Tag: Ben Roethisberger

While it’s true that the smartest coaches and player personnel people will try to tailor their schemes to their quarterbacks, they’ll also look at which things those quarterbacks do best. That was the subject of my recent piece on the quarterbacks who are best as making several different types of throws — everything from different drop lengths, to play action and not, to under pressure and not, to broken plays and all kinds of other situational excellence.

With that bit of good feeling out of the way, it’s time to turn that concept on its head and reveal the quarterbacks who, throughout the 2019 season, couldn’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn in those same instances. Some were scuttled by inexperience, or by being thrown into starters’ jobs they weren’t ready to take, or by mysterious physical and mental gaffes that happened over and over.

For these quarterbacks, there’s nowhere to go but up.

The three-step drop: The Bengals in general

If you want to know why the Bengals selected Joe Burrow with the first overall pick, this is a good place to start. The three-step drop is the epicenter of the modern quick-passing game, and neither Andy Dalton nor Ryan Finley were very good with it. Dalton posted a three-step passer rating of 66.6, completing just 53.8% of his quick passes, while Finley had the league’s worst three-step rating at 64.0, completing just 47.2% of his. Finley was the only NFL quarterback to complete less than 50% of his three-step throws last season. Clearly, it’s time for a new franchise quarterback in the Queen City.

The five-step drop: Daniel Jones, New York Giants

Jones was fairly decent in his rookie season on quick passes — he threw 11 touchdowns to six interceptions on three-step drops, and he was the league’s most efficient RPO thrower last season… but as the drops got deeper and the demand was for more vertical throws, things got more complicated. Jones had a league-worst passer rating of 54.9 on five-step throws, and 65.8 on seven-step throws. Which wasn’t nearly the worst on seven-step throws. Let’s get to that next.

The seven-step drop: The Steelers in general

This would probably not be the case had Ben Roethlisberger played the entire season as opposed to 95 snaps before he was lost for the remainder of 2019 due to injury. In 2018, Big Ben completed 15 of 30 seven-step drop throws for 323 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception, which is decent enough on what is a dwindling play in today’s NFL. But the 2019 Steelers, between Roethlisberger, Mason Rudolph, and Devlin “Duck” Hodges, had three of the five worst seven-step passer ratings in the NFL (Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tom Brady were the others) for a total of four completions on 17 attempts for 52 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Let’s assume Roethlisberger is able to set this right in 2020.

The designed rollout: Kyle Allen, Carolina Panthers

Allen is now Dwayne Haskins’ backup in the nation’s capital, but he put up some really bad numbers on 24 designed rollouts as Cam Newton’s injury replacement for the Panthers last season. Then, he completed 10 of those 24 passes for just 59 yards, just 21 air yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 59.7. Haskins completed four of seven passes on designed rollouts, so it’s entirely possible you’re not going to see a lot of this from the Redskins in 2020.