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Week 9 Opposing QB: An analysis of Bryce Young

By T. Troy Russell
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NFL: Houston Texans at Carolina Panthers Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

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)

Carolina spent its #1 pick on rookie QB Bryce Young. How has he looked so far?

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
  • Young has faced easier pass defenses, while running a fairly balanced attack with a less than average run game (20th opd, 19th edp, 21st arsr).
  • He has seen moderate pressure, but that has been consistent with how long he holds the ball (12th pr%, 13 ttt). This usually means average-ish protection and ESPN ranks the Carolina O-Line 19th in Pass Block Win Rate.
  • Even with a higher than average throwing time, he is making extremely short attempts (29th adot). This is a QB that is not finding open receivers downfield and has had to settle for a lot of check-downs.
  • That usually does not translate to much YAC and that seems to be happening with Young. Even though he is accurate, his short passes go nowhere (14th cpoe, 31at ay/c, 28th YAC, 29th yacoe).
  • This of course leads to terrible yardage efficiency (32nd ypa).
  • While Young has great scrambling ability, he has not displayed that often. He has thrown the ball away more than any other QB and has taken a lot of sacks (18th scr%, 1st ta%, 8th sck%).
  • This has led to a very high abandoned pass play rate, although he is minimizing the lost yardage from those plays (6th aa%, 23rd aay). That leaves his overall yardage efficiency rank relatively unchanged (31st ny/d).
  • He’s not throwing a lot of first downs or TDs and his turnover rate is just average, so when including all of that into an EPA-efficiency number, he is still near the bottom of the league (30th epa/d, 28th psr).

Basically, he is a QB that feels rushed and is throwing the ball away or checking down instead of making downfield connections. He either can’t find open receivers and/or he is unwilling to throw them open. The only way that succeeds is with a great run game and stellar protection, which are 2 things the Panthers don’t have. As a result, the Carolina Panthers under Bryce Young are one of the worst passing offenses in the league.

HOW WELL?

Relative to the end of last year, the Panthers passing is worse. Young is consistantly below average in the stats that lead to wins.

HOW FAR?

Passing depth has been trending shorter as the season progresses. Without commensurate YAC, that is a losing proposition.

TO WHO?

A 33 year-old has been their only receiving threat.

HOW ACCURATE?

Bryce’s accuracy has been above average, but he’s really only been accurate on completions that have been <= 5 yards. So, until he airs it out a bit, I’m not sold.

HOW FAST?

The first few weeks, he couldn’t get rid of the ball, but since then he has been much quicker. This could be him learning to process the game better or it might be random noise.

TO WHERE?

He hasn’t found much success anywhere.

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