow learn by osmosis while watching from the bench. I think the benefit of it comes from the fact that it gives the surrounding team an extra year to improve so when that QB steps in and does start developing, he has a stronger supporting cast.

by jteckmann on May 19, 2009 9:42 AM PDT reply actions

It's not osmosis as much as a factor of time.

Time to work on mechanics, master the playbook, get live practice to grow comfortable with game speed, watch tape, etc.

by abender20 on May 19, 2009 9:46 AM PDT up reply actions

It's kind of like any job.

If you go in a job and you’re slowly weaned in by watching what others do, and given very little actual responsibility, it’s not as pressure filled, but you won’t learn as much. If you’re thrown into the fire and given full responsibility right away, life will suck and you’ll make a lot of mistakes, but you learn a lot more because you’re forced to.

by LantermanC on May 19, 2009 9:54 AM PDT up reply actions

Oh, I totally agree

And that’s what I was talking about. Say for example, your ability increases 25% by watching someone do it, but it increases 75% by having to do it yourself even though you take your lumps.

When the ESPN talking heads and other talk about how it’s important to sit a QB, it sounds to me like they’re placing a greater importance on that 25% and acting like it can make or break a guy’s development. I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that the surrounding team might have improved a bunch in that intervening year as well. For example, sitting a year helped Carson Palmer out a because he had extra time to prepare, but mainly because the Bengals started to gel as an 8-8 team under kitna. OTOH, sitting a year didn’t benefit Akili Smith as much, because he still had to step in behind a porous OL on a bad team. That’s what I was trying to get at.

So when it comes to a guy like Stafford, Detroit’s decision to start or bench him is not nearly as important to his development as their ability to piece together a decent OL and surrounding cast within his first 2-3 years, IMO.

by jteckmann on May 19, 2009 10:21 AM PDT up reply actions

More rookie games started = more career success?

I suspect that the effect the author detected may simply be due to the fact that QBs who perform well in their first few rookie starts are more likely to

1) play more games their rookie season
2) actually be good players over their career

And, as some previous commenters have mentioned, team strength undoubtedly also plays a role.

Though I have no evidence to support this, my hunch would be that the success or failure of the great majority of rookie QBs does not depend heavily on whether or not they play their rookie year. For a few, however, it might make actually the difference between boom and bust. Ultimately, I think that such an analysis provides little additional guidance to coaches deciding how to handle a young QB beyond the first-hand observational information they already use to assess a player’s readiness.

by cyberwulf on May 19, 2009 10:23 AM PDT reply actions

I'd like to amend that somewhat

“my hunch would be that, if we could properly account for team strength, the success or failure of the great majority of rookie QBs does not depend heavily on whether or not they play their rookie year”

by cyberwulf on May 19, 2009 10:28 AM PDT up reply actions

Interesting points.

I hold many your observations in high regard, including this one.

by Misfit74 on May 19, 2009 10:48 AM PDT up reply actions

I've been looking for stats on this for a while

I love it. It goes completely opposite to what I’ve always thought.

What I still want to see with regards to 1st round QB’s: What is better for a team in a single season – a rookie QB, or a second-year (or more) QB who hasn’t started before.

Or should we assume that new teams with new QBs are having a throwaway season?

by Groundhog on May 19, 2009 2:30 PM PDT reply actions

Aaron Rodgers had a pretty good season as a first-year starter. Matt Cassell too.

I think this one is mostly a function of the talent of the QB and the talent of the surrounding players.

by abender20 on May 19, 2009 2:42 PM PDT up reply actions

It seems pretty clear that shitty supporting cast = death

Only the good first-year starters can overcome poor talent to move on to a successful career.

That’s why I think Stafford is going into an OK situation in that his team sucks but he’ll probably sit behind a vet, while the Jets are taking real big chances with making Sanchez their starter. The Jets are in a tough division with tough defenses, and don’t have much at wide receiver.

Freeman should be interesting. Here’s a guy who absolutely must sit, but who’s going to start ahead of him?

by djafrot on May 19, 2009 3:58 PM PDT reply actions

Luke McCown certainly thinks it will be Luke McCown.

"This has been a long time coming for me and I’m not letting anybody take it from me. And it’s the first legitimate opportunity. Say what you want about getting three starts at the end of a season. But this is my first real opportunity to be the starter, to be the guy. And I look at it as mine and you’re going to have to shoot me."

by abender20 on May 19, 2009 4:22 PM PDT up reply actions

Maybe bad teams just suck at drafting quarterbacks

They’re already bad, so they can’t be all that good at talent evaluation. Peyton Manning went to a horrible team that since the second year and almost every year since became very good, so I guess even a bad team can get it right. Aikman, Favre, Montana I believe all started on bad teams that went on to be very good. Meh, I don’t know. If someone’s a great quarterback they’ll become a great quarterback. I think it’s too easy to look at busts and say “well, if only they played for the Patriots,” I mean I know your surrounding talent certainly helps, but can it really destroy a great QB? Without time machine’s, or instant cloning devices, we’ll never know.

by B.B.Finnegan on May 19, 2009 5:47 PM PDT up reply actions

The Colts

were a solid team on a down year when they grabbed Peyton Manning. They went 8-8, 9-7, and 9-7 in the 3 years prior to grabbing Manning. He also had Marvin Harrison to throw to and the same OC his whole career.

by Fear on May 19, 2009 9:23 PM PDT up reply actions