Quarterback Play Reached a Low in 2023. Wildcard Weekend Showed that it Will Improve Soon.

Quarterback play, offensive play in general, reached 15-20 year low in 2023-24. Offensive success rates were at their lowest in both the pass and the run since 2013 and third lowest since 2000. Quarterbacks averaged the lowest EPA per dropback and per pass attempt since the stat has been kept and offenses in general are at their lowest EPA since 2000. Quarterback touchdown percentage and yards per attempt was also at their lowest since 2008.

 

It was bad. A bit like Ridley Scott’s shitty Napoleon, this dip was a bit of a surprise given the surplus of what appeared to be good quarterbacks heading into the season and the fact that the 2020 season was just about the best offensive season in history by most of those very same metrics (largely because the refs just didn’t call holding).

 

The reasons for this dip are multiple. Like Ridley Scott choosing to make Napoleon an incel loser getting cucked by Vanessa Kirby instead of focusing on the fact that he led the most consequential life in the history of human lives led, this season mostly took the good quarterbacks away from us. Half the teams used multiple quarterbacks and we lost each of Aaron Rodgers, Anthony Richardson, Deshaun Watson, Daniel Jones, Kirk Cousins, Kyler Murray, Joe Burrow and Kenny Pickett for big chunks of the season. Alongside that, guys that we expected to be stars like Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts, or mid-tier starters like Mac Jones, just didn’t play at their best for various reasons.

 

Beyond that, per Mike Sando of The Athletic, the average age of the week 1 starters was the lowest since 1957 as the position has lost a number of experienced players at the position in recent years, headlined by players like Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan and Drew Brees.

 

It’s obviously not just bad quarterback play. Defences are getting better, and defensive coaching especially has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years as we can see by the buzz around several hot defensive co-ordinators for head coaching jobs.

 

So, why is set to improve? Did you see wildcard weekend? The Packers scored 6 offensive touchdowns and Texans 4 (against the best defence the NFL) led by young quarterbacks in their first year starting.

 

Wildcard weekend felt like a turning point, where next season we should get back to high-level quarterback play if health permits it. It will just be high-level quarterbacking of a different style.

 

Next season, while the quarterbacks will still be be young, they will be a year more experienced.

They will also be fucking cool.

 

The wildcard games felt like when I first saw Reservoir Dogs. The music, the self-referential nature, the jokes, the violence, the tension. A turning point where a movie didn’t have to be incredibly dark to be good. Every masterpiece doesn’t have to be about the holocaust. You can have works of genius where the best line is “let’s go get a taco” and not watching an actual water buffalo get split apart by axes.

 

Cool was, all of a sudden, longer the opposite of good.

 

It's becoming true in the NFL too.

 

Guys like Love and Stroud have so much arm talent that they can fade away on throws and do things that aren’t technically sound. They’re not better players than Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but they are more artists where Manning and Brady were surgeons.

 

If you watch Stroud or Love deal with pressure, they are unfazed by it because their physical tools are so outrageous. They scramble not to run but to pass, and when they do pass they can pass with touch or put some mustard on the ball.

 

Sometimes they don’t even need to scramble. They can buy themselves an extra split second by fading away on a throw, or a changing an arm angle, or just moving backwards all because their arm talent is so outrageous that nothing matters. They make car wash throws (throws that go through a car wash and come out clean) look routine, even while fading away on a designed rollout.

 

It’s like Muhammad Ali or Roy Jones Jr boxing with his arms down. You can do everything wrong because your physical skills make you right.

 

It’s got to the point where defences are so good that you need to be able to make these throws. Jimmy Garoppolo and Tua Tagovailoa, who can’t do anything when everything isn’t perfect, are living proof that if you can’t get to these second reaction plays under pressure then you’re dead in the NFL.

 

Even the old guys are doing it. Matt Stafford and Aaron Rodgers are like the Scorsese of this cool, nonchalant quarterback play. They’re the OGs of changing arm angles, fading away and throwing no-look passes.

 

I’m talking about Jared Goff. Goff under McVay was a Tua or Garoppolo with a stronger arm. He could only play when the train was on the tracks but as soon as anything went badly he was fucked.

 

Now, under Ben Johnson’s empowerment, Goff is able to make some plays that he never made before. While he doesn’t move like the other guys I just mentioned, he attempts more difficult throws and will get to his second and third reads more readily.

 

On this throw to Reynolds, Goff hits the dagger off play action to Reynolds between three defenders. Under McVay, it’s not wide open so he doesn’t throw it, even though it’s defined as his first read. Under Johnson, and in the modern NFL where easy plays are harder to come by (unless you’re playing Dallas), this is an unreal play in a “gotta have it” situation to ice a playoff win.

 

Next season there figures to be about 14 of this kind of cool, make a play on a second reaction, type quarterback: Mahomes, Allen, Herbert, Burrow, Jackson, Stafford, Rodgers, Love, Stroud, Murray, Purdy, Richardson, Smith and Lawrence.

 

You also are bringing in Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels and Drake Maye.

 

Then you have solid to good starters who don’t really fit the archetype like Jalen Hurts or Jared Goff. And beyond that you have project type players like Will Levis, Deshaun Watson and Justin Fields.

 

You still need to be able to play on time and rhythm, but it’s becoming a necessity to do the other thing as well. Like having some sort of “eat the rich message” in every movie these days, after the success of Succession and Parasite (I actually thought Saltburn was fun).

 

Even though the position will still be young next year, my suspicion is that wild card weekend was a harbinger of the good things for the future of the position. The quarterbacks are a year older, infinitely cooler, and hopefully better.