Just how bad is the Daniel Jones pick, historically? As I mentioned in my article on drafting QBs a few months ago, I have compiled basically every relevant statistic on every QB drafted in the first round since 1998. With the three 2019 draftees this list now spans 63 quarterbacks who combined for over 66,000 college passing attempts. No matter the category, however, Daniel Jones ranks middling at best to jaw-droppingly awful at worst. Without further introductions I'll just dive right in:
1) Jones can't throw deep, at all, in any capacity.
For his career Jones averaged 6.4 yards per attempt. That's absolutely terrible, and out of all 63 QBs drafted in the first round in the last 21 drafts that figure puts him 62nd overall, ahead of only the notoriously awful Kyle Boller.There have been just 5 QBs before Jones who were drafted in the first round and failed to hit 7 yards per attempt in college (generally consider the Mendoza Line of acceptable production for a QB):
Jake Locker, Matt Ryan, JP Losman, Kyle Boller, and Patrick Ramsey.
Aside from Ryan, whom I will discuss more in detail further down since I'm quite sure he'll be the most frequently used comp among Jones apologists in the near future, that is obviously quite the terrible selection of QBs.
Raw yards per attempt can sometimes be misleading, however, as one can sometimes arrive at a respectable YPA by completing an insanely high % of short passes (like Sam Bradford, who completed 71.3% of his passes for the Vikings in 2016 and managed a respectable 7.3 yards per attempt while only averaging a paltry 9.8 yards per completion), or by hitting on a smaller percentage of deep pass plays. For this reason I decided to look at Jones yards per completion as well, and that was just as staggeringly awful. For his career Jones averaged a mere 10.7 yards per completion. For perspective, Case Keenum ranked 26th in the NFL last year with a 10.7 YPC. This points to an almost laughable inability to complete the long ball. Jones is one of only two first round quarterbacks total to have managed fewer than 11 yards per completion in college after Tim Couch.
2) Okay, so he can't throw deep, he's accurate, though, right?
Actually, no, not really! Jones was one of just 19 QBs out of 63 who completed less than 60% of their total college pass attempts. His 59.9% average ranked 45th in the pack. While there are some successful QBs who have completed less than 60% of their total college pass attempts and gone onto NFL success (namely Matt Ryan, Jay Cutler, Carson Palmer, Donovan McNabb, and Matthew Stafford), all of those successful QBs managed higher yards per attempt and yards per completion than Jones, meaning that while Palmer, McNabb, Stafford, and Cutler especially can blame some of their low % on the fact that they often went deep and connected often enough on big plays to make it worthwhile, Jones has no such excuse.
Even more concerning than Jones' mediocre career completion % is the fact that his first season as a starter was actually his best in that regard, as his 62.8% as a sophomore saw a massive drop to 56.7 as a junior and only a modest rebound to 60.5% as a senior. Most of the successful QBs listed above started as overwhelmed freshman before seeing their completion % increase to more than 60% in their final year. Jones regression (or his stalled progress, at best) does not bode well for any ability to improve steadily at a more difficult level of football.
Even more depressing is that Jones managed that mediocre % while, as noted above, managing the second-lowest yards per completion of any QB in the sample. At least when Tim Couch only managed 10.6 yards per completion he was a high volume passer, completing 67.1% of those attempts and 72.3% in his final campaign. Then again I'm sure that Jones' apologists will point out Jones played with a terrible supporting cast at Duke and Tim Couch had the all-star talent one normally finds on the football program at, uh, *checks notes*...Kentucky.
3) Hey he doesn't turn the ball over, though, right?
I mean, not a lot, no. He's got that going for him. But he's also not the most careful with the football. Jones' career INT% of 2.3% is perfectly fine, but it ranks just 24th on the list. Sure, that's light years better than his standing in other categories, but one would hope a guy whose best case scenario seems to be developing into a safe, accurate, Alex Smith-level game manager extraordinaire could do better than that while seemingly rarely attempting or completing any risky deep throws. Jones interception % was nearly a full percent worse than Alex Smith or Marcus Mariota, two guys who have become notable in the NFL for being perhaps too careful with the ball.
4) Okay but like, most of this describes Matt Ryan too, right? Can't he be Matt Ryan?
On the surface this is a comp that makes sense, really. Both played for middling ACC programs, both had tepid scouting reports at best, neither possesses an impressive arm. Here are their career numbers:
Matt Ryan: 807/1347 (59.9%), 9313 yds, 6.9 Y/A, 11.5 YPC, 56 TDs, 37 INTs
Daniel Jones: 764/1275 (59.9%), 8201 yds, 6.4 Y/A, 10.7 YPC, 52 TDs, 29 INTs
Pretty close, no? Ryan certainly showed more ability downfield, while nonetheless putting up pretty mediocre numbers, but he also threw interceptions at a slightly higher rate.
Well, for one, my gut tells me Matt Ryan is probably the exception that proves the rule. If 9/10 guys who put up these kind of numbers bust and you're rolling the dice betting you'll get that one success to repeat you've probably fucked up your decision-making somewhere along the line.
For another, Ryan was a much more traditional QB, one that saw steady improvement each year of college, culminating in a senior year breakout where, under new head coach and NFL offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski, he threw for 4507 yds and 31 TDs. Jones, meanwhile, never threw for more than 2836 yards in a season, which he managed in his first year as a starter, and he saw his yardage decrease in consecutive years after that. The one constant with the successful QBs who posted less than stellar career numbers in college is that each had a breakout final year.
Jones, in fact, is one of just eleven QBs on the list who never managed so much as 3000 yards passing in a single season. The good news for Jones is that list does include Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Donovan McNabb, and Michael Vick. The bad news is that none of those five threw the ball even 350 times in those seasons, with all of them managing at least 8 yards per pass attempt. Jones, meanwhile, chucked it 430 times and managed just 6.6 yards per pass in the process. The only other QBs who failed to crack 3000 yards passing in a season while getting more than 350 pass attempts were Joey Harrington, Jake Locker, and Kyle Boller.
5) What about touchdowns, is he any good at those?
I'm afraid not, dear reader! Daniel Jone's threw a TD pass on just 4.1% of his college attempts. Only Josh Freeman was worse. His career high of 22 TD passes in a single season is also pretty anemic, as only six quarterbacks had a single-season high lower than that:
-Michael Vick 13 TDs/182 attempts,
-Josh Freeman 20 TDs/382 attempts
-Christian Ponder 20 TDs/299 attempts
-Jason Campbell 20 TDs/270 attempts,
-Jay Cutler 21 TDs/462 attempts
Jones 22 TD passes this year came on 394 attempts, meaning only Cutler threw fewer TDs on that many attempts or more. Simply put the inability to throw TD passes in college typically does not bode well for the ability to do so in the NFL.
6) Okay, fuck you buddy. He went to Duke. You hear me? DUKE.
You're right. It's not easy to play QB at Duke, almost no one puts up exceptional numbers there. It would seem logical, though, that if Daniel Jones is in fact a superlative talent playing with subpar teammates at Duke, he would at least be better than previous Duke QBs of lesser talent who had to deal with the same restrictions, right?
Well, unfortunately for the argument that Jones is some kind of special breed of Duke QB, he was actually slightly worse than the QBs who came before him and played under David Cutcliffe. From 2008-2015, Duke QBs under Cutcliffe managed the average statline:
270/437 (61.8%), 2929 YDs, 6.7 Y/A, 18 TDs (4.1% TDs), 11 INTs (2.5% INTs).
Daniel Jones from 2016-2018 managed these averages:
255/425 (60.0%), 2734 YDs, 6.4 Y/A, 17 TDs (4% TDs), 10 INTs (2.4% INTs)
So with the exception of throwing interceptions at a slightly lower rate, Jones was below the average Cutcliffe Duke QB in every category. Duke, meanwhile, had a .500 record during the Jones Era, while they had just a .475 winning % before. Since we've established that Jones actually produced less than previous Duke starters, it would seem likely that they won more games during his time there precisely because he had more talent around him than the average Duke QB.
Ultimately, Jones is one of the most completely indefensible draft picks in the history of the draft. He showed no ability to make big plays in college, below average accuracy for a first round prospect, and even adjusting for the poor quality of talent at Duke he failed to outperform his peers. While it is true we have seen guys like Matt Ryan and Jay Cutler overcome somewhat similarly poor stats to become average or better NFL QBs, I have demonstrated where those two QBs did several key things better than Jones did and both were regarded even by scouts as better talents than Jones to begin with. Scouting reports constantly ding his arm strength as average at best, and while he did show better than average mobility in college, his 4.81 40 Time indicates that he's more of an "effective scrambler" rather than an actual dual threat. The record will show that I have been and remain overwhelmingly critical of the Bills decision to throw analytics to the wind and bet the farm on Josh Allen's talent, but I can at least admit that Josh Allen had talent to bet on. If Josh Allen hits his 99.9th percentile projection the Bills would have a rare freak of an athlete at QB with unparalleled arm strength who runs like a bulldozer. If all goes well for Daniel Jones the Giants might have landed themselves the next Sam Bradford: a thoroughly average at best passer who evinces no big play ability. While I knock the Bills for what I believe was an unwise decision to sell out their swings in the unlikely hope of hitting a home run, I can understand their logic. I cannot understand the Giants doing the same in hopes of blooping a single to right.
*-yet. I may have another article planned sometime soon though.
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Ayo. You're still there?
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