Warren Sharp is one of the top independent football analytics gurus out there, and Grant & Danny wanted to pick his brain about what he saw, and his numbers saw, from Jayden Daniels and Kliff Kingsbury’s offense in Week 1 against the Bucs.
Sharp did a video breakdown of Daniels’ strengths and weaknesses Wednesday, and first, he had to put out some caveats.
“Obviously he's making his first career start on the road against a Todd Bowles defense, difficult things for any quarterback to do, but I always look at it like, what was he being coached to do in the preseason?” Sharp said. “In Week 1, as you use a barometer here, in the preseason, Daniels’ time to throw was 1.91 seconds; there were 106 six quarterbacks in the NFL preseason with over five dropbacks and that was the lowest – he was being coached to get rid of the ball, quickly make a decision, and first check, go get rid of the ball. His air yards per attempt was 5.9 yards, which was No. 88 out of 106 quarterbacks, so he was being asked to throw underneath on almost all of his passes. So when you look at Jayden Daniels and you say, oh, at LSU, he was able to do this, and then here I'm seeing him in Tampa and he's doing this, the fact of the matter is when you put a quarterback under live fire, he's probably gonna fall back on what he was being told to do and actually executed in the preseason.”
So, as Sharp says, it’s more difficult to say “well you should do this” when he already has something ingrained, especially as the game speeds up, so it’s not apples to apples.
But there is a way the coaching staff can maybe help Daniels with some of that?
“I'm not gonna knock him for not doing anything because he wasn't being coached to do that in the preseason. Obviously, there are things that Jayden Daniels needs to work on; some of it relates to passing the ball down the field, some of it relates to being able to slide better when he does take off to run the football, but if we’re gonna talk Daniels running and it being too much like Dan Quinn was saying, the place to start is cutting down on the designed runs that are not near the end zone,” Sharp said. “It’s not the scrambles when he is under pressure and he has no frame of reference in any of the preseason games that the coaching staff is gonna work with him on standing in the pocket and resetting and setting up different pockets – I can’t knock Daniels for not doing that here in Week 1.”
It is a hard balance, especially for someone who is as gifted with his legs as Daniels is, so where can the coaches find that line?
“The bottom line is seven of his runs were scrambles, and those plays averaged a gain of 11 yards – which is way better than an average pass play,” Sharp said. “He averaged 7.7 yards per attempt on passes, so much worse when he was actually trying to throw the ball. Yes, some of the scrambles he should not have run, but most of them were the right decision for a young quarterback who was not asked to buy time in the pocket during the preseason – and studies show that you are more likely to be injured if you're sitting in the pocket trying to read out a pass then you are scrambling down the field.”
Sharp cited some stats about how sacks kill scoring opportunities, something we learned all about with Sam Howell’s struggles last year, so with Daniels, at least early on, perhaps letting him cook how he knows how to might be the best thing to develop at least part of the offense?
“You want a quarterback whose skill-set allows him to run the football and get down; it’s okay if you're not getting that 11th and 12th yard if you take the 10 and it means that you're not putting your body in harm's way,” Sharp said. “That's what they need to be working on first and foremost with him when he does run the football.”
GP, obviously, would rather see more of the passer, or at least see Daniels trend in that direction, but again, it all comes down to coaches.
“That's exactly the question with Kliff Kingsbury, and that's why I think it's so important to take the context of what was he doing in the preseason, because you're not just gonna be able to flip the switch,” Sharp said. “I want my quarterbacks to get a little bit of reps in the preseason, and I think this is why we saw passing touchdowns at like a historic low since like 2006 in Week 1, because none of these quarterbacks are getting any reps in the preseason. But if you’re a rookie, especially, you're gonna trend a little bit more to what you were doing in the preseason, and they were manufacturing a lot of easy passes for Daniels underneath to the guys that are closest to him at the line of scrimmage. You need to work a little more on building up to the wide receivers, but you can't be fearful about the scrambling; if you fear for the safety and want less than 16 runs, knock off all the designed stuff and focus on some of those early downs getting the ball to the wide receivers. A happy medium is absolutely necessary, but it’s going to take time.”
Take a listen to Sharp’s entire analysis above, which includes some thoughts on Kliff Kingsbury’s offense!
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