Sam Darnold Going Forward
Not to add to all the Darnold discourse, but I was planning on posting these numbers last week. Darnold had a good statistical season. In the last 15 years, he is the 10th QB to have a good season out of nowhere.
What does good season mean? Having an ANY/A above 6.95. (ANY/A stands for adjusted net yards per attempt. It is yards per attempt with adjustments for touchdowns, interceptions, and sacks.) Darnold had a 6.99 this year which was good for 10th in the NFL (between Mayfield and Hurts).
What does out of nowhere mean? A quarterback whose first good season came after his 4th year in the league (i.e. a veteran who had a breakout). I originally had limited to players who were no longer with the team that drafted them to really limit it to journeymen, but the sample doesn't change much leaving out that criterion.
| Draft Round | Team | Name | ANY/A | ANY/A Year+1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Same | Ryan Tannehill | 8.52 | 7.9 |
| 2 | Same | Andy Dalton | 8.17 | 6.53 |
| 1 | Same | Michael Vick | 7.29 | 6.52 |
| 3 | Same | Matt Schaub | 7.83 | 6.47 |
| 7 | New | Ryan Fitzpatrick | 7.15 | 6.46 |
| 6 | Same | Tyrod Taylor | 7.1 | 6.07 |
| 1 | New | Alex Smith | 7.65 | 5.81 |
| U | New | Case Keenum | 7.03 | 5.39 |
| 3 | New | Josh McCown | 8.54 | 4.3 |
As you can see, late breakout QBs do not usually keep playing at that level. However, it's hard to keep playing at a high level. How often do good statistical QBs follow the season with another good statistical year. So, I looked at all 110 seasons since 2010 when a QB put up at least a 6.95 ANY/A and what their ANY/A was in the following year.
Avg Year 0 = 7.65
Avg Year 1 =6.80
As you can, there is naturally a drop off even if the player is young or someone who shown proven success. However, this drop off is not as large as the journeyman drop off..
Avg Year 0 = 7.70
Avg Year 1 = 6.16
The late breakout group has about twice as large of a drop in their efficiency. That is not a good sign for Darnold.
You could be more optimistic about Darnold since he was the number three overall pick. You could believe he has more talent than an undrafted Case Keenum, and this breakout is more likely to stick. That's fair. However, I think a more important factor is staying with the same team. As you can see in the table, the top half is almost entirely players who stayed with the same team after their breakout year whereas the bottom half is mostly players that signed with a different team.
This isn't a crazy discovery as a lot of people believe Darnold is a product of the Vikings offense, but this does hammer home the point. It is a pretty terrible time to sell given his last two performances, but if he does sign somewhere else (which I think is likely given the amount of teams needing a starter and lack of draft options), I would not be too optimistic.