Week 3 (2019) Passing Stats: Kyler Murray Hits Rock Bottom

by Chase Stuart on September 24, 2019

If you took a quick glance at the passing stats from week 3, you might not notice how bad number one overall pick Kyler Murray performed against the Panthers. You’d see that he threw for only 173 yards with 2 TDs and 2 INTs, and might think that it was a typical underwhelming performance by a rookie quarterback.

What you might not have noticed was that Murray had 43 pass attempts and also was sacked a whopping 8 times, losing 46 yards. He also only passed for 9 first downs, a pitiful number given his 51 passing plays (17.6%). Murray threw for just 127 net passing yards against Carolina, a shockingly-low 2.49 net yards per attempt average. In fact, no passer had averaged under 2.50 NY/A in a game with 40+ attempts since 2003.

Murray finished week 3 with a 1.51 ANY/A average, the second-worst performance in week 3 by any starting quarterback. The worst? Well, that honor belongs to Jets third string QB Luke Falk, who was basically useless against the Patriots. Falk had 27 passing plays on Sunday: 20 of them produced negative EPA, meaning they were a negative play, 3 were slightly positive plays (i.e., a 5-yard pass on 1st-and-10), and 4 picked up first downs. New York scored 14 points courtesy of a special teams touchdown and a defensive touchdown.

On the positive side of things, the top three passing stat lines belonged to Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, and Kyle Allen. The full week 3 passing stats below:

Rk	Quarterback	Tm	Opp	Result	Att	Yds	TD	Int	Sk	Yds	ANY/A	VALUE
1	Patrick Mahomes	KAN	BAL	W 33-28	37	374	3	0	1	11	11.13	173
2	Deshaun Watson	HOU	LAC	W 27-20	34	351	3	0	2	14	11.03	160
3	Kyle Allen	CAR	ARI	W 38-20	26	261	4	0	2	21	11.43	136
4	Russell Wilson	SEA	NOR	L 27-33	50	406	2	0	0	0	8.92	117
5	Jameis Winston	TAM	NYG	L 31-32	37	380	3	1	4	25	9.02	100
6	Matt Ryan	ATL	IND	L 24-27	34	304	3	1	0	0	9.38	95
7	Jacoby Brissett	IND	ATL	W 27-24	37	310	2	0	1	10	8.95	90
8	Daniel Jones	NYG	TAM	W 32-31	36	336	2	0	5	24	8.59	82
9	Tom Brady	NWE	NYJ	W 30-14	42	306	2	0	0	0	8.24	70
10	Aaron Rodgers	GNB	DEN	W 27-16	29	235	1	0	0	0	8.79	64
11	Kirk Cousins	MIN	OAK	W 34-14	21	174	1	0	0	0	9.24	56
12	Gardner Minshew	JAX	TEN	W 20-7	30	204	2	0	0	0	8.13	47
13	Teddy Bridgewater	NOR	SEA	W 33-27	27	177	2	0	0	0	8.04	39
14	Carson Wentz	PHI	DET	L 24-27	36	259	2	0	3	13	7.33	29
15	Dak Prescott	DAL	MIA	W 31-6	32	246	2	1	1	5	7.15	19
16	Ryan Fitzpatrick	MIA	DAL	L 6-31	2	29	0	0	0	0	14.5	16
17	Matthew Stafford	DET	PHI	W 27-24	32	201	1	0	0	0	6.91	10
18	Mitchell Trubisky	CHI	WAS	W 31-15	31	231	3	1	3	23	6.56	-1
19	Philip Rivers	LAC	HOU	L 20-27	46	318	2	0	5	25	6.53	-3
20	Jimmy Garoppolo	SFO	PIT	W 24-20	32	277	1	2	1	9	6	-19
21	Josh Allen	BUF	CIN	W 21-17	36	243	1	1	1	2	5.84	-28
22	Mason Rudolph	PIT	SFO	L 20-24	27	174	2	1	2	14	5.34	-36
23	Derek Carr	OAK	MIN	L 14-34	34	242	2	1	4	28	5.5	-41
24	Lamar Jackson	BAL	KAN	L 28-33	43	267	0	0	3	18	5.41	-54
25	Jared Goff	LAR	CLE	W 20-13	38	269	2	2	2	14	5.13	-58
26	Jarrett Stidham	NWE	NYJ	W 30-14	3	14	0	1	1	7	-9.5	-64
27	Marcus Mariota	TEN	JAX	L 7-20	40	304	0	0	9	55	5.08	-73
28	Andy Dalton	CIN	BUF	L 17-21	36	249	1	2	2	10	4.45	-81
29	Josh Rosen	MIA	DAL	L 6-31	39	200	0	0	3	18	4.33	-94
30	Baker Mayfield	CLE	LAR	L 13-20	36	195	1	1	3	20	3.85	-107
31	Joe Flacco	DEN	GNB	L 16-27	29	213	0	1	6	52	3.31	-114
32	Case Keenum	WAS	CHI	L 15-31	43	332	2	3	4	45	4.09	-117
33	Luke Falk	NYJ	NWE	L 14-30	22	98	0	1	5	29	0.89	-154
34	Kyler Murray	ARI	CAR	L 20-38	43	173	2	2	8	46	1.51	-259
	Total				1120	8352	54	22	81	538	6.58	0

Once again, there was a very strong relationship between winning the passing battle and winning the game. The table below shows the ANY/A differential for each game; the differential is from the perspective of the team with the greater VALUE number, with winners in blue and losers in red.

Russell Wilson was excellent in week 3, even if his final numbers were boosted by a meaningless touchdown on the game’s final play. But look what it took for the Seahawks to lose when Wilson played so well: the Saints scored two return touchdowns, and gave New Orleans a short field (that led to a 28-yard touchdown drive) after failing on a 4th-and-1 from the Seahawks 28 yard line in the 4th quarter (a correct coaching decision that Carroll claims he regrets).

But of the 12 teams with the largest passing differentials in week 3, 11 of them were victorious. As always, passing efficiency is the key to success in the NFL.

Tagged as: Weekly ANY/A

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