Week 6 Opposing QB: An analysis of Trevor Lawrence

By T. Troy Russell@TTroyRussell Oct 14, 2023, 12:30pm EDT

NFL: London Games-Jacksonville Jaguars at Buffalo Bills

Thanks to the nflFastR project and NFL NextGen Stats for the timely sources of data.

For those of you new to this, I will publish key QB stats each week judging how well the upcoming opponent QB has performed. Yes, O-Line, receivers, and play-calling impact these numbers but they are primarily QB measures. I will probably modify the charts throughout the season. Commentary will be brief but feel free to let me know in the comments that stats aren’t everything. (click charts for larger view)

On Sunday, the Colts will face Trevor Lawrence for the 2nd time this season. In week 1, he had the 6th best yardage efficiency. Let’s see how that has changed.

DASHBOARD

opd, edp, arsr, pr%, ttt, adot, ay/c, sck%, scr%, ta%, aa%, aay, cmp%, cpoe, yac, yacoe, ypa, ny/d, 1st%, td%, to%, epa/d, psr

Lawrence has faced tough passing defenses and he hasn’t got much help from his running game (10th opd, 21st arsr).
He has not faced a lot of pressure, but that is more a result of his very quick time to throw (25th pr%, 30th ttt) and not so much because of his O-line that ranks 32nd in Pass Block Win Rate.
Depsite him getting rid of the ball so qucikly, he is completing longer than average attempts, which is hard to defend against (15th ay/c).
His 67.2% competion rate is above expected, but below the average QB so far this year (16th cmp%, 23rd cpoe).
His receivers are not good at getting YAC and are almost a full yard below expectations (25th YAC, 23rd yacoe). That directly leads to a depressed yardage efficency on attempts (18th YPA).
His sack rate is about average and he often uses his legs to avoid pressure (14th sck%, 8th scr%).
He doesn’t abandon a lot of plays, but when he does he earns much higher than average yardage (16th aa%, 4th aay). This lifts his dropback yardage efficiency to above the NFL average (13th ny/d).
His strength is moving the chains, however, that does not lead to a lot of pasing TDs and he’s not overly careful with the ball (5th 1st%, 24th td%, 16th to%). Those issues bring his pass play efficiency down when measured in EPA terms (18th EPA/d).
However, his success rate is very good, which means his past negative plays have been very negative (e.g. turnovers).

All of this makes Lawrence one of the better QBs, but not in the upper tier.

HOW WELL?

Trevor had a rough week 1 & 2, but has been trending much better since then.

HOW FAR?

Both his attempts and completions have primarily been on the short side.

TO WHO?

Yard-wise, it’s a coin flip between Kirk and Ridley, but Kirk is getting the most targets.

His top receivers all have positive EPA averages, which means his passes may not be high yardage (18th YPA) but they are high value (e.g. first downs).