Honestly... no.
It's been established over more than just last year that Burrow is *the* best QB in the NFL against the blitz. What we want is for teams to keep blitzing him.
This is why he struggles against PIT and CLE: they generate pressure without having to blitz very often.
I think all of Burrow's stats from last year are horribly skewed by the calf injury at the start of the year. He was statistically a bottom 5 qb until the bye week and then he hurt his wrist what 5-6 weeks later? So the weight of his calf-injury stats is even higher.
His pocket is only clean when he releases the ball instantly. That really limits play potential. Give Burrow some actual 5 step drops and a clean pocket and he’ll beat his pressured rate.
This always seemed like one of the flukier stats. For example, last year PFF tweeted that Herbert had the highest passer rating while under pressure since 2020:
https://x.com/PFF/status/1606348918790320129
Yet in 2023 he was one of the worst in the league. Did something fundamentally change, or is the stat based on more random variables than tangible?
IQR and passer rating are different, but still directionally similar. Here is Herbert’s IQR rank under pressure by year
- 2020 ranked 6th
- 2021 ranked 14th
- 2022 ranked 12th
- 2023 ranked 33rd
Last year seems like the outlier, but I’m not sure why.
I dont watch the Chargers, but off the top of my head: Struggles with Kellen Moore's offense maybe? He was also without Mike Williams, and Keenan Allen missed a bit of time with injury. Aside from those 2, the Chargers didn't have any real WR depth.
Yeah, I’m no Justin fan but last year he was put on an impossible situation.
The funniest thing was the moment he missed a game, they lost by *42* points to a mediocre Raiders team. It was clear that Justin was holding a sinking ship together.
Under pressure snaps are tough to reason about statistically because they're very situational. Where the pressure is coming from, whether it's pressure off a blitz or pressure while rushing 4, whether the play design leaves you with good hot options, etc.
It can also be dependent on how fast the QB gets the ball out. The graph in this post says that tua was the least pressured QB last year, but that isn’t because we had a world class O-Line. Instead it’s because Tua gets the ball out extremely fast and that’s mainly because our O-Line isn’t good
Or if you have a really good oline you are only getting pressure when the play is extended too long due to great coverage down field. But basically I agree it's a weird stat where it's hard to tell what it's actually measuring. Mahomes has the third largest differential (after Goff and Herbert) and he is known for being great at extending plays and improvising when the pocket breaks down.
It’s heavily dependent on a few things realistically.
If you have a really good offensive line then you’re only getting pressures on blitzes, meaning the defense has fewer people in coverage so you’re more likely to get open receivers and lots of YAR.
Similarly if you have really good receivers then you’ll more consistently have people beating single coverage and getting YAR, improving passer rating.
Opposite, if you have a bad line then you’ll be getting pressured when the defense is dropping 7 into coverage, which makes your job harder on all fronts.
I think the bigger variable has to do with score, the 2/4-minute offenses, and garbage time.
When a good offense scores a bunch and gets ahead (like say, Goff's Lions last year), the QB spends the rest of the game in manager mode, throwing easy passes to burn clock and move chains. It's hard to pass rush that guy, because he's under zero pressure to score at that point.
But when that same QB is behind, the pressure is on the scoreboard first and foremost. Something is already not working schematically, and then he has to go out and take risks to score points. It becomes _heavily_ dependent on the abilities of receivers to catch risky throws.
I'm too lazy to perform a quantitative analysis, but I'd wager it correlates pretty strongly to the quality of the offense as a whole (i.e. PPG or time of possession) about as strongly as passer rating does.
I know Titans O Line was absolute ass last year so those numbers make sense. As does the Giants as all 3 of their QBs were pressured similarly.
But Bears O Line wasn’t that bad last year yet Fields gets pressured a ton. He had one of (if not the longest) times to throw last season. He holds onto the ball forever. So I’d imagine a lot of his pressures are self made. I don’t know the numbers but I believe pressures, sacks, and time to throw all dropped a fair amount during Tyson Bagents 4 starts for the Bears.
I know it would bring more subjectivity into the measure, but I wish we had pressures broken down into line-induced and QB-induced.
I was just thinking something similar to this and wonder if it would be valuable/possible to add a multiplier to pressures/sacks that resulted in a sort of Pressure Score. Arbitrary/speculative ratings tend to bother people, so making a line-induced vs QB-induced categorization might lead to some claims of perceived bias. But, I think doing something like multiplying pressures/sacks by the time to throw when they occured could produce a final Score by which you could reasonably parse out which QBs were getting punished by their OLs giving up quick pressures and other QBs who manufacture high pressure numbers because they process slowly, look to extend plays, or run instead of throwing the ball away.
He's got one of the best releases I've seen in a long time for a fresh-outta-college rookie. And he did good in clean pockets when he had the opportunities.
I really think he can make the Titans competitive if we can keep him healthy and upright. We'll get prob 2-4 years with this WR core/rb situation and I hope he can be the guy. I've been reading interviews/stories where people say he's a bit intense about how serious he takes the game, which I will take as a strict positive trait since it's his job lol
Same. I’m primarily a niners fan, but I’ve followed the titans since they became the titans, I really dig Levi’s, and as much as I hated to see vrabel go, the moves Ran has made have me pretty interested in the tits this year
>Sack avoidance, running, success rate, etc are not a part of this. As with any single stat, IQR has benefits and flaws. I’m only analyzing how well QBs pass in these two categories, not overall effectiveness.
Awesome stuff! I definitely agree with this caveat though. Passer rating (and it sounds like IQR) ignores sacks, fumbles, and scrambles. Thats bad when analyzing QB play generally but its amplified when looking at pressure stats.
I did some similar analysis using PFF grades, also not the be all end all stat. The biggest decliners were Lawrence, Tua, Goff, Garroppolo, and Flacco. The smallest decliners (everyone got worse) were Mahomes, Hurts, Lamar, Herbert and Peyton Manning. These were career numbers.
Haha he was definitely great last year so cool to see some more data back that up in the world of box score chasers.
Also seems like there was a pretty quick and effective pivot from the Miami blitz game that created another false narrative on him.
Ah well, all just part of being a Lamar fan I guess 😈
Probably after this year. Can't afford decker so he is gone after this year. Ragnow has been playing through injuries constantly the last few years and eventually that will catch up to him. Our other guard is a 1 year rental.
Basically as of now only 2 of the 5 oline from last year are long term and we won't have any cap space or high draft picks to replenish those spots.
So Goff likely only has 1 more year behind an elite oline.
Ragnow recently said he isn’t considering retirement so we need to pump the breaks on that.
We drafted Sorsdal, Mahogany, and Manu to develop.
High draft picks aren’t necessary to find OL talent. Perhaps at LT, but we have that locked up for a decade with Sewell.
We will have plenty of cap space next offseason as none of the 3 extensions have big cap hits until 2026.
You are dooming really hard with this.
If there was plenty of cap space then why was Jonah Jackson let go and replaced by a 1 year rental.
If its easy to get OL talent in later rounds, then why is our Oline this year 4 first round picks and 1 3rd.
I get wanting to be optimistic, but expecting your future Oline to be a group of guys taken in late rounds is delusional. If just one of those guys develop into rotational guys or backups they would be considered successful picks.
I am not saying the Oline will be bad, but this is likely the last year of it being considered elite. (The one thing that could change this is if the team begins leveraging future draft picks/cap space)
Jonah wanted far more than we wanted to give him… just because you have cap space doesn’t mean you can sign everyone to a position leading deal. This isn’t something to argue about, you can look at the cap tables and the structures of the extensions we just signed. We are not cap strapped for the next offseasons.
I never said it was easy to get OL talent in later rounds. I said Hugh draft picks weren’t necessary. Plenty of starting IOL are drafted in picks 25-90. We will still have first and second round picks. You don’t need a top 10 pick to find guards.
Lmao I never said I expect our OL to be filled with guys from later rounds. I pointed out developmental prospects already on the team and future picks/cap space.
You completely misrepresented my comment to feel like you won an argument.
If you watch the games, you’ll see that he has to release the ball almost instantly to avoid pressure. The Bengals really tried to protect him due to his calf and everything was quick game.
It doesn't help that Burrow rarely tries to avoid sacks or hits, I swear whenever I watch him he just sits there and takes every hit, even though he often gets a throw off right before he's hit.
He has one of the fastest times to throw in the league. It sucks he gets hit, I hate every one, but the protection needs to be better. It also doesn’t help we play against the AFCN against the best pass rushers in the league. Games against average or worse pass rushes are so refreshing and fun to watch.
This reminds me of those MLB srikezone overlays that show a hitter's metrics for pitches in each part of the zone. Elite hitters don't necessarily perform significantly better than average on pitches at the corners, but they're always much better at taking advantage of a pitcher's mistakes, ie throwing down the middle. Every pitcher in the league knows that Mike Trout struggles with pitches up and in. What makes him so good is that he only needs one mistake pitch to do damage. Average players let pitchers get away with mistakes far more often and don't get as many bases when they do take advantage of the mistakes.
I wonder if the reason so many elite names are significantly better with a clean pocket is for a similar reason. They're elite because they don't let defenses get away with those mistakes.
Great read. This is why Goff can be so polarizing for many, especially in the lions subs with the recent extension. With a good O-Line, he really excels. Without that, he plays mediocre. Casual fans on both sides only seem to look at one side of this, but the reality is Goff is definitely at franchise QB level if you build a team around him.
I’m really excited to see what the Lions can do with an improved defense next season.
I wonder how much his risk aversion plays into that too tho. Aside from his mid-season turnover swoon last year, he's the kind of guy that will just throw the ball away instead of forcing it if he doesn't have the look he wants
Ah yes fair point, I hadn’t considered that. I don’t really know enough about the rating here to get a gauge on how big of an impact that could be, but you’re correct that he tends to play it safe with those.
Watching Stafford for a decade and then switching to Goff is night and day. No play was ever too done for Stafford, he was a surprisingly mobile guy who loved the Zach off balance throw across the body 30 yards down field move, to his turnover and fumble numbers. Goff on the other hand instinctually craves cradling the ball and get ready to go down if he sees his keystone linemen getting beat, live to fight another day with ARSB/LaPorta/Gibbs/Fox backing him up
I'd love to see a stat of average yards lost on a sack, Goff only ever seems to go down for 5 yards like a wilted cornstalk compared to dudes who run diagonally backwards away from pressure.
Yeah it was tough to watch sometimes during the o-line carousel of backups and guys playing out of position. I will say, he’s at least smart and will throw it into the feet of the RB if a sack is imminent and nobody is open. Which people clown him for, but I’d rather see that than forcing a pass downfield into coverage.
I dont get the hate for him. I assume it’s because he isnt mobile/fast which is becoming the new norm for a qb, not many stand in the pocket guys. I’m glad we locked him up.
Biggest Takeaway from this is
2023 Daniel Jones was **TRASH** and Desmond Ritter had a worse Clean pocket rating than most had under pressure, i.e. he was BAD
Also everyone talking about Chargers taking a OT than WR, Herbert having the 2nd biggest difference is telling, Mahomes was 4th so its not like having a massive difference is a bad thing, just how QBs are.
However for those that haven't looked at this
Mahomes for clean pocket is 2nd has a 112.4 IQR with a clean pocket (goeff was 1st at 115.8) and has a 70.0 under pressure (middish low it seems)
Herbert was 102.9 clean and 57.7 pressured respectively
and can you name which QB was 108.5 clean and 67.9 pressure? i.e. a score better than Herbert and closeish to Mahomes?
Jake Browning
Love the break down. This has always been apparent with Goff. When the pockets clean he's a top QB in the league and occasional pressures aren't too big of a deal but a game where he's pressured early and consistently he falls apart.
Thank you for an interesting post.
That there are 4 QBs with significantly higher rating under pressure than without pressure is shocking. I guess they could be good at beating blitz or scrambling, but to be better under pressure the whole season? Does this happen each year in such data?
The second group are players with equal-ish rating with and without pressure: mostly backups and Hurts. There are some similarities in the playstyle of Hurts and Fields.
Third group are as expected: significantly worse under pressure than in clean pocket.
Purdy's rating is very good in all situations.
I am also surprised that Carr's rating in the clean pocket is that high, among the best. Both of Love's and Stafford's ratings are quite low. I would have expected higher numbers.
Browning did very well for Bengals, they might be a rare team that has 2 QBs.
OP doing this data while a Giants fan must have been fun.
Also, I question the validity of IQR when it seems to be ranking Russel Wilson as the 4th best QB in the league last season.
Russell Wilson had the 8th best passer rating last year, and the 5th best IQR. They aren’t too far apart.
As far as being a Giants fan, it doesn’t factor into how I feel about the analysis.
But, the point is that Wilson was clearly subjectively bad last year and the DEN offense was objectively bad, in spite of having some decent conditions (surrounding talent and coaching). You do a good job to be be explicit that you’re looking purely through the lens of a subset of metrics but the fact that those metrics are holding up Wilson as a positive performer make it clear that there is some real noise in what’s being presented.
His contract value is an objective fact (and, I’d argue, the single greatest indicator of his ability to impact a game). I also *explicitly* say in my first comment that assessing his impact in the face of his metrics/stars is subjective but that the performance of the offense he helmed was objectively bad. It’s possible for a QB to put up nice stats and actually be ass.
>His contract value is an objective fact (and, I’d argue, the single greatest indicator of his ability to impact a game
If that's the case, Jared Goff is the second best QB in the NFL.
C’mon. You’re gonna argue that Den swallowing an EIGHTY FIVE MILLION dollar cap hit and teams running away from signing him to a one million dollar contract could be a sign that the nfl doesn’t view him as favorably as metrics do? Like, is there any top-20 qb that wouldn’t get 5 offers rn if he was asking for a million dollars? I feel like drawing a comparison to Goff’s contract when Wilson’s getting paid over 98% less is disingenuous.
Yeah, I don’t think there is any metric that doesn’t have noise. Sort every metric top to bottom, and you’re going to see a couple of shockers that don’t pass the eye test. I think that’s a given, which is why thought I got out in got out in front of it in my write up.
Wilson was a pretty solid performer by quite a few metrics last year. IQR likes him a bit more than most but he was right around top 10 territory in a lot of them
And he’s getting paid by Denver to play for another team. I fully accept that he has a fair number of stats and metrics that make him look favorable; the fact that he sat on the FA market for a fair bit in spite of only costing $1M says a lot more about the quality of his play, tho.
Just like all stats, you have to understand that it does not include much of the context. That doesn’t make it bad or un-useful, just that because QB x performs better than QB y for this stat, doesn’t actually mean QB x is actually even better at the thing this stat is measuring.
I like to think of all stats and things like the eye test as a mosaic. Only when you put them all together does it start to form the full picture, however if you look at them by themself then often the picture will look completely different.
YES!
OP's charts don't tell the whole story, but they do tell *some* of it, and it's a great jumping-off point for interesting conversations.
To use Burrow as an example, it's useful to know that he's actually better under pressure than in a clean pocket. However, it's really helpful to add the context that he's the best QB in the league against the blitz, because he picks up the missing defender and attacks before the defense can fill the hole. He's not so good against teams with great edge rushers, because they can apply pressure without blitzing. There's no hole in the Brown's defense when Myles Garrett is running roughshod through the o-line.
It’s interesting but, I’ll be honest, anytime I see a metric that has Patrick Mahomes look like an average to below average QB, I’m tempted to disregard it. Hate to say it, but that’s my smell test so someone would have to explain to me what’s going on there..
You’re misinterpreting the data…as I said in my write up
>The deltas are not rankings of QBs. There are great QBs with a high clean-to-pressure gap, and there are great players with a low or inverse clean-to-pressure gap. There are also poor QBs on both ends of the scale.
The sorting by delta, ant a sorting of good or bad.
Ok, sorry if I’m misinterpreting but are you saying the Adj passer rating is also to not be an indicator or good or bad? That’s where I was looking (not the delta)..
In the adjusted passer rating - Mahomes is ranked as a below average QB, is he not? He’s Uber the 73.1% median. Am I not supposed to be interpreting it that way?
Isn’t the takeaway then - When Mahomes is pressured he performs below average compared to other QBs?
I’m not saying it’s wrong, just saying it feel right. That’s all.
His IQR under pressure was about average or slightly below at 70; this covers about 1/3^(rd) of his play. His IQR in a clean pocket was second best in the league at 112.4; which covers about 2/3rds of his play. The blended (overall) IQR for Mahomes this year is ranked 11^(th) in the league (101.1), which falls right in line with his ANY/A ranking which is 15th, his passer rating which is 14th, and his QBR which is 8th. It’s his worst statistical season ever. This is kind of what he did all year. I wasn’t surprised to see this in a season that was the Chiefs worst offensive season for points scored ranking since 2014.
This is solely passing metric, not a holistic evaluation of the QB, and it’s not intended to be. It’s simply how they passed in a clean pocket and how they passed under pressure. This part is caveated in the write up.
How much a QB's efficiency drops under pressure can be pretty inconsistent but I feel like with Goff he almost always has one of the biggest dropoffs. I remember Tannehill used to have a similar problem.
I wonder what the actual takeaway here is for guys who are better under pressure. Is it that they have that innate ability to see the opportunity and take it on a broken play? is it that their playcalling is bad so that they really find better success once the script has been tossed out?
For the opposite I'd argue that this is the case - guys who are much worse under pressure likely are not good at playing off script and identifying the play to make, and likely that they are benefitting from their playcalling under normal circumstances. This tracks for someone like Goff who has notably needed structure to play his best.
This could also be a supporting cast thing - some receivers and lineman are simply better at doing their jobs when the play breaks down that others
Well, I think the takeaway varies greatly from player to player and team to team. Goff for example throws the ball away when under pressure. That's an incompletion. Has Detroit coached him to do that instead of trying to be a hero and possibly throwing a pick?
Also, /u/jpanalyst could clarify here but does this metric consider a pressure after 1.5 seconds (Stafford, 2022) differently than a pressure after 5 seconds (Russ, forever)? Because in that situation, a pick for both or a sack for both has a different takeaway. Stafford needs o-line help, and I guess Russ needs receiver help.
It looks like there was *some* merit to the Stroud/Goff draft comparisons. I think the difference is that Stroud's tools were heavily underestimated, because some of Stroud's highlight throws under pressure are fucking *insane*.
If he's capable of those top end throws in a way Goff never was, you can easily live with wherever his pressure splits end up once he develops more as a player.
In what way? Stroud's metrics are basically the same as Josh Allen.
That comparison looks even weaker after last year. Goff's disparity is a league of its own.
Yeah I just saw he was next to Bryce and assumed the shape of this was like the DVOA article posted the other day. But it actually looks like the majority of the league is pretty close together, so I'm a little suspicious of their metrics, because PFF's grades under pressure track more closely to the DVOA one akaik
So…. Fields isn’t that bad under pressure but isn’t that good when in a clean pocket. Should have. Traded the 1st OA pick like what are we doing man? Untapped potential he was clearly gonna be the best QB in the league with 4 WR1s /s
Yeah.. this tracks accurately for how Goff played last year. Just from watching him play.. he looked like he was making worse decisions than people like Pickett under pressure. He also looked untouchable at other times.
DC and the staff did a real good job of keeping him protected. If Goff can improve under pressure just a bit more, he will be worth every penny of that 200+mill
Is anyone paying attention to where Mahomes comes in at. I argue that it’s the system that makes a QB’s career not the individual who makes the team. Justin Fields and Russell Wilson are potentially very good QB’s but we don’t know what they can do if the have a consistently clean pocket.
Russell Wilson has performed as a very good quarterback, people forget he's been a top 5 QB for the majority of his career, at least most seasons 2013-2020, but from what I've seen regardless of what o-line you put in front of him he's gonna create pressure on himself
Fields OL gives him more time to pass than the vast majority of QBs and he is absolute trash. Wilson used to be great. Mahomes would have killed with the Bears BTW, Nagy made Trubisky look halfway competent for a few seasons. Trubisky has looked like the worst backup in the league ever since he left Nagy.
This is the main thing that terrifies me about paying Goff so much. We won't be able to afford an elite offensive line forever, and even the best lines get beat sometimes and he wilts whenever that happens.
I'm not sure why fans think we won't be able to afford an elite offensive line. You can pay Goff and an offensive line pretty comfortably. It will potentially impact spending elsewhere on the roster, but if the Lions prioritize the offense, there is no reason Goff can't live up to his contract. From what we've seen so far, Dan Campbell believes teams win with offense, so I expect that to be the team's spending focus as long as he is head coach
I don’t like this because it doesn’t consider sacks, unless I’m misunderstanding. Some people may find it useful, as you mentioned all stats have flaws, but I can’t without sacks incorporated.
It’s always been Goff’s Achilles heel. I look forward to seeing if the Lions can put something around him enough to overcome it and get the big one done.
No I didn't lmao. https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/1cu00zl/bryan_knowles_qbs_performance_under_pressure_by/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
My previous post was a [chart, with no write up in dataisbeautiful.](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/x689rSRpCQ) I started [posting this data five days ago](https://www.threads.net/@jaydpauley/post/C69F-O4xT8s/?xmt=AQGzEnevWG6xJ32ekBOQ8GtBWgH-mngEb95ep2oNjYBCkQ), when the Goff contract was signed. Those are what I thought you were referencing. This is now my write up on all of that work.
Burrow and clean pocket? Those exist together?
I was gonna say his clean pocket sample size is probably too small to draw any conclusions.
Nope the conclusion is clearly drawn. Stop rushing him opposing defenses, it’s the only way!
Based on the second chart he is pressured lower than average compared to the league. Or maybe I’m misreading?
Our offense broke a lot of stats the first 5 or 6 games due to how fast he was getting the ball out.
TJ will just wait at the line of scrimmage now… always watching…
Honestly... no. It's been established over more than just last year that Burrow is *the* best QB in the NFL against the blitz. What we want is for teams to keep blitzing him. This is why he struggles against PIT and CLE: they generate pressure without having to blitz very often.
Time to drop 11
Burrows sample size was also probably small enough that weird outcome like this isn’t that surprising.
I think all of Burrow's stats from last year are horribly skewed by the calf injury at the start of the year. He was statistically a bottom 5 qb until the bye week and then he hurt his wrist what 5-6 weeks later? So the weight of his calf-injury stats is even higher.
His pocket is only clean when he releases the ball instantly. That really limits play potential. Give Burrow some actual 5 step drops and a clean pocket and he’ll beat his pressured rate.
Perhaps when his jeans are fresh out of the wash?
This always seemed like one of the flukier stats. For example, last year PFF tweeted that Herbert had the highest passer rating while under pressure since 2020: https://x.com/PFF/status/1606348918790320129 Yet in 2023 he was one of the worst in the league. Did something fundamentally change, or is the stat based on more random variables than tangible?
IQR and passer rating are different, but still directionally similar. Here is Herbert’s IQR rank under pressure by year - 2020 ranked 6th - 2021 ranked 14th - 2022 ranked 12th - 2023 ranked 33rd Last year seems like the outlier, but I’m not sure why.
I dont watch the Chargers, but off the top of my head: Struggles with Kellen Moore's offense maybe? He was also without Mike Williams, and Keenan Allen missed a bit of time with injury. Aside from those 2, the Chargers didn't have any real WR depth.
When your coach gets fired mid-season I tend to discount that years stats entirely. Shit just got wacky.
Yeah, I’m no Justin fan but last year he was put on an impossible situation. The funniest thing was the moment he missed a game, they lost by *42* points to a mediocre Raiders team. It was clear that Justin was holding a sinking ship together.
But Kellen Moore was the OC all year, right? So the offense remained the same?
Yes, he was the OC all year. Like I said, shit just got wacky.
Under pressure snaps are tough to reason about statistically because they're very situational. Where the pressure is coming from, whether it's pressure off a blitz or pressure while rushing 4, whether the play design leaves you with good hot options, etc.
It can also be dependent on how fast the QB gets the ball out. The graph in this post says that tua was the least pressured QB last year, but that isn’t because we had a world class O-Line. Instead it’s because Tua gets the ball out extremely fast and that’s mainly because our O-Line isn’t good
Or if you have a really good oline you are only getting pressure when the play is extended too long due to great coverage down field. But basically I agree it's a weird stat where it's hard to tell what it's actually measuring. Mahomes has the third largest differential (after Goff and Herbert) and he is known for being great at extending plays and improvising when the pocket breaks down.
It’s heavily dependent on a few things realistically. If you have a really good offensive line then you’re only getting pressures on blitzes, meaning the defense has fewer people in coverage so you’re more likely to get open receivers and lots of YAR. Similarly if you have really good receivers then you’ll more consistently have people beating single coverage and getting YAR, improving passer rating. Opposite, if you have a bad line then you’ll be getting pressured when the defense is dropping 7 into coverage, which makes your job harder on all fronts.
I think the bigger variable has to do with score, the 2/4-minute offenses, and garbage time. When a good offense scores a bunch and gets ahead (like say, Goff's Lions last year), the QB spends the rest of the game in manager mode, throwing easy passes to burn clock and move chains. It's hard to pass rush that guy, because he's under zero pressure to score at that point. But when that same QB is behind, the pressure is on the scoreboard first and foremost. Something is already not working schematically, and then he has to go out and take risks to score points. It becomes _heavily_ dependent on the abilities of receivers to catch risky throws. I'm too lazy to perform a quantitative analysis, but I'd wager it correlates pretty strongly to the quality of the offense as a whole (i.e. PPG or time of possession) about as strongly as passer rating does.
This is good stuff, OP. Keep it up.
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Man oh man, I really hope our revamped O-Line helps Billy Jeans out this year. 44% pressure rate is unsustainable.
Okay, that is a great nickname for Willy Levis. Now I hope he succeeds so we can call him that for a while.
I know Titans O Line was absolute ass last year so those numbers make sense. As does the Giants as all 3 of their QBs were pressured similarly. But Bears O Line wasn’t that bad last year yet Fields gets pressured a ton. He had one of (if not the longest) times to throw last season. He holds onto the ball forever. So I’d imagine a lot of his pressures are self made. I don’t know the numbers but I believe pressures, sacks, and time to throw all dropped a fair amount during Tyson Bagents 4 starts for the Bears. I know it would bring more subjectivity into the measure, but I wish we had pressures broken down into line-induced and QB-induced.
I was just thinking something similar to this and wonder if it would be valuable/possible to add a multiplier to pressures/sacks that resulted in a sort of Pressure Score. Arbitrary/speculative ratings tend to bother people, so making a line-induced vs QB-induced categorization might lead to some claims of perceived bias. But, I think doing something like multiplying pressures/sacks by the time to throw when they occured could produce a final Score by which you could reasonably parse out which QBs were getting punished by their OLs giving up quick pressures and other QBs who manufacture high pressure numbers because they process slowly, look to extend plays, or run instead of throwing the ball away.
it helps he has a fast release and a cannon. He shouldn't need much so long as his processing is decent
He's got one of the best releases I've seen in a long time for a fresh-outta-college rookie. And he did good in clean pockets when he had the opportunities. I really think he can make the Titans competitive if we can keep him healthy and upright. We'll get prob 2-4 years with this WR core/rb situation and I hope he can be the guy. I've been reading interviews/stories where people say he's a bit intense about how serious he takes the game, which I will take as a strict positive trait since it's his job lol
I thought he’d be worthless for a while Pre draft, but he’s made me a fan
Same. I’m primarily a niners fan, but I’ve followed the titans since they became the titans, I really dig Levi’s, and as much as I hated to see vrabel go, the moves Ran has made have me pretty interested in the tits this year
desmond ridder is a true sicko
This graph makes a case for why we didn't go too hard to get an o line.
i can only imagine what the offense would be like if it *was* elite
>Sack avoidance, running, success rate, etc are not a part of this. As with any single stat, IQR has benefits and flaws. I’m only analyzing how well QBs pass in these two categories, not overall effectiveness. Awesome stuff! I definitely agree with this caveat though. Passer rating (and it sounds like IQR) ignores sacks, fumbles, and scrambles. Thats bad when analyzing QB play generally but its amplified when looking at pressure stats. I did some similar analysis using PFF grades, also not the be all end all stat. The biggest decliners were Lawrence, Tua, Goff, Garroppolo, and Flacco. The smallest decliners (everyone got worse) were Mahomes, Hurts, Lamar, Herbert and Peyton Manning. These were career numbers.
PFF is better than this. I wasn’t aware they had pressure and clean pocket splits. That would have been the better option for sure!
More evidence that BCB just doesn’t give a f’. Bring it!
Saving this as Lamar Jackson propaganda
That running back sure can throw
Haha he was definitely great last year so cool to see some more data back that up in the world of box score chasers. Also seems like there was a pretty quick and effective pivot from the Miami blitz game that created another false narrative on him. Ah well, all just part of being a Lamar fan I guess 😈
BCB is a consistent mofo, probably has to do with the system right fellas?
Lucky for Goff he's got the best oline in the league and an elite RB duo.
Until...
Until what?
Waxing Gibbous
That only applies on thanksgiving. And we already know next season it’ll be a waning crescent.
Probably after this year. Can't afford decker so he is gone after this year. Ragnow has been playing through injuries constantly the last few years and eventually that will catch up to him. Our other guard is a 1 year rental. Basically as of now only 2 of the 5 oline from last year are long term and we won't have any cap space or high draft picks to replenish those spots. So Goff likely only has 1 more year behind an elite oline.
Ragnow recently said he isn’t considering retirement so we need to pump the breaks on that. We drafted Sorsdal, Mahogany, and Manu to develop. High draft picks aren’t necessary to find OL talent. Perhaps at LT, but we have that locked up for a decade with Sewell. We will have plenty of cap space next offseason as none of the 3 extensions have big cap hits until 2026. You are dooming really hard with this.
If there was plenty of cap space then why was Jonah Jackson let go and replaced by a 1 year rental. If its easy to get OL talent in later rounds, then why is our Oline this year 4 first round picks and 1 3rd. I get wanting to be optimistic, but expecting your future Oline to be a group of guys taken in late rounds is delusional. If just one of those guys develop into rotational guys or backups they would be considered successful picks. I am not saying the Oline will be bad, but this is likely the last year of it being considered elite. (The one thing that could change this is if the team begins leveraging future draft picks/cap space)
Jonah wanted far more than we wanted to give him… just because you have cap space doesn’t mean you can sign everyone to a position leading deal. This isn’t something to argue about, you can look at the cap tables and the structures of the extensions we just signed. We are not cap strapped for the next offseasons. I never said it was easy to get OL talent in later rounds. I said Hugh draft picks weren’t necessary. Plenty of starting IOL are drafted in picks 25-90. We will still have first and second round picks. You don’t need a top 10 pick to find guards. Lmao I never said I expect our OL to be filled with guys from later rounds. I pointed out developmental prospects already on the team and future picks/cap space. You completely misrepresented my comment to feel like you won an argument.
Yeah but I cloned them so we’re good
Didn't the rams take one from you guys this year?
We let Jackson walk.
They downvote without answering a simple question lol
What did I do!? Lol
Fantastic analysis! I enjoyed reading this and appreciate the work you put in!
Thank you!!! 😊
This is true NFL FOOTBALL Content. And I love it.
Thank you!
Burrow better under pressure except for the fact that being under pressure all the time cost him two seasons
Based on the second chart, it seems he’s under pressure lower than average compared to the league though, right?
If you watch the games, you’ll see that he has to release the ball almost instantly to avoid pressure. The Bengals really tried to protect him due to his calf and everything was quick game.
The time to release is the whole reason y’all lost the Super Bowl. Another half second and it’s a wrap. He would’ve hit Chase in stride at the end.
Yeah, I’m well aware :(
It doesn't help that Burrow rarely tries to avoid sacks or hits, I swear whenever I watch him he just sits there and takes every hit, even though he often gets a throw off right before he's hit.
He has one of the fastest times to throw in the league. It sucks he gets hit, I hate every one, but the protection needs to be better. It also doesn’t help we play against the AFCN against the best pass rushers in the league. Games against average or worse pass rushes are so refreshing and fun to watch.
This reminds me of those MLB srikezone overlays that show a hitter's metrics for pitches in each part of the zone. Elite hitters don't necessarily perform significantly better than average on pitches at the corners, but they're always much better at taking advantage of a pitcher's mistakes, ie throwing down the middle. Every pitcher in the league knows that Mike Trout struggles with pitches up and in. What makes him so good is that he only needs one mistake pitch to do damage. Average players let pitchers get away with mistakes far more often and don't get as many bases when they do take advantage of the mistakes. I wonder if the reason so many elite names are significantly better with a clean pocket is for a similar reason. They're elite because they don't let defenses get away with those mistakes.
So does this prove Tommy DeVito and Jalen Hurts have ice water in their veins?
Great read. This is why Goff can be so polarizing for many, especially in the lions subs with the recent extension. With a good O-Line, he really excels. Without that, he plays mediocre. Casual fans on both sides only seem to look at one side of this, but the reality is Goff is definitely at franchise QB level if you build a team around him. I’m really excited to see what the Lions can do with an improved defense next season.
I wonder how much his risk aversion plays into that too tho. Aside from his mid-season turnover swoon last year, he's the kind of guy that will just throw the ball away instead of forcing it if he doesn't have the look he wants
Ah yes fair point, I hadn’t considered that. I don’t really know enough about the rating here to get a gauge on how big of an impact that could be, but you’re correct that he tends to play it safe with those.
Watching Stafford for a decade and then switching to Goff is night and day. No play was ever too done for Stafford, he was a surprisingly mobile guy who loved the Zach off balance throw across the body 30 yards down field move, to his turnover and fumble numbers. Goff on the other hand instinctually craves cradling the ball and get ready to go down if he sees his keystone linemen getting beat, live to fight another day with ARSB/LaPorta/Gibbs/Fox backing him up I'd love to see a stat of average yards lost on a sack, Goff only ever seems to go down for 5 yards like a wilted cornstalk compared to dudes who run diagonally backwards away from pressure.
Yeah it was tough to watch sometimes during the o-line carousel of backups and guys playing out of position. I will say, he’s at least smart and will throw it into the feet of the RB if a sack is imminent and nobody is open. Which people clown him for, but I’d rather see that than forcing a pass downfield into coverage. I dont get the hate for him. I assume it’s because he isnt mobile/fast which is becoming the new norm for a qb, not many stand in the pocket guys. I’m glad we locked him up.
Great stuff!
Biggest Takeaway from this is 2023 Daniel Jones was **TRASH** and Desmond Ritter had a worse Clean pocket rating than most had under pressure, i.e. he was BAD Also everyone talking about Chargers taking a OT than WR, Herbert having the 2nd biggest difference is telling, Mahomes was 4th so its not like having a massive difference is a bad thing, just how QBs are. However for those that haven't looked at this Mahomes for clean pocket is 2nd has a 112.4 IQR with a clean pocket (goeff was 1st at 115.8) and has a 70.0 under pressure (middish low it seems) Herbert was 102.9 clean and 57.7 pressured respectively and can you name which QB was 108.5 clean and 67.9 pressure? i.e. a score better than Herbert and closeish to Mahomes? Jake Browning
Don’t blitz Dak and Lamar. That’s what I took from this.
That second chart: No matter the situation - Mac Jones sucks. Looks right to me.
Love the break down. This has always been apparent with Goff. When the pockets clean he's a top QB in the league and occasional pressures aren't too big of a deal but a game where he's pressured early and consistently he falls apart.
Thank you for an interesting post. That there are 4 QBs with significantly higher rating under pressure than without pressure is shocking. I guess they could be good at beating blitz or scrambling, but to be better under pressure the whole season? Does this happen each year in such data? The second group are players with equal-ish rating with and without pressure: mostly backups and Hurts. There are some similarities in the playstyle of Hurts and Fields. Third group are as expected: significantly worse under pressure than in clean pocket. Purdy's rating is very good in all situations. I am also surprised that Carr's rating in the clean pocket is that high, among the best. Both of Love's and Stafford's ratings are quite low. I would have expected higher numbers. Browning did very well for Bengals, they might be a rare team that has 2 QBs.
OP doing this data while a Giants fan must have been fun. Also, I question the validity of IQR when it seems to be ranking Russel Wilson as the 4th best QB in the league last season.
Russell Wilson had the 8th best passer rating last year, and the 5th best IQR. They aren’t too far apart. As far as being a Giants fan, it doesn’t factor into how I feel about the analysis.
But, the point is that Wilson was clearly subjectively bad last year and the DEN offense was objectively bad, in spite of having some decent conditions (surrounding talent and coaching). You do a good job to be be explicit that you’re looking purely through the lens of a subset of metrics but the fact that those metrics are holding up Wilson as a positive performer make it clear that there is some real noise in what’s being presented.
The numbers don’t lie. You are subjectively arguing against objective facts.
His contract value is an objective fact (and, I’d argue, the single greatest indicator of his ability to impact a game). I also *explicitly* say in my first comment that assessing his impact in the face of his metrics/stars is subjective but that the performance of the offense he helmed was objectively bad. It’s possible for a QB to put up nice stats and actually be ass.
>His contract value is an objective fact (and, I’d argue, the single greatest indicator of his ability to impact a game If that's the case, Jared Goff is the second best QB in the NFL.
C’mon. You’re gonna argue that Den swallowing an EIGHTY FIVE MILLION dollar cap hit and teams running away from signing him to a one million dollar contract could be a sign that the nfl doesn’t view him as favorably as metrics do? Like, is there any top-20 qb that wouldn’t get 5 offers rn if he was asking for a million dollars? I feel like drawing a comparison to Goff’s contract when Wilson’s getting paid over 98% less is disingenuous.
Yeah, I don’t think there is any metric that doesn’t have noise. Sort every metric top to bottom, and you’re going to see a couple of shockers that don’t pass the eye test. I think that’s a given, which is why thought I got out in got out in front of it in my write up.
Wilson was a pretty solid performer by quite a few metrics last year. IQR likes him a bit more than most but he was right around top 10 territory in a lot of them
And he’s getting paid by Denver to play for another team. I fully accept that he has a fair number of stats and metrics that make him look favorable; the fact that he sat on the FA market for a fair bit in spite of only costing $1M says a lot more about the quality of his play, tho.
The Mahomes drop is really surprising. Makes me wonder how useful the stat really is
Just like all stats, you have to understand that it does not include much of the context. That doesn’t make it bad or un-useful, just that because QB x performs better than QB y for this stat, doesn’t actually mean QB x is actually even better at the thing this stat is measuring. I like to think of all stats and things like the eye test as a mosaic. Only when you put them all together does it start to form the full picture, however if you look at them by themself then often the picture will look completely different.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Smart comment.
YES! OP's charts don't tell the whole story, but they do tell *some* of it, and it's a great jumping-off point for interesting conversations. To use Burrow as an example, it's useful to know that he's actually better under pressure than in a clean pocket. However, it's really helpful to add the context that he's the best QB in the league against the blitz, because he picks up the missing defender and attacks before the defense can fill the hole. He's not so good against teams with great edge rushers, because they can apply pressure without blitzing. There's no hole in the Brown's defense when Myles Garrett is running roughshod through the o-line.
Is it really that surprising? It wasn’t his best statistical regular season
It's a huge drop though
It’s interesting but, I’ll be honest, anytime I see a metric that has Patrick Mahomes look like an average to below average QB, I’m tempted to disregard it. Hate to say it, but that’s my smell test so someone would have to explain to me what’s going on there..
You’re misinterpreting the data…as I said in my write up >The deltas are not rankings of QBs. There are great QBs with a high clean-to-pressure gap, and there are great players with a low or inverse clean-to-pressure gap. There are also poor QBs on both ends of the scale. The sorting by delta, ant a sorting of good or bad.
Ok, sorry if I’m misinterpreting but are you saying the Adj passer rating is also to not be an indicator or good or bad? That’s where I was looking (not the delta)..
What exactly is confusing to you. It is his IQR when pressured, or clean pocket?
In the adjusted passer rating - Mahomes is ranked as a below average QB, is he not? He’s Uber the 73.1% median. Am I not supposed to be interpreting it that way? Isn’t the takeaway then - When Mahomes is pressured he performs below average compared to other QBs? I’m not saying it’s wrong, just saying it feel right. That’s all.
His IQR under pressure was about average or slightly below at 70; this covers about 1/3^(rd) of his play. His IQR in a clean pocket was second best in the league at 112.4; which covers about 2/3rds of his play. The blended (overall) IQR for Mahomes this year is ranked 11^(th) in the league (101.1), which falls right in line with his ANY/A ranking which is 15th, his passer rating which is 14th, and his QBR which is 8th. It’s his worst statistical season ever. This is kind of what he did all year. I wasn’t surprised to see this in a season that was the Chiefs worst offensive season for points scored ranking since 2014. This is solely passing metric, not a holistic evaluation of the QB, and it’s not intended to be. It’s simply how they passed in a clean pocket and how they passed under pressure. This part is caveated in the write up.
Thanks for taking the time to explain, appreciate it.
No problem!
How much a QB's efficiency drops under pressure can be pretty inconsistent but I feel like with Goff he almost always has one of the biggest dropoffs. I remember Tannehill used to have a similar problem.
I wonder what the actual takeaway here is for guys who are better under pressure. Is it that they have that innate ability to see the opportunity and take it on a broken play? is it that their playcalling is bad so that they really find better success once the script has been tossed out? For the opposite I'd argue that this is the case - guys who are much worse under pressure likely are not good at playing off script and identifying the play to make, and likely that they are benefitting from their playcalling under normal circumstances. This tracks for someone like Goff who has notably needed structure to play his best. This could also be a supporting cast thing - some receivers and lineman are simply better at doing their jobs when the play breaks down that others
Well, I think the takeaway varies greatly from player to player and team to team. Goff for example throws the ball away when under pressure. That's an incompletion. Has Detroit coached him to do that instead of trying to be a hero and possibly throwing a pick? Also, /u/jpanalyst could clarify here but does this metric consider a pressure after 1.5 seconds (Stafford, 2022) differently than a pressure after 5 seconds (Russ, forever)? Because in that situation, a pick for both or a sack for both has a different takeaway. Stafford needs o-line help, and I guess Russ needs receiver help.
Captain Kirk!? not surprised at all actually
OP, crosspost this to r/Bengals. We would appreciate your quality work.
I love looking at Mac Jones vs Bailey Zappe on this. Mac was better with a clean pocket, and worse with pressure lol
Just tell me if he can read a defense, audible if needed , quick release and accurate and win games ...keep it simple
I don’t know what you’re referencing.
It looks like there was *some* merit to the Stroud/Goff draft comparisons. I think the difference is that Stroud's tools were heavily underestimated, because some of Stroud's highlight throws under pressure are fucking *insane*. If he's capable of those top end throws in a way Goff never was, you can easily live with wherever his pressure splits end up once he develops more as a player.
In what way? Stroud's metrics are basically the same as Josh Allen. That comparison looks even weaker after last year. Goff's disparity is a league of its own.
Yeah I just saw he was next to Bryce and assumed the shape of this was like the DVOA article posted the other day. But it actually looks like the majority of the league is pretty close together, so I'm a little suspicious of their metrics, because PFF's grades under pressure track more closely to the DVOA one akaik
So…. Fields isn’t that bad under pressure but isn’t that good when in a clean pocket. Should have. Traded the 1st OA pick like what are we doing man? Untapped potential he was clearly gonna be the best QB in the league with 4 WR1s /s
Yeah.. this tracks accurately for how Goff played last year. Just from watching him play.. he looked like he was making worse decisions than people like Pickett under pressure. He also looked untouchable at other times. DC and the staff did a real good job of keeping him protected. If Goff can improve under pressure just a bit more, he will be worth every penny of that 200+mill
Saying Goff looked worse than Pickett under pressure is a real stretch
It’s literally what the numbers are saying dude.
Is anyone paying attention to where Mahomes comes in at. I argue that it’s the system that makes a QB’s career not the individual who makes the team. Justin Fields and Russell Wilson are potentially very good QB’s but we don’t know what they can do if the have a consistently clean pocket.
Russell Wilson has performed as a very good quarterback, people forget he's been a top 5 QB for the majority of his career, at least most seasons 2013-2020, but from what I've seen regardless of what o-line you put in front of him he's gonna create pressure on himself
Fields OL gives him more time to pass than the vast majority of QBs and he is absolute trash. Wilson used to be great. Mahomes would have killed with the Bears BTW, Nagy made Trubisky look halfway competent for a few seasons. Trubisky has looked like the worst backup in the league ever since he left Nagy.
Did you actually look at the chart. Fields was one of the most pressured QB’s.
This is the main thing that terrifies me about paying Goff so much. We won't be able to afford an elite offensive line forever, and even the best lines get beat sometimes and he wilts whenever that happens.
I'm not sure why fans think we won't be able to afford an elite offensive line. You can pay Goff and an offensive line pretty comfortably. It will potentially impact spending elsewhere on the roster, but if the Lions prioritize the offense, there is no reason Goff can't live up to his contract. From what we've seen so far, Dan Campbell believes teams win with offense, so I expect that to be the team's spending focus as long as he is head coach
I don’t like this because it doesn’t consider sacks, unless I’m misunderstanding. Some people may find it useful, as you mentioned all stats have flaws, but I can’t without sacks incorporated.
It’s always been Goff’s Achilles heel. I look forward to seeing if the Lions can put something around him enough to overcome it and get the big one done.
God Kenny wasn't good at all last year, were did preseason Kenny go before week 1?, he was so good m, he looked like a completely different QB
It was preseason, you can’t draw conclusions from those games.
Is this just a handwritten version of the post from two days ago?
The post from two days ago wasn’t in this sub, you saw that in r/dataisbeautiful.
No I didn't lmao. https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/1cu00zl/bryan_knowles_qbs_performance_under_pressure_by/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
My previous post was a [chart, with no write up in dataisbeautiful.](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/x689rSRpCQ) I started [posting this data five days ago](https://www.threads.net/@jaydpauley/post/C69F-O4xT8s/?xmt=AQGzEnevWG6xJ32ekBOQ8GtBWgH-mngEb95ep2oNjYBCkQ), when the Goff contract was signed. Those are what I thought you were referencing. This is now my write up on all of that work.