How New England’s Mac Jones became the best QB in…

It was not a banner weekend for the rookie quarterbacks of 2021. Trevor Lawrence and Davis Mills saw their teams fall behind by scores of 24-0 and 38-0 before adding some garbage-time production. Zach Wilson and Trey Lance sat out with injuries as their replacements put up monster numbers, threatening to banish them to the sidelines permanently. Justin Fields made just enough big plays to raise the hopes of Bears fans, then made enough mistakes to break their hearts. And the best thing you can say about Mac Jones is that he stayed out of the way as New England’s defense carried the Patriots to victory.

For the most part, that has been par for the course for those players this year. Lawrence and Mills are stuck on terrible teams, and Mills of course is only on the field because Tyrod Taylor got hurt. Wilson and Fields have put together a few highlight plays but far more often looked unprepared for the NFL. Lance has mostly been twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the 49ers to decide whether they are in or out on Jimmy Garoppolo. Jones has clearly been the most pro-ready member of the class, but has done little to show that he’ll ever be more than an average starter.

We are (roughly) halfway through the season, which makes this a good time to check in on the half-dozen first-year passers who have seen significant playing time this season, where they’re succeeding, how they’re struggling, and whether they’re trending in the right direction. For each quarterback we’ll list their DYAR and DVOA totals going into Monday Night Football, their DYAR and DVOA as a starter, and their projected DVOA totals through the end of the season. For this last figure, we’re simply taking each player’s average DYAR as a starter, multiplying that by the number of games left on their team’s schedule, and adding in their Total DYAR so far. Obviously, it’s a wild assumption to assume that each player will start every game from here on out (particularly Lance), but this will give us some idea of which rookies in past seasons had similar numbers, and what that tells us about the class of 2021.

For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to ignore rushing data today and just look at passing numbers. For the record, Lawrence currently leads the class with 23 rushing DYAR (132 yards, two touchdowns), while Wilson is last at -7 rushing DYAR (24 yards on only six non-kneeldown carries). Fields has the best rushing totals with 243 yards and a pair of scores, but we also have him down for four fumbles on running plays, including three aborted snaps.

Here they are then, in the order they were drafted:

The Jaguars came into the season on a 15-game losing streak, so this was never going to be an overnight success, but few could have seen things going this badly. Jacksonville remains winless in North America, their only victory coming in a fluky United Kingdom game against a one-win Dolphins team when they got field goals of 54 and 53 yards in the last four minutes to eke out a 23-20 triumph. Meanwhile, each of their six losses has come by a margin of at least 10 points.

The point of all this is that Jacksonville’s roster is awful, and we can’t fairly judge Lawrence until he gets a chance to play with some adequate talent. Just look at his top five most-targeted players this year:

• Marvin Jones, a 32-year-old best known as an effective complementary receiver behind Golden Tate and Kenny Golladay in Detroit.
• Laviska Shenault, a YAC-oriented slot receiver who has more games with negative receiving yardage (two) than 100 yards or more (zero).
• Jamal Agnew, a tremendous kickoff and punt returner with precious little experience on offense—his 18 catches and 184 yards are already the high-water marks of his five-year career.
• Dan Arnold, a journeyman tight end now on his fourth team in the last three seasons.
• James Robinson, who is Jacksonville’s top running back only because first-round rookie Travis Etienne was lost for the year due to a foot injury.

That’s not even getting into the sorry state of the offensive line, or the defense, or the asleep-at-the-wheel head coach. Given all those handicaps, it’s impressive that Lawrence recovered from a slow start (-97, -117, and -65 DYAR in his first three games) to approaching respectability (54, 43, and 56 DYAR in Weeks 4 to 6). Coming off the bye, however, Lawrence and the Jaguars were blown out by Seattle. That leaves Lawrence with a -20.0% DVOA and -399 projected DYAR. Those would rank in the 50-to-60 range of the 81 rookie quarterbacks from 1983 to 2020 who threw at least 200 passes, right around players such as Geno Smith and Kerry Collins. It’s not all bad news, however. Troy Aikman—like Lawrence, a first-overall draft pick who arrived on a terrible team—had a -26.7% DVOA and -299 DYAR in his first season. It’s a similar story for John Elway, the first overall pick in 1983 who had a -34.2% DVOA and -424 DYAR as a rookie.

The best thing Lawrence has done this year is keep himself alive. He has only taken 11 sacks in 270 pass attempts, a very low rate considering the Jaguars have usually been trailing by multiple scores. If he can last till the end of the year, we’ll give Lawrence a disappointing “incomplete” grade and hope the Jaguars supply him with better weapons soon.

Like Lawrence, Wilson had negative DYAR in each of his first three games, including -184 DYAR against New England in Week 2 and -180 against Denver in Week 3. And like Lawrence, he showed improvement since, with 80 DYAR against Tennessee in Week 4 and 26 against New England in Week 7. Unfortunately, he was knocked out of that Patriots game with a PCL strain, an injury that sidelined him for multiple weeks. That makes his projection in the above table somewhat disingenuous—it does not account for the starts that we know he’s going to miss—but it still reflects how sorry he has been up to this point. Only three quarterbacks have ever crossed the four-digit threshold in negative DYAR, each doing it in their rookie seasons:

• David “Derek Carr’s older brother” Carr (-1,130) with Houston in 2002.
• Blaine “future Super Bowl champion” Gabbert (-1,010) with Jacksonville in 2011.
• Josh “I will sign with all 32 teams before I’m done” Rosen (-1,145) with Arizona in 2018.

A -41.6% DVOA would put Wilson among the bottom 10 rookies in that category too. There are not a lot of comps for Wilson who went on to enjoy successful careers, but it’s worth pointing out that two rookies with worse DVOAs—Donovan McNabb (-51.6% in 1999) and Jared Goff (-74.8% in 2016)—went on to play in Super Bowls.

We know that Lawrence is struggling in part due to a lack of talent around him, and the same could be said for Wilson … or at least, it could have until Mike White lit up the Bengals defense in a win over Cincinnati on Sunday. A 2018 draftee by the Cowboys, White is a practice squad body who was cut by the Jets three times last year. If a limited player like White can find a way to make plays with this roster, then Wilson, the second overall player in the draft, should be finding similar results, at least once in a while. Instead, in roughly six quarters of action, White has already tied Wilson with four touchdown passes, while Wilson maintains commanding leads in both interceptions (nine to four) and sacks (19 to three).

White will start on Thursday night against Indianapolis, but what happens after that is up in the air. Jets coach Robert Saleh has been very coy about his plans for the position. At 2-5 and with no practical chance of making the playoffs, the question of which quarterback gives New York the best chance to win is irrelevant. Their only goal at this point is to help Wilson be a better player in 2022, and whether that’s best accomplished by getting him onto the field for more experience or letting him watch and learn from a survivor like White is a question only the Jets can answer.

Well, there’s not much to discuss here. Lance played the second half against Seattle in Week 4 after Jimmy Garoppolo was inevitably injured, started against Arizona in Week 5 in Garoppolo’s absence, and has not been seen since as he too has been inevitably injured. Such is the fate of the quarterbacks in Kyle Shanahan’s offense. Lance’s passing numbers are better than you might expect because more than 60% of his dropbacks came against the Cardinals, the league’s second-ranked pass defense coming into the week. Lance averaged 6.6 yards per pass against Arizona, which may not sound like much, but only three quarterbacks have fared better against the Cardinals this season.

We must also discuss Lance’s rushing somewhat, because he has more carries (27) than completed passes (25). Those carries have been a mixed bag—he has averaged 9.0 yards on nine scrambles, but only 2.9 yards on 18 designed runs. Whatever option schemes Shanahan had in mind for Lance, they have not worked yet.

The bigger issue for Lance is that Garoppolo is back in the lineup and shows no sign of relinquishing his starting job any time soon. Garoppolo’s numbers have always been better than his reputation, be they team-based (he’s now 27-11 as a starter) or on an individual level (he’s averaging 8.2 yards per pass in his career; only Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes have been better among active players). The 49ers are only a half-game out of the last wild-card spot in the NFC and still have plenty to play for, so even if he’s healthy, we may not see Lance on the field any time soon.

Then again, San Francisco’s next two games are against the Cardinals and Rams, two divisional foes who are 1-1 against each other and 13-1 against everyone else. A pair of losses would drop San Francisco to 3-6, and at that point they may turn things over to Lance to see what he can do.

It may surprise you to learn that Fields, not Zach Wilson, is dead-last among qualifiers in both DYAR and DVOA. His numbers are skewed, however, by a disastrous relief appearance in Week 2 against Cincinnati when he completed less than half his passes for only 60 yards while giving up two sacks, a fumble, and an interception. Throw that game out and Fields’ numbers are … well, they’re still terrible, but neck-and-neck with Wilson’s instead of clearly worse. In fact, when he actually throws the ball, Fields’ basic stats are eerily similar to those of the Jets quarterback.

Fields’ problems have come when he hasn’t thrown the ball. He’s not in the top 30 in completions, attempts, or passing yards, but he has taken a league-high 26 sacks. Fields has been sacked on 14.1% of his dropbacks; the last player to take so many sacks at such a high rate was Andrew Walter with the then-Oakland Raiders in 2006. The only other players to meet those thresholds this century are Alex Smith and David Carr in their rookie seasons. And this is a Justin Fields problem, not a Chicago Bears problem—Andy Dalton’s sack rate of 7.4% is barely half that of Fields’.

Fields’ performance has been erratic this season. He was horrendous against the Bengals, Browns, and Buccaneers; fair-to-middlin’ against the Lions, Raiders, Packers, and 49ers. The Bears are committed to letting him work through his growing pains, which means he could wind up joining Carr, Gabbert, and Rosen in the -1,000 club … assuming he is not beaten to a pulp over the next nine weeks.

There is a common theme amongst most of these quarterbacks: They struggled in their first two or three weeks but then improved from there, though that improvement wasn’t always dramatic or permanent. Jones was actually below replacement level three weeks into the season, struggling with interceptions (three) and fumbles (two). He has only thrown three interceptions and fumbled once in the five games since as the Patriots have rallied to a 4-4 record. Granted, three of those wins came against the Jets and Texans, but they just beat the Chargers, who are … mediocre?

Jones is on pace for 291 passing DYAR, which would put him among the top 20 rookies on record. He’d be a few slots below Cam Newton (remember, this is ignoring rushing data) but slightly ahead of Joe Flacco, Chris Chandler, or Drew Bledsoe. That’s not bad company considering all four of those men reached the Super Bowl.

There is no question that Jones has been the best rookie quarterback this season. It’s just not very exciting watching him play. His yardage, interception, and sack averages are right in the middle of the pack, while he’s in the top 10 in completion percentage but the bottom 10 in yards per completion and touchdown rate. That leads to a lot of failed completions (57, tied with Jared Goff behind the 61 of Kirk Cousins) and field goal attempts (21 for New England, most in the league). It’s an arch-conservative style that can get you into the playoffs, but not much more than that. That lack of big plays is the biggest thing Jones needs to work on as his career develops. If he can’t make the occasional risk pay off once in a while, he may have already hit his ceiling.

Mills was not supposed to play this year. That’s why he was drafted after Lawrence, Wilson, Lance, Fields, and Jones … and Kyle Trask, and Kellen Mond. Mills was supposed to back up Tyrod Taylor, who was doing very well early in the season before injuring his hamstring in Week 2. The Texans have been Mills’ team since then and, well, they’ll be Taylor’s team again as soon as his leg heals.

Stylistically, Mills has been a copy of a copy of a copy of Mac Jones—he’s completing 67.0% of his passes, which is better than average, but for a meager 9.7 yards per completion. And unlike Jones, he’s not avoiding interceptions or sacks. That makes him steadier than players such as Wilson and Fields, but without the flickers of excitement they bring to the table. Taylor is reportedly day-to-day at this point. Here’s hoping he comes back sooner rather than later and makes Houston watchable again.