For Bills’ Edwards, is Third Time a Charm?

By E rock  |   Thursday, August 27, 2009  |  Comments( 69 )

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Before the dismal outing in Green Bay that cast a shadow of doubt over the entire offense, there was a healthy discourse amongst Bills fans as to whether Trent Edwards can step up and be the QB that the Bills so desperately need. Edward’s supporters almost uniformly cite the conventional wisdom that he is entering his magical 3rd year as an NFL quarterback and that the added experience will certainly lead to substantial improvement. But exactly just how accurate is this conventional wisdom? Is the notion that most quarterbacks get better and better with more experience a proven fact or just something artificially pumped into our psyche by the talking heads on ESPN?

To investigate this question I posed a counter hypothesis: By the time that QBs finish their second year in the NFL they pretty much are who we think they are. It is reasonable to expect rookies to flounder due to the enormous change in competition/expectations/culture that they are forced to digest. However, once the first year readjustment period is over, the head stops spinning and the football skills on display are pretty much what you are going to get for an entire career.

An appropriate sample of QBs was needed to test this hypothesis. First I looked only at QBs currently on an NFL roster. Next I picked out the QBs that started the majority of their team’s games by their second year. In order to be able to make meaningful comparisons I also only selected QBs that started at least one additional full season worth of games after their second year.
With the sample of QBs selected, the comparisons were straight- forward. Take the stats from the QB’s second year and compare them to the total stats from the rest of that QB’s career (year 3 through present or whenever they stopped playing). How much difference was there between the 2nd year and the rest of the career? Let’s find out.

There were 20 players that fit the criteria. These players fell into two groups: 1) guys that played a good chunk of games their rookie season then started their second season and 2) guys that sat their entire rookie season then started their second season. Let’s examine group 1 first since it is closer to the path taken by Trent Edwards

A. Guys who started a good chunk of games their rookie season (12 players)
Charlie Batch
Rookie Starts 12
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 10 196 55.9% 7.2 1.3 0.7
Total 24 203 55.9% 6.5 1.0 1.1
Change 4% 0% -11% -22% 47%

Kyle Boller
Rookie Starts 9
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 16 160 55.6% 5.5 0.8 0.7
Total 17 169 59.8% 6.2 1.0 1.0
Change 5% 4% 12% 16% 42%

David Carr
Rookie Starts 16
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 11 183 56.6% 6.8 0.8 1.2
Total 48 183 63.3% 6.6 0.9 0.8
Change 0% 7% -3% 4% -42%

Kerry Collins
Rookie Starts 13
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 12 205 56.0% 6.7 1.2 0.8
Total 135 231 55.3% 6.6 1.2 1.1
Change 12% -1% -3% 0% 36%

Jay Cutler
Rookie Starts 5
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 16 219 63.6% 7.5 1.3 0.9
Total 16 283 62.3% 7.3 1.6 1.1
Change 26% -1% -3% 22% 25%

Joey Harrington
Rookie Starts 12
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 16 180 55.8% 5.2 1.1 1.4
Total 48 198 58.1% 6.1 1.0 1.0
Change 10% 2% 16% -2% -34%

Byron Leftwich
Rookie Starts 13
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 14 210 60.5% 6.7 1.1 0.7
Total 17 193 58.5% 6.7 1.3 0.6
Change -8% -2% 0% 19% -19%

Eli Manning
Rookie Starts 7
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 16 235 52.8% 6.8 1.5 1.1
Total 48 205 58.0% 6.4 1.4 1.0
Change -14% 5% -5% -6% -6%

Peyton Manning
Rookie Starts 16
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 16 258 62.1% 7.8 1.6 0.9
Total 144 262 65.6% 7.8 2.0 0.8
Change 1% 4% 1% 18% -10%

Donovan McNabb
Rookie Starts 6
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 16 210 58.0% 5.9 1.3 0.8
Total 106 236 59.5% 7.2 1.6 0.7
Change 11% 1% 19% 17% -21%

Ben Rothlesburger
Rookie Starts 13
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 12 199 62.7% 8.9 1.4 0.8
Total 46 217 61.6% 7.4 1.5 1.1
Change 9% -1% -18% 3% 35%

Mike Vick
Rookie Starts 2
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd year 15 196 54.9% 7.0 1.1 0.5
Total 46 157 54.8% 6.6 1.1 0.8
Change -22% 0% -6% 0% 43%

Here’s my interpretation of the data on these 12 players.
Charlie Batch – got worse or stayed about the same across the board after his 2nd year.
Kyle Boller – showed slight improvement in most areas, had a fairly small sample size for “rest of career.”
David Carr – pretty much stayed the same, dropped his INTs somewhat.
Kerry Collins – pretty much stayed the same.
Jay Cutler – showed substantial improvement in yards and TDs although Comp % and YPA stayed the same. Also should be noted that his “rest of career” stats are only last season’s stats.
Joey Harrington – got moderately better across the board.
Byron Leftwich – pretty much stayed the same.
Eli Manning – slightly regressed after his 2nd year.
Peyton Manning – slightly upped his TD numbers but everything else pretty much the same
Donovan McNabb – showed substantial improvement across the board
Big Ben – pretty much the same and you could make the case for a slight regression
Micheal Vick – got worse. Note that while he only started 2 games as a rookie, he appeared in 8 games and had a decent amount of pass attempts.

So the verdict on this group? Only 4 (Boller, Cutler, Harrington, McNabb) out of 12 showed improvement with only Cutler and McNabb showing substantial improvement.

B. Guys who sat their entire rookie year but started their 2nd season (8 players)

Tom Brady
Rookie Starts 0
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 14 203 63.9 6.9 1.3 0.9
Total 96 245 62.8 7.3 1.9 0.8
Change 19% -2% 6% 37% -11%

Drew Brees
Rookie Starts 0
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 16 205 60.8 6.2 1.1 1.0
Total 90 253 64.1 7.3 1.7 0.9
Change 21% 5% 16% 44% -8%

Marc Bulger
Rookie Starts 0
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 7 261 64.5 8.5 2.0 0.9
Total 80 244 62.5 7.2 1.3 1.0
Change -7% -3% -17% -43% 17%
3rd Year 15 256 63.2 7.2 1.5 1.5
Change -5% -1% 0% -14% -45%

Jason Campbell
Rookie Starts 0
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 7 185 53.1 6.3 1.4 0.9
Total 29 205 61.2 6.5 0.9 0.6
Change 10% 14% 2% -49% -38%
3rd Year 13 208 60 6.5 0.9 0.8
Change -1% 1% -1% -7% -44%

Dante Culpepper
Rookie Starts 0
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 16 246 62.7 8.3 2.1 1.0
Total 70 251 63.6 7.5 1.5 1.1
Change 2% 1% -11% -30% 7%

Brett Favre
Rookie Starts 0
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 13 248 64.1 6.9 1.4 1.0
Total 256 242 61.7 7.0 1.7 1.2
Change -3% -4% 2% 23% 14%

John Kitna
Rookie Starts 1
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 5 235 57 6.8 1.4 1.6
Total 102 238 60.1 6.7 1.3 1.3
Change 1% 5% -2% -6% -23%
3rd Year 15 223 54.5 6.8 1.5 1.1
Change 6% 6% -2% -17% 16%

Carson Palmer
Rookie Starts 0
G Yds/G Comp % YPA TD/G INT/G
2nd Year 13 223 60.9 6.7 1.4 1.4
Total 52 245 63.3 7.1 1.7 0.9
Change 9% 4% 5% 21% -38%

You’ll notice some additional stats for the 3 guys (Bulger, Campbell, Kitna) who only started a potion of the season their second year. I included their 3rd season stats for additional comparison because you could almost consider them rookies when they were thrown into the fire midway through the season.

Here’s my interpretation of the data on these 8 players.
Tom Brady – substantial improvement in yards and TDs with moderate improvements elsewhere. I would bet that most of these gains were due to going absolutely bananas in 2007.
Drew Brees – the poster child for late bloomers with substantial improvement across the board.
Marc Bulger – he only played 7 games when first thrown into the fire his sophomore year. Those proved to be some good games as his career numbers are much worse. His career numbers are still worse even when compared to his first full season starting (his 3rd year).
Jason Campbell – another guy thrust into the starting role halfway through the season his sophomore year. His career numbers are better than his first 7 games as a starter but his first full season starting (his 3rd year) is very similar to his total career.
Dante Culpepper – career numbers are worse than his second year. He set the bar pretty damn high in that second year though.
Brett Farve – his second year and total career are remarkably similar after 256 games with a slight uptick in TDs and INTs.
John Kitna – doesn’t matter if you look at his first 5 games starting or his first full year starting, the stats are very similar when compared to his total career.
Carson Palmer – slight to moderate improvements across the board.

So the verdict on this group? Only 3 (Brady, Brees, Palmer) of 8 guys showed improvement after their 2nd year with the only big winners being Brady and Brees.

So class, what have we learned from all this? Of the 20 qualifying QBs only four showed substantial improvement from their sophomore year to the rest of their career. These four guys – Cutler, McNabb, Brady and Brees – are the kind of guys that show up high on your fantasy football cheat sheets. It seems to me that the QBs that improve on their sophomore stats go from already pretty good to really, really good. There don’t seem to be any guys that go from being mediocre in their 2nd year to becoming respectable, above average QBs for their careers. What also is clear is that guys are performing up to their ultimate abilities by their second year is the rule and the guys that out perform their second year abilities are the exception to the rule.

Even the most ardent Trent Edwards supporters should be wary about claims of guaranteed improvement simply by showing up for your third year. It’s similar thinking to the 40-year-old creepers who think they are going to bang chicks simply by showing up at college bars. In both instances you actually need to have some game to score.
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CommentsComments: 69  |  Sign Up  View all comments
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No.1
ba bye		11:00 AM
08/27/2009
That's a lot of work E rock. Thanks. I've got to think about it some more. My immediate concern is that QB stats depend so highly...
No.2
11:30 AM
08/27/2009
E-Rock, I compliment you on your well written, well researched article. Although I am somewhat confused as to why there was no...
Avatar
No.3
Derek		11:43 AM
08/27/2009
E rock, great article better than Bialy or O'Connor could have posted. Last paragraph is the best....40 year olds in a college...
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