Pick a QB, any QB: there are no right answers.

All told, the 2018 first round quarterbacks as a group have been decidedly below average as passers this season, with three of the four starters (excluding Rosen) being in the bottom five of the NFL in interception rate.

This made me curious: which draft classes have been the most productive in 2021? With 17 weeks in the books — a traditional NFL regular season — here’s what I did.

1. Calculate each quarterback’s ANY/A average this season.  ANY/A is calculated as follows: (Passing Yards + 20 * Passing TDs – 45 * INTs – Sack Yards Lost) / (Pass Attempts + Sacks).
2. The NFL average among quarterbacks in 2021 is 6.07 ANY/A.  For each quarterback, calculate how much passing value he provided by taking his ANY/A, subtract 6.07 from that number, and multiplying it by his number of dropbacks.  For Aaron Rodgers, for example, he is averaging 7.99 ANY/A on 540 dropbacks; as a result, he has provided 1,040 yards of value this season relative to league average, the most in the NFL.  Trevor Lawrence has averaged 4.36 ANY/A on 601 dropbacks; he therefore has provided -1,026 yards of value this year relative to average, the worst in the NFL.
3. For each draft class, sum the grades for each quarterback in that draft class determined in Step #2 to come up with a Draft Class grade.  The 2014 Draft Class has just four quarterbacks left: Jimmy Garoppolo (+609 of value added), Derek Carr (+380), Teddy Bridgewater (+113), and Garrett Gilbert (-26 in one start for Washington).  So the 2014 Class gets a grade of +1,076.  Believe it or not, that’s actually the second most productive draft class in 2021.

The chart below shows the 2021 passing value added over average by each draft class.  The 2020 Draft, powered by Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert, lead the way.  And not only is the much-hyped 2018 Class below average, it’s remarkably below-average; only this year’s poor crop of rookies is worse. In fairness to the 2018 Class, they did provide a significant amount of rushing value added: Allen and Jackson both have at least 700 rushing yards, and Darnold has five rushing touchdowns.  But from a passing standpoint, it’s fair to say that Mayfield and Darnold significantly disappointed this year, while Allen and Jackson both suffered notable declines in efficiency. And the less said about Rosen, the better.

We can also perform the exact same analysis using age (as of December 31, 2021) instead of draft class.  Here, it’s the 33-year-olds — Matthew Stafford, Kirk Cousins, and Russell Wilson — that stand out as the top bracket.  And it probably feels weird to group them together in your head, but Josh Allen and Joe Burrow were both born in 1996, as was Gardner Minshew.  The 25-year-olds narrowly best the “38-year-olds” (aka the Aaron Rodgers group) in this chart.  It’s interesting to look at similar data in different ways; whereas the 2020 Draft Class was the top provider of value, by grouping players by age, we separate Burrow and Herbert.  And now the 23-year-olds, which is headlined by Herbert but includes a bunch of below-average passers, checks in as below average.

Finally, we can also look at the same data but group quarterbacks by draft round.  There is lots of survivorship bias at play here, particularly when it comes to 4th round quarterbacks. There are only four: Kirk Cousins and Dak Prescott, who added a lot of passing value, and Jacob Eason and Ian Book, who combined for just 33 dropbacks.  So while it would be poor data analysis to look at the graph below and say you should target your quarterbacks in the 4th round of the draft, I still think the information is nonetheless interesting to present:

Even better draft hack: select your quarterback at 199 overall, but don’t have it be Luke Falk.

Finally, here’s the raw data.

What stands out to you?

Cincinnati added not only a familiar weapon, but one with a great name.

One of the most unique parts of the 2021 NFL Draft was the reuniting of college teammates in the passing game. The Cincinnati Bengals drafted LSU quarterback Joe Burrow first overall last season; holding the 5th overall selection this year, Burrow was rumored to be pushing his organization to draft his former teammate, Tigers WR Ja’Marr Chase. The Bengals did in fact pull the trigger on Chase, making them the extremely rare combination of quarterback and receiver to get drafted out of the same college and to the same team in the first round in back to back years.

But it didn’t stop there.  With the very next pick, Miami drafted Alabama WR Jaylen Waddle, a year after drafting Crimson Tide quarterback Tua Tagovailoa with the fifth overall pick.  But it didn’t stop there: Alabama WR DeVonta Smith was selected by the Eagles with the 10th overall pick, and that reunites him with Jalen Hurts, the Eagles starting quarterback and a member of the 2017 and 2018 Crimson Tide teams.

That made me wonder: what is the record for most touchdowns by a quarterback and receiver in the NFL among those teammates who also played together in college?

The answer is 26, and I think you could probably win $20 in every bar in the country with this one. Tobin Rote and Billy Howton were teammates on the 1949 Rice Owls team that finished 10-1 and won the Cotton Bowl. Green Bay drafted Rote with the 17th pick in the 1950 Draft, and two years later, selected Howton 15th overall. The two would find immediate success, as Howton led the NFL in receiving yards his rookie season. They would connect for 26 touchdowns together as pros, the mark that Burrow and Chase, among others, will be chasing. ^[1]Hey, don’t count out Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne, either!

Two other quarterback/receiver pairings had 16 touchdowns. In 1971, Stanford’s Jim Plunkett was the first overall pick in the NFL Draft to the Patriots. Over 400 picks later, the Rams drafted his top weapon in 1970, wide receiver Randy Vataha. Los Angeles cut Vataha before the start of the season, but the Patriots picked him up, and Plunkett and Vataha connected for 9 touchdowns as rookies.

At Provo in 1977, BYU quarterback Marc Wilson and running back Todd Christensen helped BYU generate a high-powered offensive attack. In ’78, Christensen was selected by the Cowboys with the 56th pick to play fullback; he didn’t work out there or with the Giants, but resurrected his career at tight end with Oakland in the ’80s. Meanwhile, in 1980, the Raiders drafted Wilson with the 15th overall pick; together, Wilson and Christensen connected for 16 touchdowns, which made Christensen the top overall target for Wilson in his career (as for Christensen, he caught 20 touchdowns from Plunkett).

There have been some other notable combinations. In the late ’50s, Butch Songin and Jim Colclough were teammates at Boston College; perhaps unsurprisingly, the AFL’s Boston Patriots snatched them both up, and they connected for 14 touchdowns. More recently, Stanford teammates Andrew Luck and Coby Fleener were drafted by Indianapolis in 2012, and they scored 14 times through the air. In the early ’90s, Michigan quarterback Elvis Grbac and wide receiver Derrick Alexander were stars, and led the ’92 team to an undefeated season. They would be reunited at the end of the decade in Kansas City and combined for 13 touchdowns.

Vanderbilt’s Jay Cutler and Earl Bennett were reunited in Chicago and produced 11 touchdown receptions, while Jim Plunkett and Gene Washington hit on 10 touchdown passes in 1976 and 1977 for San Francisco.