This time last year, Joe Burrow was tracking as a future Day 3 prospect. Now he’s not only a lock to be the first player taken in the 2020 NFL draft, but he’s also drawing comparisons to Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes (really.) Burrow threw 527 passes over the course of his final season at LSU. That’s a small sample but, clearly, a small sample can dramatically alter our perceptions of a draft prospect.
Especially when those 527 throws made up the greatest season in the 150-year history of college football. Burrow threw 60 touchdown passes (many of them against SEC talent), which, months later, still sounds like a made-up number. And it wasn’t just the production that elevated Burrow from draft afterthought to “can’t-miss” prospect in 12 months; his 2019 tape matches that production and features all the signs of a future franchise quarterback: Accuracy, poise under pressure and an advanced understanding of defenses
But what about his 2018 tape? Did Burrow really transform into a world-conquering quarterback over the course of an offseason, or was he mostly the same quarterback? If it’s the former, in what areas did Burrow improve most? If it’s the latter, what does that say about his future? Clearly, I had a lot of questions. So I went back to his 2018 film and took a deep dive into his numbers in order to best answer them.
Reviewing the 2018 tape
It’s very possible (and probably likely) that what we saw in 2019 is altering my perspective on his 2018 tape, but I don’t think there is a wide gap between the Burrow who completed under 60% of his passes two seasons ago and the Burrow who led LSU to a national title in January. He was largely the same quarterback with just a bit more refinement and A LOT more confidence.
The production wasn’t there, but the traits that have NFL scouts all hot and bothered? Those are all over his 2018 tape.
The accuracy…
The pocket movement…
The ability to make a play on the move…
And go through progressions from the pocket…
There wasn’t a dramatic improvement in any aspect of Burrow’s game — at least from what I can tell. Rather, it was a lot of small improvements across every aspect of his game.
- He worked with Tom House to improve his footwork, which gave him more zip on his throws and allowed him to throw with more accuracy.
- Burrow had been overly sensitive to pressure but a season’s worth of live reps in 2018 boosted his comfort in the pocket in 2019 (prior to his first season in Baton Rouge he’d spent three years as a back-up with Ohio State, seeing the field sparingly).
- He also became more confident in what he was seeing. Extra hitches were replaced by perfectly timed deliveries.
Burrow’s offseason work and the natural progression you’d expect from a young player greatly contributed to his rise, but being put in an offensive scheme that played to his strengths may have been the biggest factor.
A better schematic fit
Last offseason, LSU head coach Ed Orgeron poached offensive assistant Joe Brady from the Saints coaching staff and it may have been the best decision of his coaching career. Brady was given the title of “passing game coordinator” but the offense was his. He blended pro concepts with the staples you’ll find in every college offense. It was still a pro-style offense, but unlike the offenses LSU fans had grown tired of over the last decade, this was a modern pro-style. That meant more shotgun formations, five-man protections and early-down passes. It meant fewer snaps from under center, deep drops and calls with only three receivers running routes.
For a quarterback like Burrow, who isn’t dripping with arm talent, this was an ideal schematic shift. His quick thinking and underneath accuracy would be integral to the success of the offense. Burrow would end up being so much more, but his job was to be a distributor — a role he was perfectly suited to play.
One of the biggest changes Brady made was LSU’s usage of empty formations. In 2018, Burrow attempted six passes from empty, per Sports Info Solutions. The number jumped up to 139 in 2019. More empty plays meant quicker drops and shorter throws. Burrow’s average depth of target dropped a full yard and the drop may have been steeper if LSU threw screen passes at the same rate other college offenses typically do. Those screens were replaced by the kind of quick in-breaking routes that Tom Brady and Drew Brees have diced up NFL defenses with over the past two decades.
To better illustrate the offensive changes, I used Sports Info Solutions’ charting data to group similar routes and compare the routes Burrow threw in 2018 and those he threw in 2019. Here’s how the offense evolved from the 2018 season to Brady’s first (and only) season in Baton Rouge.
The big changes? Fewer high-difficulty throws, specifically deep out-breaking routes, and more short in-breaking routes that allowed Burrow to get the ball out of his hands faster.
Overall, Burrow’s accuracy jumped by 6% from 2018 (77%) to 2019 (83%), per Sports Info Solutions. That’s a significant increase but I don’t know if it fully explains his transformation from a middling starter in the SEC to a runaway Heisman winner. I mean, his EPA per dropback went from 0.00 in 2018 to 0.39 in 2019. That’s like going from Mitch Turbisky to Patrick Mahomes. The changes Brady made — along with the emergence of a stellar supporting cast that featured a handful of future pros — played as significant a role in Burrow’s emergence as his own individual performance did.
Is Burrow’s level of success in 2019 sustainable?
Burrow’s improved play under pressure also contributed to his historic breakout. That’s a bit of an understatement, as Burrow produced the best pressure numbers Pro Football Focus has ever charted, earning him a passing grade of 80.5 when under pressure. That’s better than most QB prospects’ grade when clean. Per Sports Info Solutions, Burrow was accurate on over 80% of his throws while under pressure. These are unreal numbers … and also untrustworthy numbers. Under-pressure numbers are highly volatile so how a quarterback performs under pressure in one season tells us very little about how he’ll perform the next season. Burrow is actually a really good example of that. In 2018, His PFF grade under pressure was 43.9. His accuracy percentage was 58.9 percent. Without more data, we can’t be sure the improvement is real. More likely than not, it isn’t.
Burrow’s deep-ball performance was also exceptional in 2019. He earned a 99.3 (out of 100) deep passing grade from PFF. His accuracy percentage on deep throws jumped from 60.7% in 2018 to 74.4% in 2019. But much like play under pressure, deep-ball production is also volatile and doesn’t tell us much about how a quarterback will fare on deep throws going forward.
Now, Burrow’s numbers were phenomenal across every statistical split. His clean pocket stats were among the best we’ve ever seen. He earned a 95.1 grade on intermediate throws, too. But we can’t discount how big his improved supporting cast inflated both numbers. He wouldn’t be the first college quarterback to be propped up by a perfect situation. And on top of that perfect situation, Burrow had a few more competitive advantages that most other college quarterbacks did not enjoy. As a fifth-year senior, he had already graduated before he arrived at LSU and was able to approach things like a professional quarterback would. And it’s worth pointing out that Burrow is 23. He’s older than Lamar Jackson, the NFL MVP, and had a couple years on most of the players he went up against last season.
What does it all mean … if anything?
None of the things I’ve covered thus far are major red flags on their own. But when you start stacking them on top of each other, it’s hard not to be skeptical that his true talent level might be closer to what we saw in 2018 rather than what we saw in 2019 — or at least somewhere in the middle.
To recap: He was a fifth-year senior taking online classes while his peers still had to worry about attending class. He was throwing to two NFL receivers (Justin Jefferson and sophomore Ja’Marr Chase) and handing the ball off to an NFL running back (Clyde Edwards-Helaire) while playing behind the nation’s best offensive line. Oh, and he had an NFL offensive coordinator (Brady was hired by the Panthers this offseason) designing the perfect offense for his skillset. Now add in some unsustainable and unprecedented production under pressure and remarkable success on deep throws, and I can’t help but ask: Are we sure Burrow’s breakout was totally real?
Burrow is easily the best quarterback prospect in this class and should be the first player taken off the board. But it’s hard to overlook how EVERYTHING broke right for him in 2019.
That may have been easier to overlook if Burrow was an overwhelming physical talent, but that just isn’t the case. He has a middling arm, which becomes more apparent when space is constricted in the pocket, and he’s a good athlete but I don’t know if his athleticism will be a major factor against NFL defenders. Of course, there have been plenty of smart pocket passers who have gone on to Hall of Fame careers. Tom Brady and Brees immediately come to mind. But those guys were developed in a different era before the last CBA significantly cut down on practice time. It’s so much harder to develop pure pocket passers in a post-2011 CBA league.
A lot will have to break right if Burrow is going to live up to the hype he’s getting this draft season. The good news is he’s going to the Bengals, a famously successful organization with a long track record of competence. Just what you want for a quarterback who might be more dependent on what’s around him more than most blue-chip prospects would be.
What could possibly go wrong?
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