Freeman's story brings up an interesting topic, QB's and their relationship with pass catchers. Freeman's 2010 is an exception to the "Good play gets credited to Good receivers, Bad play is because of Bad receivers" rule. I'm curious what your general thoughts on the subject. Are there any general rules of thumb you follow when trying to divide credit?
I would love to say something more substantive Marc, but I don't think there are. Everybody has a different opinion on the exact degree of symbiosis between QBs and their pass catchers. What I don't think can be debated is that there is some correlation.
To demonstrate this, let's go right to the head of the beast. The top ten QBs of all time. There are no advanced receiver metrics for when Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, or Dan Fouts were playing, so this leaves us with Joe Montana, Drew Brees, Steve Young, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, Peyton Manning and Dan Marino. Let's ask the question. What were these men without great receivers?
I don't include pre-prime years, and so Joe Montana was really never without an elite pass catcher except for one season, 1994 Kansas City. Were his results down? Yes, but they were not so far down like it's extremely obvious that something had changed. He's still fifth on my tier list that year, despite being a 38 year old man dealing with several serious injuries. Steve Young never spent a season in his career (excluding TB) without an elite receiver. In fact, for most of his career he had two, and for a significant portion he had three.
Take note that after Steve leaves in 1999, this electric offence with Terrell Owens leading the charge, and JJ Stokes and an older Jerry Rice as wingmen goes straight into the toilet. All the receiving talent in the world didn't do anything to help, as everybody's numbers cratered in the six games not starting Jeff Garcia, before jumping right back up again when Jeff came in. This would seem to indicate that the QB bears a lot of the credit for the WRs' success, but let's keep going.
Drew Brees is much the same as Steve Young. Once his prime starts, he never has to go without an elite receiver, except maybe in 2015 (it depends on what you think of the Saints version of Brandin Cooks), and for much of his career he has two. What is Drew Brees without an elite WR? I don't know. We never saw it, and I think we're getting to the core issue here. Is it even possible to have Drew Brees on a team and not have an elite WR?
Aaron Rodgers' GB tenure shows three seasons of being without a receiver who put up elite production: 2015, 2019, 2022. Take a wild guess as to what Aaron's three worst individual years were? This is why causality is so difficult to determine. Did Aaron fall off because his receivers did, or did they fall off because he did? Considering receivers came and went, the names of the players changed, but there was normally always at least one elite receiving option in Green Bay, you know which way I'm leaning.
I don't have to continue this level of detail. Peyton Manning was without an elite WR just twice in a whole career. Patrick Mahomes once so far (only 2024). Dan Marino did endure one really weird period of his receiving group being really meh (almost certainly the worst receiving group for a stretch longer than one season for a top ten all-time QB) starting in 1989, in the season where his streak of being number one on my tier list every year from 1984-1988 ended, and continuing until 1994 when the team snapped out of it again.
This stretch does include Dan Marino's 1992 season, finishing number one on my tier list despite his best receiver (according to my formula) being TE Keith Jackson, which I consider to be the biggest carry job of all time. Josh Freeman is the biggest carry job of the play tracking era, and I will stand by that until somebody beats it, but nothing can match Dan Marino 1992 in my opinion. What an awful roster, and Dan pretty much carried them singlehandedly into still being a great pass offence anyway.
That season alone puts a chink in my 'great QBs breed great receivers' hypothesis, but in general, the fact that most of the greats barely ever even had to endure a season without an elite receiver indicates to me that the great QBs play a big role in creating great receivers.
However, you see how cynics could turn this around. The top ten QBs of all time have about ten seasons between them all of being without an elite receiver. A cynic could say they're all carry jobs based on generally fantastic offensive rosters, but to me, teams like the 1999 49ers and 2002 Rams (where elite offences fell right into the depths, only to bounce right back again once they got their QB issues resolved) indicate that the QB is a big part of the equation.
It's just an odd chain of causality Marc. You can have an elite WR without an elite QB. It happens all the time, but to have an elite QB without an elite receiver almost never happens. To me, this definitively proves that even the best WRs cannot make a QB into a great one, but it's just hard to prove anything further than that. The one thing that consistently jumps out at me is that great QBs don't have bad receivers. Period. It just doesn't happen. That's what leads me to lean into my general hypothesis that the QB has quite an impact on the quality of his cast of weapons. Perhaps players that are a tad less physically talented produce like elite players because they have a top of the line QB, etc..
Just for fun, let's look at the 2004 rule changes to when I stopped caring to collect WR data in 2022. How many top five QB tier list finishes are without a top 20 receiver?
2005 Matt Hasselbeck (although his best WR is 21st, call this a push), 2005 Trent Green, 2006 Tom Brady, 2008 Jay Cutler (perhaps another extenuating circumstance, as Jay had both 24th and 25th), 2015 Drew Brees (21st), 2015 Tom Brady (like we've talked about before, 2015 is a season where nothing makes any sense. Twice? Are you kidding me?), 2016 Tom Brady, 2019 Lamar Jackson, 2019 Patrick Mahomes (21st and 23rd), and that's it.
19 seasons, five spots in each. That's 95 total chances, of which only nine are filled by QBs without top of the line receivers. That's roughly 9.5%, meaning a top flight QB without a top five receiver happens a little bit less than once every two seasons, taking into account all top flight QBs and all top flight receivers leaguewide, making it an occurrence so rare that it really need not even be accounted for.
There are two lines of causality that fit the data here. The first is my hypothesis, that great QBs make great receivers, which is why the top five QBs (in literal terms) have a top flight receiver by their side 90% of the time, but one could also propose a second explanation, that there is only a certain level of performance that can be reached by a QB that does not have a top flight receiver. This line of thinking would insist that of course the ones with elite receivers are monopolising the top five. Having an elite receiver is basically the only way to get in anyways. They would generally view the nine seasons I've just pointed out as among the best QB seasons ever as a result of that belief.
I can't tell you which is right. Both are potentially viable, but considering the great QBs never ever go without great receivers, which is actually the same thing that prevents verification of either of the the above lines of thought, that's all the proof I need.
After the shoulder issues, he simply could never throw the ball accurately again, which stings, because he was still getting better at every other aspect of the game. By his final full season of 2012, he had his sk%+ all the way up to 116. If he could've maintained his 1.8 CPOE in 2010 to that point, he would've been a 0.15 xEPA/Play guy, despite entirely giving up on running the ball too. If we theorize that without the shoulder injury he would've further improved his throwing accuracy, we could've been talking about one of the top guys in the game by 2012.
Instead, Josh was out of the game completely, starting just five NFL games after the end of the 2012 season. It's tough to say whether he did or didn't deserve more than that, because by the time he fell out of the league, his accuracy had become unworkable. Look at his completion percentages beyond 2012. They are not NFL calibre, but he still did have NFL skills, mainly in his elite sack avoidance, that if the arm could've found a way to stay, could've made him a serious problem going forward.
In sum, I think I have to disagree with your statement. By the time he actually fell out of the NFL, Josh had become so awful at throwing the ball that it was tough to justify him as an NFL player. After all, what's the use of a QB if he can't complete a pass? The Colts are learning this same lesson now with Anthony Richardson. That's basically what Josh had become by the end. The feet were still there, but the arm was not there anymore.
Freeman's story brings up an interesting topic, QB's and their relationship with pass catchers. Freeman's 2010 is an exception to the "Good play gets credited to Good receivers, Bad play is because of Bad receivers" rule. I'm curious what your general thoughts on the subject. Are there any general rules of thumb you follow when trying to divide credit?
I would love to say something more substantive Marc, but I don't think there are. Everybody has a different opinion on the exact degree of symbiosis between QBs and their pass catchers. What I don't think can be debated is that there is some correlation.
To demonstrate this, let's go right to the head of the beast. The top ten QBs of all time. There are no advanced receiver metrics for when Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, or Dan Fouts were playing, so this leaves us with Joe Montana, Drew Brees, Steve Young, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, Peyton Manning and Dan Marino. Let's ask the question. What were these men without great receivers?
I don't include pre-prime years, and so Joe Montana was really never without an elite pass catcher except for one season, 1994 Kansas City. Were his results down? Yes, but they were not so far down like it's extremely obvious that something had changed. He's still fifth on my tier list that year, despite being a 38 year old man dealing with several serious injuries. Steve Young never spent a season in his career (excluding TB) without an elite receiver. In fact, for most of his career he had two, and for a significant portion he had three.
Take note that after Steve leaves in 1999, this electric offence with Terrell Owens leading the charge, and JJ Stokes and an older Jerry Rice as wingmen goes straight into the toilet. All the receiving talent in the world didn't do anything to help, as everybody's numbers cratered in the six games not starting Jeff Garcia, before jumping right back up again when Jeff came in. This would seem to indicate that the QB bears a lot of the credit for the WRs' success, but let's keep going.
Drew Brees is much the same as Steve Young. Once his prime starts, he never has to go without an elite receiver, except maybe in 2015 (it depends on what you think of the Saints version of Brandin Cooks), and for much of his career he has two. What is Drew Brees without an elite WR? I don't know. We never saw it, and I think we're getting to the core issue here. Is it even possible to have Drew Brees on a team and not have an elite WR?
Aaron Rodgers' GB tenure shows three seasons of being without a receiver who put up elite production: 2015, 2019, 2022. Take a wild guess as to what Aaron's three worst individual years were? This is why causality is so difficult to determine. Did Aaron fall off because his receivers did, or did they fall off because he did? Considering receivers came and went, the names of the players changed, but there was normally always at least one elite receiving option in Green Bay, you know which way I'm leaning.
I don't have to continue this level of detail. Peyton Manning was without an elite WR just twice in a whole career. Patrick Mahomes once so far (only 2024). Dan Marino did endure one really weird period of his receiving group being really meh (almost certainly the worst receiving group for a stretch longer than one season for a top ten all-time QB) starting in 1989, in the season where his streak of being number one on my tier list every year from 1984-1988 ended, and continuing until 1994 when the team snapped out of it again.
This stretch does include Dan Marino's 1992 season, finishing number one on my tier list despite his best receiver (according to my formula) being TE Keith Jackson, which I consider to be the biggest carry job of all time. Josh Freeman is the biggest carry job of the play tracking era, and I will stand by that until somebody beats it, but nothing can match Dan Marino 1992 in my opinion. What an awful roster, and Dan pretty much carried them singlehandedly into still being a great pass offence anyway.
That season alone puts a chink in my 'great QBs breed great receivers' hypothesis, but in general, the fact that most of the greats barely ever even had to endure a season without an elite receiver indicates to me that the great QBs play a big role in creating great receivers.
However, you see how cynics could turn this around. The top ten QBs of all time have about ten seasons between them all of being without an elite receiver. A cynic could say they're all carry jobs based on generally fantastic offensive rosters, but to me, teams like the 1999 49ers and 2002 Rams (where elite offences fell right into the depths, only to bounce right back again once they got their QB issues resolved) indicate that the QB is a big part of the equation.
It's just an odd chain of causality Marc. You can have an elite WR without an elite QB. It happens all the time, but to have an elite QB without an elite receiver almost never happens. To me, this definitively proves that even the best WRs cannot make a QB into a great one, but it's just hard to prove anything further than that. The one thing that consistently jumps out at me is that great QBs don't have bad receivers. Period. It just doesn't happen. That's what leads me to lean into my general hypothesis that the QB has quite an impact on the quality of his cast of weapons. Perhaps players that are a tad less physically talented produce like elite players because they have a top of the line QB, etc..
Just for fun, let's look at the 2004 rule changes to when I stopped caring to collect WR data in 2022. How many top five QB tier list finishes are without a top 20 receiver?
2005 Matt Hasselbeck (although his best WR is 21st, call this a push), 2005 Trent Green, 2006 Tom Brady, 2008 Jay Cutler (perhaps another extenuating circumstance, as Jay had both 24th and 25th), 2015 Drew Brees (21st), 2015 Tom Brady (like we've talked about before, 2015 is a season where nothing makes any sense. Twice? Are you kidding me?), 2016 Tom Brady, 2019 Lamar Jackson, 2019 Patrick Mahomes (21st and 23rd), and that's it.
19 seasons, five spots in each. That's 95 total chances, of which only nine are filled by QBs without top of the line receivers. That's roughly 9.5%, meaning a top flight QB without a top five receiver happens a little bit less than once every two seasons, taking into account all top flight QBs and all top flight receivers leaguewide, making it an occurrence so rare that it really need not even be accounted for.
There are two lines of causality that fit the data here. The first is my hypothesis, that great QBs make great receivers, which is why the top five QBs (in literal terms) have a top flight receiver by their side 90% of the time, but one could also propose a second explanation, that there is only a certain level of performance that can be reached by a QB that does not have a top flight receiver. This line of thinking would insist that of course the ones with elite receivers are monopolising the top five. Having an elite receiver is basically the only way to get in anyways. They would generally view the nine seasons I've just pointed out as among the best QB seasons ever as a result of that belief.
I can't tell you which is right. Both are potentially viable, but considering the great QBs never ever go without great receivers, which is actually the same thing that prevents verification of either of the the above lines of thought, that's all the proof I need.
Despite the Bucs moving off Freeman, the man still deserved to be a low end starter/high end backup for the rest of his career.
It's tough to say with Josh.
After the shoulder issues, he simply could never throw the ball accurately again, which stings, because he was still getting better at every other aspect of the game. By his final full season of 2012, he had his sk%+ all the way up to 116. If he could've maintained his 1.8 CPOE in 2010 to that point, he would've been a 0.15 xEPA/Play guy, despite entirely giving up on running the ball too. If we theorize that without the shoulder injury he would've further improved his throwing accuracy, we could've been talking about one of the top guys in the game by 2012.
Instead, Josh was out of the game completely, starting just five NFL games after the end of the 2012 season. It's tough to say whether he did or didn't deserve more than that, because by the time he fell out of the league, his accuracy had become unworkable. Look at his completion percentages beyond 2012. They are not NFL calibre, but he still did have NFL skills, mainly in his elite sack avoidance, that if the arm could've found a way to stay, could've made him a serious problem going forward.
In sum, I think I have to disagree with your statement. By the time he actually fell out of the NFL, Josh had become so awful at throwing the ball that it was tough to justify him as an NFL player. After all, what's the use of a QB if he can't complete a pass? The Colts are learning this same lesson now with Anthony Richardson. That's basically what Josh had become by the end. The feet were still there, but the arm was not there anymore.