Anyone who follows football will tell you that that the QB position is perhaps the most important position in all of sports. As we have seen over and over again, guys like Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Joe Burrow, Charlie Brewer & Jalen Hurts can transform a team and take them from good to great. As we head into Championship Saturday and prepare for the college football playoff, I decided to take look back at data from the 2019 season to analyze just how much certain teams rely on their QB.
This analysis will not only show you how much a team relies on their QB in terms of overall usage but also how they utilize their QB with run, pass or both. In addition, we will take a look at teams that have had to rely on more than 1 QB throughout the 2019 season and the effect its had on them.
Below is the QB Player usage analysis from the 2019 season, it is broken down into 3 categories
1) Overall Usage: Overall usage is the percentage of offensive plays in which a QB was involved as a passer, as a rusher, or as a receiver
2) Pass Usage: Is the percentage of Pass Plays that a QB was involved in. Although not common, the QB could be involved in a pass play as a receiver as well(throwbacks or maybe a dual threat QB in the slot) which could slightly skew some stats for a few QB's but not a great impact overall
3) Rush Usage: Is the percentage of run plays that a QB was involved in as the primary rusher
As you examine the usage report, keep in mind that Garbage time stats are not included the analysis as it can often skew how teams are using their QB's.
Garbage time is currently defined as:
- score margin is 38 points or greater in the 2nd quarter - score margin is 28 points or greater in the 3rd quarter - score margin is 22 points or greater in the 4th quarter
Workhorse QB's
The first set of QB's identified are those who carry a heavy workload for their respective teams. The list below shows the QB's who have been involved in more than 65% of their teams plays as either a passer or rusher. The list is short with only 14 QB's carrying this heavy load but if you examine some of the names you can see that they are extremely valuable players. These players account for a majority of their teams offensive plays with their arms , legs or both.
While these players are heavily valued, it's not a guarantee for victory but very respectable, as these teams combine for an average record of 7 Wins & 5 Losses and a total record of 101 Wins & 67 Losses or a 60% Win rate.
The Gunslingers
The 34 QB's listed below have been involved in greater than 98% of their teams passing plays. This list shows which teams have all but relied on the arm of 1 QB for the entire season. **Note that some of the percentages may be slightly inflated as many of the queries do not include Garbage time passing attempts by back up QBs. For example Kellen Mond is listed at 100% usage for Texas AM even even though Freshman Zack Calzda does have a handful of attempts in garbage time against Tx State, Lamar & UTSA, those are not counted towards the Usage Analysis.
These 34 teams have an average of 8 Wins & 4 Losses
The Runners
The 20 QB's listed below have been a rusher in greater than 25% of their teams run plays in 2019. Texas RB Rochon Johnson was still listed as a QB which affected the query , so disregard him at #14.
These teams combine for an average record of 6 wins & 6 losses
If You have 2 QB's, you have None
For many reasons throughout the course of a season (injury, suspension, ineffective play) a team will be forced to give a backup QB significant action. Below are the teams that have had 2 or more QB's involved in greater the 25% of the teams pass plays for the season. Overall 34 teams had more than 1 QB participate in more than 25% of the teams pass plays. The major takeaway from this analysis is that these 34 teams have an average record of 5 Wins & 7 Losses and an overall record of 169 and 239 for a win % of only 41%.
Feel free to reach out to me directly info@acefootballanalytics.com for more insight & analysis or with questions around the QB usage analysis. The entire spread sheet with usage for all teams is available for members of the site or by request, so please join the mailing list.