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Stat Based NFL Comps: Zach Wilson vs Justin Fields


Shockwave

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35 minutes ago, Shockwave said:

Fields is being mocked as the QB 4 in some places already. I’ve seen him behind Trey Lance in some places. I even saw a former NFL GM have him behind Mac Jones. Why?
 

Btw Fields and Wilson both graded higher then Lawrence this year. 

Hmmmmm perhaps they are the same Stevie Wonder folks who had Mike Truboverated, after 13 GAMES in college, over HOF bound QBs Mahomes and Watson respectively...

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15 minutes ago, maury77 said:

Wilson has such great pocket presence, he could escape Alcartraz blindfolded. Some think Sean Connery's ghost from The Rock has inhabited Wilson's body and given him magical powers. 

as long as he doesn’t have to look left 

 

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1 hour ago, Lith said:

Do you have a link to the full study, because I am confused by what is posted.  Fields is at 7.19 projected yards per attempt and 62.83 projected completion percent.  Wilson's numbers are 7.22 and 62.91%, respectively.  Which sounds pretty close, but the conclusion is the gap between Wilson and Fields is pretty wide. 

Is there something I am missing?

I originally thought it was Fields’ best case vs Wilson’s worst case. Re-reading, it’s the same scenario and IMO the difference is negligible.

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10 minutes ago, kdels62 said:

Yeah but that also ignores when they are right. It also ignores that their interpretation of their data changes based on new evidence. It also ignores the methodology which is more important than occasionally bad predictions. 

but here's a fun article from PFF:

The Zach Wilson problem is simple: How did a quarterback come out of absolutely nowhere and become a surefire top 15 draft pick? Was he always this good and we completely missed him? Did he genuinely improve after two years as a starter?

The answer could certainly be either of those, and it probably is a mix of both ideas. But I’m going to work under a third assumption: His team's radical new offensive scheme lifted him to these levels.

In 2018 and 2019, BYU ran your run-of-the-mill college offense: inside zone, zone reads, RPOs. They were 83rd in the country in EPA per play in 2018 and 58th in 2019. In 2020, the inside zone usage dropped in half, going from 35% of their rushing attack in 2019 to 17%. Same thing with RPOs — 16% of their plays featured an RPO in 2019 and only 8% in 2020. What replaced it? The wide or outside zone.

In 2018 — Wilson’s first year as a starter — BYU ran outside zone on only 12% of their running plays. That was tied for the 67th-highest rate in the FBS that year. A year later, they upped that number to 28% — 17th highest in the country but still not the focal point of their offense. The 2020 season was different: They ran outside zone 51% of the time on run plays. After being an inside-zone-dominant team the prior two years, they swallowed the pill and went completely into the outside (or wide) zone offense.

Why does a running play mean anything in the context of quarterback prospect? Because of how much the action off that run play creates openings in the passing game off play-action. As the wide-zone offense becomes more prevalent in the NFL, we are seeing average quarterbacks buoyed by basing the run on wide zone.

 

Since we began charting run concepts in 2014, this was the first year we saw outside zone eclipse 25% of the entire NFL's regular season runs. Teams are starting to surrender their offense to this scheme — 12 teams played more than 30% of their run snaps this year with it, the most since we began charting.

Overall, BYU ran the ball at about the same clip in both of the last two seasons, but their play-action rate jumped 10% from 2019 to 2020. It’s all an attempt to copy teams like the Rams and 49ers, who try to limit quarterback mistakes by giving them defined reads. The unimaginative RPO game from 2019 was replaced by a downfield play-action offense.

BYU receiver heat maps 2019-2020

byuplayaction.png

These are heat maps of where BYU’s receivers ran their routes on play-action (including RPO) attempts in 2019 and then 2020. You can see the 5-yard outside hitch RPOs are replaced by slide or flat routes at the line of scrimmage, a staple of the wide-zone play-action game, and deeper targets for Wilson. The quarterback went from gaining 7.7 yards per attempt on play-action in 2019 to 12.4 in 2020. BYU only had Wilson use play-action off the outside-zone action 12 times in 2019 — that number spiked to 88 in 2020. The yards per attempt on those throws was a stunning 13.4.

This new running scheme created more opportunities for Wilson, and he took them. We’ve seen the same effect on more than a few NFL quarterbacks over the years. This season, we saw Baker Mayfield find his old form with Kevin Stefanski sheltering him in this type of offense. In 2018, Jared Goff led his team to a Super Bowl before falling off the face of the planet, eventually ending up as trade bait for the Rams. In 2019, Jimmy Garoppolo was boosted by Kyle Shanahan’s outside-zone scheme all the way to the Super Bowl. It keeps happening in the NFL, and it makes me wonder if it just happened to Zach Wilson.

It's possible that Wilson fits perfectly in the modern NFL game. We’ve seen him run the same scheme that is spreading through the league, so we don’t have to imagine what it would look like — we’ve already seen it on film. But I worry that every time we've seen a quarterback from the wide-zone system have a great year, he naturally comes back down to earth. If the scheme made Wilson a hit in college, could he have already maxed out?

For the record, I believe when you try to strip away the BYU scheme and just focus on Wilson himself, there is a really good-looking NFL prospect there. He has a lightning-quick release, awesome arm talent and can make plays out of structure. I just have this nagging feeling that the scheme really changed our perception of him rather than him changing and becoming a better quarterback.

Another QB who only works in a specific system pass.

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13 minutes ago, kdels62 said:

Yeah but that also ignores when they are right. It also ignores that their interpretation of their data changes based on new evidence. It also ignores the methodology which is more important than occasionally bad predictions. 

but here's a fun article from PFF:

The Zach Wilson problem is simple: How did a quarterback come out of absolutely nowhere and become a surefire top 15 draft pick? Was he always this good and we completely missed him? Did he genuinely improve after two years as a starter?

The answer could certainly be either of those, and it probably is a mix of both ideas. But I’m going to work under a third assumption: His team's radical new offensive scheme lifted him to these levels.

In 2018 and 2019, BYU ran your run-of-the-mill college offense: inside zone, zone reads, RPOs. They were 83rd in the country in EPA per play in 2018 and 58th in 2019. In 2020, the inside zone usage dropped in half, going from 35% of their rushing attack in 2019 to 17%. Same thing with RPOs — 16% of their plays featured an RPO in 2019 and only 8% in 2020. What replaced it? The wide or outside zone.

In 2018 — Wilson’s first year as a starter — BYU ran outside zone on only 12% of their running plays. That was tied for the 67th-highest rate in the FBS that year. A year later, they upped that number to 28% — 17th highest in the country but still not the focal point of their offense. The 2020 season was different: They ran outside zone 51% of the time on run plays. After being an inside-zone-dominant team the prior two years, they swallowed the pill and went completely into the outside (or wide) zone offense.

Why does a running play mean anything in the context of quarterback prospect? Because of how much the action off that run play creates openings in the passing game off play-action. As the wide-zone offense becomes more prevalent in the NFL, we are seeing average quarterbacks buoyed by basing the run on wide zone.

 

Since we began charting run concepts in 2014, this was the first year we saw outside zone eclipse 25% of the entire NFL's regular season runs. Teams are starting to surrender their offense to this scheme — 12 teams played more than 30% of their run snaps this year with it, the most since we began charting.

Overall, BYU ran the ball at about the same clip in both of the last two seasons, but their play-action rate jumped 10% from 2019 to 2020. It’s all an attempt to copy teams like the Rams and 49ers, who try to limit quarterback mistakes by giving them defined reads. The unimaginative RPO game from 2019 was replaced by a downfield play-action offense.

BYU receiver heat maps 2019-2020

byuplayaction.png

These are heat maps of where BYU’s receivers ran their routes on play-action (including RPO) attempts in 2019 and then 2020. You can see the 5-yard outside hitch RPOs are replaced by slide or flat routes at the line of scrimmage, a staple of the wide-zone play-action game, and deeper targets for Wilson. The quarterback went from gaining 7.7 yards per attempt on play-action in 2019 to 12.4 in 2020. BYU only had Wilson use play-action off the outside-zone action 12 times in 2019 — that number spiked to 88 in 2020. The yards per attempt on those throws was a stunning 13.4.

This new running scheme created more opportunities for Wilson, and he took them. We’ve seen the same effect on more than a few NFL quarterbacks over the years. This season, we saw Baker Mayfield find his old form with Kevin Stefanski sheltering him in this type of offense. In 2018, Jared Goff led his team to a Super Bowl before falling off the face of the planet, eventually ending up as trade bait for the Rams. In 2019, Jimmy Garoppolo was boosted by Kyle Shanahan’s outside-zone scheme all the way to the Super Bowl. It keeps happening in the NFL, and it makes me wonder if it just happened to Zach Wilson.

It's possible that Wilson fits perfectly in the modern NFL game. We’ve seen him run the same scheme that is spreading through the league, so we don’t have to imagine what it would look like — we’ve already seen it on film. But I worry that every time we've seen a quarterback from the wide-zone system have a great year, he naturally comes back down to earth. If the scheme made Wilson a hit in college, could he have already maxed out?

For the record, I believe when you try to strip away the BYU scheme and just focus on Wilson himself, there is a really good-looking NFL prospect there. He has a lightning-quick release, awesome arm talent and can make plays out of structure. I just have this nagging feeling that the scheme really changed our perception of him rather than him changing and becoming a better quarterback.

Thanks for posting, good article. 

Tormund Giantsbane re-roll with this system and more talent.

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1 hour ago, Paradis said:

I swear to god, if Fields out plays Wilson in the NFL - I will never let you guys live it down. Ever. Daily razzing.

The lengths ppl are going to to undress Fields is unheard of. I thought Lamar had it bad (the guy the same studies said would eat Dick and Rosen would be amazing)... but now some Jack off from FCS who played 1 year and got smoked by central Arkansas - the only FBS team he played - is considered a better prospect? 

Complete Lunacy 

Who is that?

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27 minutes ago, kdels62 said:

Yeah but that also ignores when they are right. It also ignores that their interpretation of their data changes based on new evidence. It also ignores the methodology which is more important than occasionally bad predictions. 

but here's a fun article from PFF:

The Zach Wilson problem is simple: How did a quarterback come out of absolutely nowhere and become a surefire top 15 draft pick? Was he always this good and we completely missed him? Did he genuinely improve after two years as a starter?

The answer could certainly be either of those, and it probably is a mix of both ideas. But I’m going to work under a third assumption: His team's radical new offensive scheme lifted him to these levels.

In 2018 and 2019, BYU ran your run-of-the-mill college offense: inside zone, zone reads, RPOs. They were 83rd in the country in EPA per play in 2018 and 58th in 2019. In 2020, the inside zone usage dropped in half, going from 35% of their rushing attack in 2019 to 17%. Same thing with RPOs — 16% of their plays featured an RPO in 2019 and only 8% in 2020. What replaced it? The wide or outside zone.

In 2018 — Wilson’s first year as a starter — BYU ran outside zone on only 12% of their running plays. That was tied for the 67th-highest rate in the FBS that year. A year later, they upped that number to 28% — 17th highest in the country but still not the focal point of their offense. The 2020 season was different: They ran outside zone 51% of the time on run plays. After being an inside-zone-dominant team the prior two years, they swallowed the pill and went completely into the outside (or wide) zone offense.

Why does a running play mean anything in the context of quarterback prospect? Because of how much the action off that run play creates openings in the passing game off play-action. As the wide-zone offense becomes more prevalent in the NFL, we are seeing average quarterbacks buoyed by basing the run on wide zone.

 

Since we began charting run concepts in 2014, this was the first year we saw outside zone eclipse 25% of the entire NFL's regular season runs. Teams are starting to surrender their offense to this scheme — 12 teams played more than 30% of their run snaps this year with it, the most since we began charting.

Overall, BYU ran the ball at about the same clip in both of the last two seasons, but their play-action rate jumped 10% from 2019 to 2020. It’s all an attempt to copy teams like the Rams and 49ers, who try to limit quarterback mistakes by giving them defined reads. The unimaginative RPO game from 2019 was replaced by a downfield play-action offense.

BYU receiver heat maps 2019-2020

byuplayaction.png

These are heat maps of where BYU’s receivers ran their routes on play-action (including RPO) attempts in 2019 and then 2020. You can see the 5-yard outside hitch RPOs are replaced by slide or flat routes at the line of scrimmage, a staple of the wide-zone play-action game, and deeper targets for Wilson. The quarterback went from gaining 7.7 yards per attempt on play-action in 2019 to 12.4 in 2020. BYU only had Wilson use play-action off the outside-zone action 12 times in 2019 — that number spiked to 88 in 2020. The yards per attempt on those throws was a stunning 13.4.

This new running scheme created more opportunities for Wilson, and he took them. We’ve seen the same effect on more than a few NFL quarterbacks over the years. This season, we saw Baker Mayfield find his old form with Kevin Stefanski sheltering him in this type of offense. In 2018, Jared Goff led his team to a Super Bowl before falling off the face of the planet, eventually ending up as trade bait for the Rams. In 2019, Jimmy Garoppolo was boosted by Kyle Shanahan’s outside-zone scheme all the way to the Super Bowl. It keeps happening in the NFL, and it makes me wonder if it just happened to Zach Wilson.

It's possible that Wilson fits perfectly in the modern NFL game. We’ve seen him run the same scheme that is spreading through the league, so we don’t have to imagine what it would look like — we’ve already seen it on film. But I worry that every time we've seen a quarterback from the wide-zone system have a great year, he naturally comes back down to earth. If the scheme made Wilson a hit in college, could he have already maxed out?

For the record, I believe when you try to strip away the BYU scheme and just focus on Wilson himself, there is a really good-looking NFL prospect there. He has a lightning-quick release, awesome arm talent and can make plays out of structure. I just have this nagging feeling that the scheme really changed our perception of him rather than him changing and becoming a better quarterback.

Of course they are often right. I cite them all the time, especially when it comes to OL where a lack of conventional statistics makes it difficult to compare prospects to each other. What I do have a problem with is ranking one prospect over another based solely on analytics when the analytics are close to each other but there is a wide disparity when it comes to competition faced, injury history and athletic ability. 

Don't take it as a knock @kdels62, I really value your insight on prospects, this is just a case where you are a lot higher on a guy than I am. 

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16 minutes ago, Lupz27 said:

Another QB who only works in a specific system pass.

Zach Wilson is the only QB in this draft that has worked in multiple systems. And in his old system as a true freshman he put a PFF score in the 80s which is very good. The interpreting what is going on is interesting especially since QB evaluation is elusive.

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I don't particularly care about college numbers cause it's a BS comparison projecting to the NFL. I'm worried about health with Wilson, but think he's leaps and bounds ahead of Fields just from my useless opinion on watching both. One is plug and play in the system, one you gotta build a system around 

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40 minutes ago, kdels62 said:

Yeah but that also ignores when they are right. It also ignores that their interpretation of their data changes based on new evidence. It also ignores the methodology which is more important than occasionally bad predictions. 

but here's a fun article from PFF:

The Zach Wilson problem is simple: How did a quarterback come out of absolutely nowhere and become a surefire top 15 draft pick? Was he always this good and we completely missed him? Did he genuinely improve after two years as a starter?

The answer could certainly be either of those, and it probably is a mix of both ideas. But I’m going to work under a third assumption: His team's radical new offensive scheme lifted him to these levels.

In 2018 and 2019, BYU ran your run-of-the-mill college offense: inside zone, zone reads, RPOs. They were 83rd in the country in EPA per play in 2018 and 58th in 2019. In 2020, the inside zone usage dropped in half, going from 35% of their rushing attack in 2019 to 17%. Same thing with RPOs — 16% of their plays featured an RPO in 2019 and only 8% in 2020. What replaced it? The wide or outside zone.

In 2018 — Wilson’s first year as a starter — BYU ran outside zone on only 12% of their running plays. That was tied for the 67th-highest rate in the FBS that year. A year later, they upped that number to 28% — 17th highest in the country but still not the focal point of their offense. The 2020 season was different: They ran outside zone 51% of the time on run plays. After being an inside-zone-dominant team the prior two years, they swallowed the pill and went completely into the outside (or wide) zone offense.

Why does a running play mean anything in the context of quarterback prospect? Because of how much the action off that run play creates openings in the passing game off play-action. As the wide-zone offense becomes more prevalent in the NFL, we are seeing average quarterbacks buoyed by basing the run on wide zone.

 

Since we began charting run concepts in 2014, this was the first year we saw outside zone eclipse 25% of the entire NFL's regular season runs. Teams are starting to surrender their offense to this scheme — 12 teams played more than 30% of their run snaps this year with it, the most since we began charting.

Overall, BYU ran the ball at about the same clip in both of the last two seasons, but their play-action rate jumped 10% from 2019 to 2020. It’s all an attempt to copy teams like the Rams and 49ers, who try to limit quarterback mistakes by giving them defined reads. The unimaginative RPO game from 2019 was replaced by a downfield play-action offense.

BYU receiver heat maps 2019-2020

byuplayaction.png

These are heat maps of where BYU’s receivers ran their routes on play-action (including RPO) attempts in 2019 and then 2020. You can see the 5-yard outside hitch RPOs are replaced by slide or flat routes at the line of scrimmage, a staple of the wide-zone play-action game, and deeper targets for Wilson. The quarterback went from gaining 7.7 yards per attempt on play-action in 2019 to 12.4 in 2020. BYU only had Wilson use play-action off the outside-zone action 12 times in 2019 — that number spiked to 88 in 2020. The yards per attempt on those throws was a stunning 13.4.

This new running scheme created more opportunities for Wilson, and he took them. We’ve seen the same effect on more than a few NFL quarterbacks over the years. This season, we saw Baker Mayfield find his old form with Kevin Stefanski sheltering him in this type of offense. In 2018, Jared Goff led his team to a Super Bowl before falling off the face of the planet, eventually ending up as trade bait for the Rams. In 2019, Jimmy Garoppolo was boosted by Kyle Shanahan’s outside-zone scheme all the way to the Super Bowl. It keeps happening in the NFL, and it makes me wonder if it just happened to Zach Wilson.

It's possible that Wilson fits perfectly in the modern NFL game. We’ve seen him run the same scheme that is spreading through the league, so we don’t have to imagine what it would look like — we’ve already seen it on film. But I worry that every time we've seen a quarterback from the wide-zone system have a great year, he naturally comes back down to earth. If the scheme made Wilson a hit in college, could he have already maxed out?

For the record, I believe when you try to strip away the BYU scheme and just focus on Wilson himself, there is a really good-looking NFL prospect there. He has a lightning-quick release, awesome arm talent and can make plays out of structure. I just have this nagging feeling that the scheme really changed our perception of him rather than him changing and becoming a better quarterback.

(Puts on helmet)

This assessment is the same reason people speculate JD may give Darnold a shot in the Shanahan system. 

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The thing that bothers me about the PFF Wilson article and his new offense is that the basic crux of the article is exactly what is often used by MANY to knock Fields.  IE, the offense Fields runs props him up.

I also don't necessarily agree that since Wilson ran a certain scheme in college one can just slot him into that offense in the pros and expect there to be no concerns.  He ran that offense against Roast Beef Tech.  There are still going to be tremendous learning curves.  

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1 hour ago, derp said:

I absolutely think Fields needs some refinement. Also think his talent is pretty obvious. Wilson’s is too. Both come with risks. Fields is the one getting nitpicked really hard right now.

I think kind of implied in this argument is that it’s a comparison of the two at the second overall pick. But the way Fields is getting analyzed right now it seems like he might slide a little. And I do think it’s more a choose your favorite but they’re close thing at two, to the point that the better player could easily be the guy who goes later. Which has happened in drafts...a lot.

Is anyone really going to be surprised when Fields goes around ten, give or take a few picks, then five years later he’s the best quarterback in the class and @JiF is saying I told you so? Because it’s starting to feel like that’s how it’s going to happen.

lol - look, I'll admit, I'm not sure.  I dont have this 100% feeling of certainty that Fields hits like I did say Watson.  I just watch him and TL side by side and I'm like, wait, which ones of these guys is the "generational" prospect?  Is it simply because TL is a white Adonis?  It feels that way because when I watch them actually play, snap by snap, I like what I see better in Fields and if you put on the 2 games where they went head to head, you'll walk thinking Fields is the better prospect, significantly.  And now the next level stats are coming out the back up everything I was saying.

So I'm not here making any proclamations, I just dont see these apparent flaws in Fields game and I dont see a huge gap between him and TL.  So with that, I just dont see how you can pass on Fields at #2...certainly not for Zach Wilson but I have no idea bro.  I think Fields is going to be very good, he's got the game that fits where the NFL is going more so than a lot of recent prospects. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, HawkeyeJet said:

The thing that bothers me about the PFF Wilson article and his new offense is that the basic crux of the article is exactly what is often used by MANY to knock Fields.  IE, the offense Fields runs props him up.

I also don't necessarily agree that since Wilson ran a certain scheme in college one can just slot him into that offense in the pros and expect there to be no concerns.  He ran that offense against Roast Beef Tech.  There are still going to be tremendous learning curves.  

The article is fairly anti-Wilson. 

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1 hour ago, Lith said:

Do you have a link to the full study, because I am confused by what is posted.  Fields is at 7.19 projected yards per attempt and 62.83 projected completion percent.  Wilson's numbers are 7.22 and 62.91%, respectively.  Which sounds pretty close, but the conclusion is the gap between Wilson and Fields is pretty wide. 

Is there something I am missing?

Zacharia Wilson Sr. is the author of the 'nuetral" comparison between prospects.

Naked Gun Panic GIF

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38 minutes ago, maury77 said:

Of course they are often right. I cite them all the time, especially when it comes to OL where a lack of conventional statistics makes it difficult to compare prospects to each other. 

I'm repeating myself but Using trusted ol pff stats penei Sewell is an instant all pro. It's not an ideal need fit but The jets could use an instant all pro 

Coach Saleh comes from a program that paid Rd 1 price for Staley a top 10 pick on mcglinch and traded for Trent Williams. Teams need more than one tackle 

Sewell + Becton = instant top 10 line and it almost doesn't matter who plays guard 

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34 minutes ago, maury77 said:

Of course they are often right. I cite them all the time, especially when it comes to OL where a lack of conventional statistics makes it difficult to compare prospects to each other. What I do have a problem with is ranking one prospect over another based solely on analytics when the analytics are close to each other but there is a wide disparity when it comes to competition faced, injury history and athletic ability. 

Don't take it as a knock @kdels62, I really value your insight on prospects, this is just a case where you are a lot higher on a guy than I am. 

I'm down to disagree with you. I think we've had good conversation about different prospects and in the end if we're wrong or right at least we're putting together actual arguments. 

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1 hour ago, kdels62 said:

Yeah but that also ignores when they are right. It also ignores that their interpretation of their data changes based on new evidence. It also ignores the methodology which is more important than occasionally bad predictions. 

but here's a fun article from PFF:

The Zach Wilson problem is simple: How did a quarterback come out of absolutely nowhere and become a surefire top 15 draft pick? Was he always this good and we completely missed him? Did he genuinely improve after two years as a starter?

The answer could certainly be either of those, and it probably is a mix of both ideas. But I’m going to work under a third assumption: His team's radical new offensive scheme lifted him to these levels.

In 2018 and 2019, BYU ran your run-of-the-mill college offense: inside zone, zone reads, RPOs. They were 83rd in the country in EPA per play in 2018 and 58th in 2019. In 2020, the inside zone usage dropped in half, going from 35% of their rushing attack in 2019 to 17%. Same thing with RPOs — 16% of their plays featured an RPO in 2019 and only 8% in 2020. What replaced it? The wide or outside zone.

In 2018 — Wilson’s first year as a starter — BYU ran outside zone on only 12% of their running plays. That was tied for the 67th-highest rate in the FBS that year. A year later, they upped that number to 28% — 17th highest in the country but still not the focal point of their offense. The 2020 season was different: They ran outside zone 51% of the time on run plays. After being an inside-zone-dominant team the prior two years, they swallowed the pill and went completely into the outside (or wide) zone offense.

Why does a running play mean anything in the context of quarterback prospect? Because of how much the action off that run play creates openings in the passing game off play-action. As the wide-zone offense becomes more prevalent in the NFL, we are seeing average quarterbacks buoyed by basing the run on wide zone.

 

Since we began charting run concepts in 2014, this was the first year we saw outside zone eclipse 25% of the entire NFL's regular season runs. Teams are starting to surrender their offense to this scheme — 12 teams played more than 30% of their run snaps this year with it, the most since we began charting.

Overall, BYU ran the ball at about the same clip in both of the last two seasons, but their play-action rate jumped 10% from 2019 to 2020. It’s all an attempt to copy teams like the Rams and 49ers, who try to limit quarterback mistakes by giving them defined reads. The unimaginative RPO game from 2019 was replaced by a downfield play-action offense.

BYU receiver heat maps 2019-2020

byuplayaction.png

These are heat maps of where BYU’s receivers ran their routes on play-action (including RPO) attempts in 2019 and then 2020. You can see the 5-yard outside hitch RPOs are replaced by slide or flat routes at the line of scrimmage, a staple of the wide-zone play-action game, and deeper targets for Wilson. The quarterback went from gaining 7.7 yards per attempt on play-action in 2019 to 12.4 in 2020. BYU only had Wilson use play-action off the outside-zone action 12 times in 2019 — that number spiked to 88 in 2020. The yards per attempt on those throws was a stunning 13.4.

This new running scheme created more opportunities for Wilson, and he took them. We’ve seen the same effect on more than a few NFL quarterbacks over the years. This season, we saw Baker Mayfield find his old form with Kevin Stefanski sheltering him in this type of offense. In 2018, Jared Goff led his team to a Super Bowl before falling off the face of the planet, eventually ending up as trade bait for the Rams. In 2019, Jimmy Garoppolo was boosted by Kyle Shanahan’s outside-zone scheme all the way to the Super Bowl. It keeps happening in the NFL, and it makes me wonder if it just happened to Zach Wilson.

It's possible that Wilson fits perfectly in the modern NFL game. We’ve seen him run the same scheme that is spreading through the league, so we don’t have to imagine what it would look like — we’ve already seen it on film. But I worry that every time we've seen a quarterback from the wide-zone system have a great year, he naturally comes back down to earth. If the scheme made Wilson a hit in college, could he have already maxed out?

For the record, I believe when you try to strip away the BYU scheme and just focus on Wilson himself, there is a really good-looking NFL prospect there. He has a lightning-quick release, awesome arm talent and can make plays out of structure. I just have this nagging feeling that the scheme really changed our perception of him rather than him changing and becoming a better quarterback.

The article tries to explain why he had a jump in productivity in his junior year and completely ignores the fact that he was recovering from shoulder and hand surgery in 2019.

 

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1 hour ago, bitonti said:

not only does Fields' stats line up to Lawrence, he beat Lawrence head to head on National TV in a heroic effort for the ages

Wilson's signature win was what exactly? the time he beat San Diego State? 

he's played no one and there's nothing he can do before the draft to change that 

everyone talks about film, how the Jets need to draft based on film 

but not all film is created equal 

Such a stupid argument and has been proven over and over to be false and not strongly attached to success in the NFL. Did Ohio State play better teams? Sure. But it's not like he played Alabama each week. And the reality is that Fields is playing on a team with maybe 8-10 combine level NFL players just this year and what will be several next year. He plays on the second best team in CFB. If anything his path is EASIER because he has better players around him to. No make that elite players around him. 

Wilson is completely dominant at QB, and is not a function of stats. The reason he started to get noticed is that he is clearly the best player on the field (like Mahomes and Allen were) and has ELITE level skills in arm strength release accuracy and placement. Way more athletic than expected. Excellent work habits. Extremely smart.

He jumps out at you to the eye

The stats merely back up how good he is.

BTW the fallacy behind the "plays against better competition" leads not only to a lot of overdrafting in the NFL but players like the "Boar Hunter" who flashed simply because he was surrounded by so much talent.

NY Example: Dwight Good was something like 19-1 in A (maybe AA) ball with 300 strikeouts. No one said he wouldn't be good in the Major Leagues because he was striking out A ballers. They just saw the ability which would transate to the Majors. Same with Wilson. He is the best QB in this draft by quite a bit IMO.

If all he had was stats, and threw all safe passes  and did not have the raw ability than PFF would not be the reason to change your mind. But if you watch him and think that he is dominant and the PFF stats back that up then it reinforces the idea.

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Larz said:

I know Allen is from a small school with questionable level of competition but Wilson’s stats are kinda meaningless to me. Show us Ty Detmers stats lol

if the jets stick and pick and are going QB, it’s going to be the guy LaFleur likes 

The QB is most likely to like in the draft is Wilson. In fact it is a poorly held secret that SF has loved Wilson for a while.

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33 minutes ago, bitonti said:

I'm repeating myself but Using trusted ol pff stats penei Sewell is an instant all pro. It's not an ideal need fit but The jets could use an instant all pro 

Coach Saleh comes from a program that paid Rd 1 price for Staley a top 10 pick on mcglinch and traded for Trent Williams. Teams need more than one tackle 

Sewell + Becton = instant top 10 line and it almost doesn't matter who plays guard 

You still need a QB.   
That’s the part if it you keep pushing aside like it’s irrelevant and they’re all kinda the same. 

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18 minutes ago, BroadwayRay said:

The article tries to explain why he had a jump in productivity in his junior year and completely ignores the fact that he was recovering from shoulder and hand surgery in 2019.

 

What if maybe it is a series of factors that form a complex explanation that is difficult to quantify. The end result being a high level QB prospect however, knowing the complex will enable a team to better know if the success can be replicated and cultivated. 

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4 minutes ago, johnnysd said:

The QB is most likely to like in the draft is Wilson. In fact it is a poorly held secret that SF has loved Wilson for a while.

Yup.  He fits his system like a glove.   He’s basically plug and play. 
yes.  The learning curve will still be huge because of the speed of the game but his skill-set is ideal.  

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1 hour ago, kdels62 said:

Zach Wilson is the only QB in this draft that has worked in multiple systems. And in his old system as a true freshman he put a PFF score in the 80s which is very good. The interpreting what is going on is interesting especially since QB evaluation is elusive.

Technically not true as Fields played in a different system at GA (albeit a very small sample size). 

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