The Few Strengths and Many Flaws of Taysom Hill

NFL Week 13 – November 22, 2021: Taysom Hill signs a unique contract extension with the New Orleans Saints that could be worth up to $95 million if he becomes their starting quarterback over the following four years.

December 2, 2021: Taysom Hill starts at quarterback for the Saints and shows little indication that he deserves the job.

If you’re not familiar, here’s a quick recap of Hill’s story: After a Mormon mission, he suffered a bevy of injuries at BYU, then entered the NFL as an undrafted rookie at age 27. He spent the summer of 2017 as a training camp arm in Green Bay, then joined New Orleans as a special teamer. The Saints worked him into their offense as a multipurpose tool, then gave him four starts at quarterback in place of an injured Drew Brees last season. He underwhelmed in those four starts, finishing the year with a DVOA of -19.0% that would have fallen outside the top 30 of full-season qualifiers. Still, Hill entered training camp this year in a battle with Jameis Winston to replace the retired Brees, even though Winston had a much stronger resume—in five seasons as Tampa Bay’s starter, he had never produced a DVOA worse than -9.8%, not even in his notorious 30-interception campaign in 2019.

It’s no surprise, then, that Winston won the job, and early returns were quite positive. Through seven weeks, the Saints were 4-2 (they had a bye in Week 6) and Winston ranked in the middle of the pack in both DVOA and DYAR. In a key divisional matchup against Tampa Bay in Week 8, the defense came up big, forcing three Tom Brady turnovers (including a game-clinching pick-six) in a 36-27 victory. The win left New Orleans in strong position to earn a wild-card berth, or maybe even surpass the Buccaneers for the division crown. Winston left that game with a knee injury, but he was still able to celebrate with his teammates in the locker room.

Unfortunately, that victory celebration was the high point of the Saints’ year. Winston had suffered a torn ACL, ending his season. Then things got confusing. With Hill recovering from an early-season concussion, the Saints handed the starting job to Trevor Siemian … but Hill was still healthy enough to play 20 combined snaps on offense and special teams against Atlanta in Week 9, and 30 more against Tennessee in Week 10. At that point Hill suffered a foot injury that knocked him entirely out of Weeks 11 and 12. Siemian started each of those four games, all losses, as the Saints plummeted to 5-6.

Last week, with New Orleans hosting Dallas on Thursday night, Hill was deemed healthy enough to start at quarterback. He had one good drive in the first half, hitting Juwan Johnson for 27 yards on first-and-15, scrambling for a first down on third-and-8, and throwing a 24-yard touchdown to Lil’Jordan Humphrey. Otherwise, however, the Saints looked inept, punting three times and missing a 56-yard field goal attempt before Hill was intercepted in Dallas territory. Fortunately for Hill, Dak Prescott and the Cowboys weren’t doing much better against a Saints defense that remains stout. The game was still within reach at 13-7.

New Orleans cut into that deficit on their first drive of the third quarter. Hill had four carries for 42 yards on that drive, but in scoring range, he threw three straight incompletions, forcing the Saints to settle for a field goal. They had cut the lead to 13-10, but that was the closest they would get for the rest of the day. Their next three drives all ended in punts, and the three after that all ended in interceptions. On their last possession, Hill threw a garbage-time touchdown on which Deonte Harris did all the work:

Deonte Harris runs it in for the touchdown 😤💨

📺: #DALvsNO on NFLN/FOX/PRIME VIDEO pic.twitter.com/95chBCWRPZ

— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) December 3, 2021

The Final Numbers

Hill finished with a woeful statline even beyond the four picks. He completed fewer than half his passes, and though he averaged a respectable 6.4 yards per throw, more than one-quarter of his 264 yards came on that meaningless late touchdown. He was also sacked twice. Add it all up and Hill had -131 passing DYAR, worst of all players in what was a pretty bad week for quarterbacks across the league.

However, he is not last in our tables this week. As we said in our lede, Hill showed little indication that he deserves a starting job, but “little” does not mean “zero.” Most of New Orleans’ points were scored after big Hill runs, and he finished with 11 carries for 101 yards and 39 rushing DYAR. Those totals are not skewed by one or two big runs; nine of Hill’s carries counted as successful plays, and six of them moved the chains. That includes conversions on all three of this runs on third down. Only one other quarterback has hit 39 rushing DYAR in a game this year: Jalen Hurts, who did it in Week 2 (with updated opponent adjustments) and again in Week 11.

As you might imagine, it’s quite rare to run for 100 yards while throwing four interceptions. Per Stathead, Hill is only the second player in league history to pull off that mixed bag of a feat, and the first since Denver’s Norris Weese against Chicago in 1976.

The Ballad of Norris Weese

Weese didn’t even start that Bears game, only coming in after Craig Penrose threw his own interception, a pick-six at that. Despite all those turnovers, the Broncos beat the Bears 28-14, mostly because their defense limited Chicago quarterback Bob Avellini to 2-of-17 passing on a wintry day at Soldier Field. 1970s football was wild, man.

Weese had a fascinating career but a tragically short life. He followed Archie Manning at Ole Miss, then played professionally in the World Football League for The Hawaiians. (Seriously, that was their whole name—”The Hawaiians.”) He joined the Broncos for four years, coming off the bench to play most of the second half against Dallas in Super Bowl XII. He won the starting job from Craig Morton in 1979, but Morton won it back six games later (quarterback carousels were a common thing in ye olden days). Weese suffered a knee injury and never played again after that season.

There’s not a lot of Weese to be found on YouTube—a pair of failed rallies against Minnesota and Pittsburgh; highlights from a game against Seattle, when Weese was benched and Morton turned a 34-10 deficit into 37-34 win (Weese still started the next week); and a pair of clips of Weese being hit really hard, including once on a lariat worthy of Stan Hansen. Sadly, Weese passed away due to bone cancer in 1995. He was only 43 years old.

Dropping the criteria to four interceptions with at least 75 rushing yards doesn’t add many names. That has only been done seven times, with Hill being the first to do it since Michael Vick with Philadelphia in 2011. There have been 19 games where a quarterback ran for 50 yards with four interceptions. Lamar Jackson did it against Cleveland only four days before Hill’s outing against Dallas. Tobin Rote, a Lions quarterback in the 1950s, is the only player to do it twice.

Back to New Orleans…

What does any of this mean for Hill and the Saints? Despite their five-game losing streak, they remain only one game out of the playoffs in the paper-thin NFC. Our playoff odds give them a 16.2% chance of qualifying for the postseason, thanks largely to a soft schedule—four of their five remaining opponents (the Jets, Dolphins, Falcons, and Panthers) currently have losing records, with the exception being the Buccaneers, who will host New Orleans in Tampa in Week 15. So long as the Saints don’t fall behind early, their defense and Hill’s scrambling talents give them a chance to beat bad teams. Winning a playoff berth would likely mean defeat in a rematch against the Bucs or Cowboys in January, but there is still a glimmer of hope.

The real question is what happens in 2022. Winston will be a free agent (although technically he has two voidable years on his contract), and the Hill extension suggests that the Saints have little interest in bringing him back. When you compare the two, it’s a baffling decision. Due to Winston’s penchant for negative plays, Hill may have once been seen as the safer choice, but after his meltdown against Dallas, his career interception rate (4.4%) is now higher than Winston’s (3.3%). So is his sack rate (9.0% to 6.3%). And it’s hard to argue that Hill has more room to develop when he’s already 31 years old. That makes him four years older than Winston, two years older than Teddy Bridgewater, and one year older than Jimmy Garoppolo, all of whom are viewed as finished products and likely to be on new teams next season.

It’s worth noting that Hill’s contract is cut by more than half in the event he is not the team’s long-term answer at quarterback. In that case, he would “only” earn $10 million as a backup QB/gadget player/special-teamer. But the structure of his deal indicates that the Saints will at least try to go forward with a quarterback who has fewer career touchdown passes than either Walter Payton or LaDainian Tomlinson and is now entering the decline phase of his career. If nothing else, the next five weeks could show us whether or not that’s really a good idea.