In the second half, both RG3 and Niles Paul lost fumbles inside the Houston 10-yard line; that obviously contributed to the team failing to score more than 6 points. But Griffin’s 78.4% completion percentage was also pretty misleading. Griffin’s average throw went just 5.8 yards in the air, and his average completion covered just 3.9 yards before including his receiver’s yards gained after the catch. Both of those averages put ranked 30th among 32 qualifying passers. But while short throws can be part of an effective offense, on Sunday, that wasn’t the case for Washington. Consider:

• A 4th and 10 completion to Roy Helu for 6 yards
• A 3rd and 16 completion (on the Washington 15) to Helu for 9 yards
• A 3rd and 13 completion to DeSean Jackson for 0 yards
• A 2nd and 25 completion to Jackson for 0 yards
• A 2nd and 19 completion to Pierre Garcon for 3 yards
• A 2nd and 14 completion to Logal Paulsen for -3 yards
• A 2nd and 8 completion to Garcon for 3 yards
• A 2nd and 1 completion to Jackson for 0 yards
• Four 1st and 10 completions to Jordan Reed, Paulsen, Paul, and Darrel Young for 4, 3, 2, and 1 yard(s), respectively.

Sure, Griffin completed 29 of his 37 passes, but 12 of his completions did little or nothing to help his offense.  He also was sacked three times.  As a result, just 17 of his 40 dropbacks — or 42.5% — were successful completions.

To be fair, this isn’t as much a knock of Griffin as the Washington offense as a whole, or perhaps just a counter to those who like to rely on completion percentage or its brother, passer rating.  If Griffin’s targets could have gained more yards after the catch, things would have looked a lot different.  And against the frightening pass rush of J.J. Watt and company, ^[1]While Jadeveon Clowney went out early, Whitney Mercilus, Brooks Reed, and Brian Cushing all got to Griffin several times. short passes make some sense.  But looking at Griffin’s completion percentage and concluding he had a good game is kind of silly. Again, more a knock on the misuse of statistics than the player.

Football Outsiders considers a completion that fails to gain a first down on 3rd or 4th down, a completion that fails to gain at least 60% of the distance needed on 2nd down, or a completion that fails to gain at least 45% of the needed yards on 1st down to all be failed completions. Those cut-offs seem reasonable enough to use for theses purposes. Looking at the numbers, Griffin led the NFL in failed completions in week one.

Here’s how to read the table below. In week 1, Griffin completed 29 of 37 passes, producing a completion percentage of 78.4%. However, 12 of his completions were failed completions, as identified above. That means 41.4% of his completions were failed completions. He also took 3 sacks; as a result, just 42.5% of his dropbacks were successful completions. The difference between his raw completion percentage and his SCmp/DB average was 35.9%.

• Only seven quarterbacks produced successful plays on at least half of their dropbacks in week one. The leader was Colin Kaepernick, who had just one failed completion and one sack, while still completing 70% of his passes against the worst defense in football.

• The next three passers on the list all lost, although it’s easy to figure out why. Drew Brees and the Saints lost a 37-34 overtime shootout in Atlanta, but the blame for that game doesn’t fall on the offense. Jay Cutler also lost in overtime, but Cutler threw two interceptions and the Bears finished -2 in the turnover department. All three Bears turnovers were costly, and Pro-Football-Reference calculates Chicago losing 17.5 expected points off of those turnovers. That was even more the story in Dallas, where four turnovers produced -23.3 expected points.

• The final three quarterbacks to be successful on at least half of their dropbacks were all victorious and led their teams to at least 30 points: Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning, and Matt Ryan.

• In addition to Griffin, a quartet of youngsters played it very safe on Sunday. Austin Davis, Geno Smith, EJ Manuel, and Derek Carr all “took what the defense gave them” in week one. Such a conservative philosophy can work, of course, and it’s arguably a good sign that the offensive coordinators are not asking these players to do too much. All four finished with a Successful Completions/Dropback ratio at least 30 points lower than their completion percentage. Of course, the downside to a conservative passing attack that protects a young quarterback is it could lead to a deficit, and forcing the quarterback to suddenly play much more aggressively late in the game.

• To bring things back to Griffin, what do we think of his performance? Pro Football Focus ranked him as the 19th best quarterback in week 1, just slightly better than some of the other quarterback metrics. One would hope that Jackson would help stretch the field, increasing Griffin’s average length of throw. The third-year quarterback also rushed for just two yards, which does not seem like a good use of his talents. It’s only one week, of course, and I’m still high on the Washington offense (although Reed looks to be out for a couple of weeks with a hamstring). But the early returns on Sunday weren’t very good, despite the gaudy completion percentage.

To grade third down performance, I included sacks but threw out all rushing data (not for any moral reason, just in the interest of time). The first step in evaluating third down performance is to calculate the league average conversion rate on third downs for each distance. Next, I came up with a best-fit smoothed line based on the data, which is based off the following formula:

Conversion Rate = -0.0001 * Distance^2 – 0.0224 * Distance + 0.5301

Take a look at the table below. For example, there were 309 passes (i.e., pass attempts or sacks — scrambles are not included) and the league-wide conversion rate was 51.1%. Using the best-fit formula, the smoothed rate is 50.8%. There is nothing groundbreaking here — the conversion rates drop as the “to go” number increases, but it helps to quantify what we already know.

Once we know the expected conversion rate for each distance, it’s easy to grade the quarterbacks. The next table is a bit complicated, so let me just walk you through the best third down quarterback in the league last year. Peyton Manning had 176 third down pass plays in 2012. On average, those third down passes came with 8.00 yards to go, and a league-average quarterback would have been expected to convert 37.7% of those third downs (based on the above chart). That translates to 66.3 Expected 1st Down Conversions by Manning (176 * 37.7%). Instead, Manning actually converted 83 first downs, for a 47.2% 1st Down conversion rate. That gives him 16.7 1st Downs over Expectation (i.e., 83 – 66.3), and he had a 9.5% higher rate (47.2-37.7) than the league average quarterback would have given the same situations. That 9.5% number is what the table is sorted by, each quarterback’s per-attempt differential over expectation. The last column is each quarterback’s Net Yards per Attempt on third downs.

There’s probably little predictive data to this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting to examine. ^[1]For example, in November, Ben Roethlisberger was #2. No quarterback produced fewer first downs relative to expectation than Andy Dalton (-14.0). Matthew Stafford, who is quickly becoming a very polarizing quarterback, slotted between Manning and Tom Brady in first downs above expectation. Tony Romo, another quarterback/Bullseye, was pretty “clutch” on third downs, too.

As for last year’s rookies, Griffin lagged way behind Andrew Luck in this metric (Russell Wilson, of course, continues to be the man). If you’re looking for a criticism of Griffin’s game, it may be that he struggles to beat the defense in obvious passing situations. According to Football Outsiders, Washington’s offense ranked 1st in DVOA on play-action plays, but below league average on all other pass plays. You know that when we’ve gone from “he threw 5 interceptions in a game, no big deal, he’s a rookie” to “you know that rookie star was a slightly below-average passer on non-play action pass plays,” that we’re picking nits. But hey, it’s July.

Previous “Random Perspective On” Articles:
AFC East: Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Jets
AFC North: Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers
AFC South: Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans
AFC West: Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers
NFC East: Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins
NFC North: Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings
NFC South: Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
NFC West: Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, St. Louis Rams