INDIANAPOLIS — In the book, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner, there’s a story about what the physicist Richard Feynman termed “cargo cult science.” Feynman was talking about what happened after airbases were removed from remote islands in the South Pacific following World War II. The airbases had brought heretofore unknown contact with the outside world, and goods the islanders had never seen before. So, in an effort to bring the wondrous planes back, the islanders “arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas — he’s the controller — and they wait for the planes to land.”
Of course, the planes never landed again. As Tetlock and Gardner wrote, cargo cult science had the outward form of science, but lacked what made it truly scientific.
When you hear about Quarterback X in the 2020 draft class being the next Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson, keep cargo cult science in mind. And watch out for bamboo antennae, because when it comes to finding the next Mahomes, they’re everywhere.
Not that this will stop the quarterback prospects from espousing their own Mahomes-esque attributes, or the coaches and personnel men who analyze those quarterbacks from trying to pluck the next guy who can play in the way that the modern NFL requires at the highest possible level. Because one thing’s for sure — whether it’s Mahomes, the 2018 NFL MVP and Super Bowl LIV MVP, or Lamar Jackson, the second unanimous NFL MVP in league history, or any of the five black, mobile quarterbacks who finished in the top 13 of Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted, season-cumulative efficiency metrics last season (Mahomes, Jackson, Russell Wilson, Dak Prescott, and Deshaun Watson) — the quarterback paradigm in the NFL is undergoing a drastic, seismic, generational shift.
For quarterback prosepcts like Utah State’s Jordan Love, the opportunity to put his mobility and off-script ability on the table as a net positive as he might not be able to in previous years? Well, that might make up for the wonky mechanics and general inconsistency that had him throwing 17 interceptions against 20 touchdowns in 2019. It was a big drop in efficiency from his 32-touchdown, 6-pick 2018, but when he spoke at the podium before the assembled media on Tuesday, Love understood that the ability to create plays out of structure is a big deal these days.
“That’s something I feel is a huge part of my game,” he said. “When the play breaks down, being able to make off-schedule plays and get out of the pocket. Throwing on the move, and being able to take off and run. So, that’s just an instinct from growing up and playing backyard football. You either have it or you don’t, and I feel that I have that playmaking ability.”
Backyard football is all well and good. Every team would love a guy like Mahomes or Jackson who merges the thrillingly unpredictable with the ruthlessly efficient. The problem in picking such a quarterback, and helping him reach his peak at the NFL level, is that you also have to provide a specific system in which that quarterback can thrive.
In addition, you have to have an intelligent alpha dog on the field, whether your quarterbacks runs around or not. Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians, whose quarterback models have generally leaned more to less-mobile, statuesque pocket passers such as Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer and (comparatively speaking) Ben Roethlisberger, acknowledged that with Mahomes, the stuff above the neck was his ticket to optimal professional success.
“I think… just seeing the athleticism of some of the guys now has changed from when I [evaluated] Peyton Manning, or Ben, even, coming out,” Arians said, when I asked him how the new wave of quarterbacks might change how the noted quarterback whisperer evaluates the position. “These are more athletic quarterbacks who are coming out of spread offenses, but you still have to… Patrick Mahomes had one of the greatest [combine] interviews I’ve ever had. Right there with Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning as knowing what the hell he’s doing and how to play football. So, there is no shock to me that he’s great.”
It’s a pretty big step for a coach who, at the 2015 combine, dressed down the typical spread offense/Air Raid quarterback as “a quarterback who has never called a play in the huddle, never used a snap count. They [the coaches] hold up a card on the sideline, he kicks his foot and throws the ball. That ain’t playing quarterback. There’s no leadership involved there. There might be leadership on the bench, but when you get them and they have to use verbiage and they have to spit the verbiage out and change the snap count, they are light years behind.”
Perhaps Mahomes has changed a lot of minds. Mahomes’ Texas Tech tape was sufficiently impressive, but I had the opportunity to watch tape with him before the Chiefs took him with the 10th overall pick in the 2017 draft, and it was patently obvious that both mentally and physically, he had a lot more on the ball than the average college guy who was favorably greased up by an explosive offense that did not relate to to the NFL in any meaningful fashion.
Mahomes had clear differentiators. Whether those differentiators can be seen in more of those types of quarterbacks in his wake, or whether Mahomes is as much of a one-off as a bunch of supply planes landing on remote islands because there’s a war going on? That remains to be seen.
Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff, who has had pocket passer Matt Ryan since 2008, hasn’t let that impact his study of the new wave. Ryan is still a very good quarterback, but these days, you just never know how things will change, and how you might have to be up on the way the game is going.
“Oh, there’s no question,” Dimitroff said when I posed the same question to him about how quarterback evaluation has changed over the last few years. “We look at some of the quarterbacks in the NFL today — most of the people I talk to, and my contemporaries, would suggest that where the athleticism is in the NFL with those quarterbacks and how they can keep defenses on their heels, that dual threat… not just dual-threats because they’re runners, but they’re running quarterbacks with a very fine eye for what the scheme is, and how to throw the ball — man, that’s a tough thing to defend, as we all know. So, I believe it is changing. It’s not just a flash-in-the-pan. Look at Justin Herbert, who’s 6-foot-6 and moving around as he does. That’s a pretty interesting thing to see.”
So, what is the most important attribute, regardless of style? “Of course, the elements of leadership with a quarterback… I mean, I’ve been around Tom Brady when I was with the Patriots, and now seeing Matt [Ryan] over many years. It’s not just leading the offense and the receivers; it’s also leading the team fully. It’s a very important thing. You can have a guy who has a great arm and he can move around, but if he’s a dud when it comes to leadership, I don’t think you have a chance. We know how important that is. The leadership is big. Obviously, you have to have accuracy. You don’t always have to have the huge gun, but you have to be able to work the ball around, make proper decisions, and again, interact and communicate with your teammates from a leadership standpoint. It’s imperative to thriving in this league, in my mind.”
Mahomes has proven leadership, so proof of concept is there. You don’t need to tell Anthony Lynn, who also went to Texas Tech and has studied the way the game is going — not only for years, but by drilling down the clearest precedents.
“I mean, I study high-school football,” Lynn said. “I love high-school football. I’m from the state of Texas, obviously. But when you study high-school football, you know the direction of the National Football League down the road. All those quarterbacks are athletes now, and they’re passing all year ’round in those 7-on-7 camps. So now, you have athletes who are really good passers. And you can do a lot of things with that, but there are still a handful of quarterbacks who can win from the pocket.
An interesting statement, to be sure. Is the pocket passer the outlier these days? And if Mahomes is the leader of this new wave, what makes him so great? Good to ask a head coach whose team has to face Mahomes twice a year.
“His knowledge of the game,” Lynn concluded. “His ability to make every throw. He extends plays all the time. And he’s a leader, His intangibles are off the charts. I don’t think we talk about his leadership enough. I’ve known him for a long time. We went to the same school; I’ve known him since he was in high school. Right now, he’s the best in the game, and if you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. And that’s what we’re going to have to do.”
So, it’s harder to find the next Patrick Mahomes than people seem to think?
“I think it’s going to be a LOT harder than people think.”
And perhaps that is where we should leave it. Not that it’s where we’ll leave it, but when the people in the NFL tell you that there simply aren’t Patrick Mahomeses all over the place, it should be a serious caveat emptor to those other teams interested in perhaps over-bidding on the next guy who looks like that on the surface, but might not be able to carry the burden. Cargo cult science doesn’t work any more effectively in the NFL than it does on an island landing strip, no matter how well-intentioned the gesture.