Popular Post Huston Posted January 25, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) With the two-week break leading up to the Super Bowl, I usually like to take this time to start charting for what I like to call The Deep Ball Project. Founded by me in 2014, The Deep Ball Project—as its name suggests—takes a look at the stats from a quarterback throwing the ball down the field. In previous seasons, the minimum requirement was 16 air yards. For this season, it’s now 21. The main goal of this project is to look at how accurate quarterbacks are at throwing the ball down the field, regardless of whether the pass is completed or not. To help explain this, I created “Accurate Incompletions”, which look at accurate passes that were dropped or couldn’t be hauled in, and “Inaccurate Completions”, which look at completed passes where the pass wasn’t exactly accurate but the receiver made an outstanding (yet unnecessary) adjustment. Therefore, completed passes are different from accurate passes. That brings us to today at Music City Miracles. Marcus Mariota’s availability in 2018 was all over the place due to numerous setbacks, but that’s not what we’re looking at this time. We’re looking at how he did throwing the ball down the field. Now, many Titans fans found Mariota’s deep ball in his first two seasons—particularly 2016—to be pretty good, but I personally thought it was average in both years. Mariota, to me, really felt at home in the short/intermediate passing games, similar to Tom Brady. In 2017, however, Mariota’s downfield accuracy took a gigantic step up. In spite of an offense with a limited scheme and an ineffective, inexperienced group of receivers, Mariota’s deep accuracy was outstanding, as his 62.4 accuracy percentage finished second among all quarterbacks on all throws of 16+ air yards. For more, let’s look at how Mariota’s accuracy percentages turned out in his first four years in the NFL, according to The Deep Ball Project. 2015: 45.9% 2016: 43.6% 2017: 62.4% 2018: 61.7% The rest with vids are here. https://www.musiccitymiracles.com/2019/1/22/18191800/marcus-mariotas-downfield-accuracy-was-solid-in-2018 Edited January 25, 2019 by Huston ChemEngr79, NashvilleNinja, TitanJoe, and 3 others 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post prometheus Posted January 25, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 Impressive breakdown. Especially in view of the current level of criticism thrown at Mariota on TR. If he can stay on the field with a better WR core and an improved IOL, then 2019 will be a very telling year in assessing whether he is extended or not. Here's hoping !!! pro Pragidealist, charleytolar, Btowner, and 4 others 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
titanruss Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 the high amount of accurate incompletions is notable. will be interesting to see how that compares to the rest of the league - percentage wise. Huston, charleytolar, TitanJoe, and 1 other 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Huston Posted January 25, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 The guy is realy an enigma because of the injuries, I realy think if he can stay healthy this year and earn another contract under Vrabel and Robinson he will reach his potential despite all that's happened in the past. titanruss, TitanJoe, freakingeek, and 3 others 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
titanruss Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 i think the counter-argument to this is he ONLY releases the ball when wide open... so therefore his accuracy and efficiency are higher. would also be nice to see how his attempts and attempt % compares to the rest of the league. when we charted rivers near-perfect game and brees best games this season against mariotas houston performance... we saw similar aggressiveness but with a slight leaning of rivers/brees to be more conservative. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number9 Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 I would like to know how many mm threw compared to other qbs. How many per game? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number9 Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing#yards #1 Big Ben #26 Mariota TNTitans, and OILERMAN 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OILERMAN Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 This is the year! C_Train, and TNTitans 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
titanruss Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, Number9 said: I would like to know how many mm threw compared to other qbs. How many per game? wtf? this is a terrible stat. not relevant to the conversation at all. you posted total yards? why? Edited January 25, 2019 by titanruss Mythos27, and Huston 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryBoats Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 6 hours ago, titanruss said: Most shots he took were on PA. Of course he's going to have a higher completion percentage. He never sat back in the pocket and took shots downfield like other QBs. Didn't Alex Smith lead this category a year ago? Do you think they'd prefer to have him, or a QB who throws it downfield enough for this stat to matter? big2033, and OILERMAN 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scine09 Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 3 hours ago, titanruss said: wtf? this is a terrible stat. not relevant to the conversation at all. you posted total yards? why? It's even funnier that Oilerman liked the post when he's on more than one occasion said that passing yards is an irrelevant stat. titanruss, and freakingeek 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nine Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 Marcus is extremely accurate and consistent throwing down the field...but he has to be more aggressive about taking those shots. In fairness to Marcus, It seems like 90% of the deep shots have targeted Taywan Taylor....but Taylor’s hands are inconsistent and he’s never shown the ability to make contested catches. Marcus can’t just let it go and assume Taywan will make a play...he has to wait until he’s open, which reinforces the problem rather than helping. So it’s a bit of a chicken-or-egg argument. Marcus definitely needs to be more aggressive with it...but it’s hard to develop that aggressive edge when he can’t trust his receivers to step up and make a play. Personally, I think they need to scale back Taylor’s targets and utilize Davis more often in that role. Davis is less likely to be left wide open , but he has a far better chance of winning the battle and completing a contested catch. freakingeek 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
big2033 Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, abc2330 said: Most shots he took were on PA. Of course he's going to have a higher completion percentage. He never sat back in the pocket and took shots downfield like other QBs. Didn't Alex Smith lead this category a year ago? Do you think they'd prefer to have him, or a QB who throws it downfield enough for this stat to matter? LOL Alex Smith did in 2017. Yay, yet another Smith/Mariota comparison: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000921980/article/alex-smith-matthew-stafford-head-top-deepball-throwers-of-17 One of the more shocking developments of the 2017 season was the statistical heights Alex Smith, regarded as a mere game manager for years, reached as a passer for theChiefs. It was a year on par with Matt Ryan's 2016 MVP season from an efficiency standpoint. His most notable improvement came as a downfield passer. Smith attempted 4.2 deep passes per game (10th-most among qualifying quarterbacks) this past season to just 2.9 the year prior. His deep-passing effectiveness was not just markedly better, it was at league-best levels, as he ranked first in long-ball passer rating, deep completion rate and percentage of overall yards coming on deep throws. Smith didn't rank higher than 20th in any of those categories in 2016. The influence of having the NFL's best deep threat as your No. 1 wideout in Tyreek Hill was real and noticeable. Smith will now take his talents to Washington in an effort to show 2017 was the start of a new trend in his career, not just a glaring outlier. And yeah, they still knew what he was and let him go. These were schemed deep balls. I'd like to see him drop back and do it without it being explicitly schemed like you said. Edited January 25, 2019 by big2033 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OILERMAN Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 If you’re gonna only throw the ball when the WR is wide as open you better be accurate Number9, and big2033 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SleepingTitan Posted January 25, 2019 Report Share Posted January 25, 2019 7 minutes ago, OILERMAN said: If you’re gonna only throw the ball when the WR is wide as open you better be accurate Truth. It's also worth noting most of these deep plays were 1 read, single coverage, probably practiced ad nauseum. I honestly believe that if Mariota was more aggressive passing, his numbers would look like Bortles/Fitzmagic. He's never gotten over the hump--for whatever excuse. OILERMAN, and Number9 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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