Who's A Better Quarterback Than Mark Sanchez?

Here's a text The 'Bright' One sent to me this morning:

Buddy asked if [Mark] Sanchez is top 15. I said he's not top 32. Can we please name 32 guys better than him? Chad Pennington is probably better right now

So I went out to see if there actually are 32 better quarterbacks than New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. Here is the list I came up with (in no particular order, for me, this list is just QBs by division).

100% I Would Rather Have Over Sanchez

1) Tom Brady
2) Ryan Fitzpatrick
3) Aaron Rodgers
4) Jay Cutler
5) Christian Ponder
6) Matthew Stafford
7) Shaun Hill
8) Philip Rivers
9) Jason Campbell
10) Tim Tebow
11) Kyle Orton
12) Matt Cassel
13) Sam Bradford
14) Alex Smith
15) Michael Vick
16) Vince Young
17) Eli Manning
18) Tony Romo
19) Ben Roethlisberger
20) Joe Flacco
21) Colt McCoy
22) Andy Dalton
23) Drew Brees
24) Matt Ryan
25) Josh Freeman
26) Cam Newton
27) Matt Schaub
28) Matt Hasselbeck
29) David Garrard
30) Blaine Gabbert
31) Andrew Luck
32) Peyton Manning

Toss Up
31) Kevin Kolb
32) Chad Henne
33) Alex Smith
34) Caleb Hanie
25) Matt Flynn

I'd Rather Have Sanchez Than
- Donovan McNabb
- Rex Grossman
- Carson Palmer
- Tarvaris Jackson
- Charlier Whitehurst
- Curtis Painter
- Kyle Boller
- Dan Orlovsky
- Matt Leinart
- Matt Moore
- Mike Kafka
- Luke McCown
- Brady Quinn
- Derek Anderson
- Tyler Thigpen
- Josh Johnson

So are there 32 quarterbacks better than Mark Sanchez? I guess not. One QB on this list is still in college and two are inactive due to injury/surgery. But the point is this, Mark Sanchez is not a very good quarterback. The Jets could have won a Superbowl with Mark Sanchez the past two years on their defense alone but Sanchez should not be their QB of the future because he is a significant hindrance to the team.

I sent this list to TBO and he said he would replace Carson Palmer and Kevin Kolb over Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow but "I basically agree with this list"

Friend-of-GOI Dan Bennett would make these changes:
- Move up Kevin Kolb to the 32nd player he 100% would have over Sanchez
- Move up Tarvaris Jackson and Donovan McNabb to the "Toss Up" list
- Move Chad Henne down to the "I'd Rather Have Sanchez Than" list
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1) No one drafted David Garrard as their #1 quarterback. Why didn't Stiller drop Peyton Manning's name? Not only is that more plausible but this is the only football related commercial Peyton Manning is *not* in
2) Should Mark Sanchez really be surprised that L.T. does not have Sanchez as his fantasy quarterback? Tomlinson plays with Sanchez and he knows Sanchez sucks! haha

Matt Cassel vs. Mark Sanchez

EDITOR'S NOTE: This posts uses advanced statistics. For an explanation of DYAR and DVOA, click here. For an explanation of WPA, click here. For an explanation of EPA, click here.

During my box score tonight's, I keep claiming that Matt Cassel is the best former USC quarterback currently playing in the NFL. Over the past decade, Pete Carrol has produced many first round quarterbacks and top tiered, highly rated talent. Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, and Mark Sanchez all led USC to great years and were all taken within the first 10 picks of their respected drafts. But despite all this, the best QB was one that didn't even play a snap in college: Matt Cassel.

Now some of the reason Cassel is the best USC QB is by default. Carson Palmer looked amazing early in his career and looked like he was fully worth the high draft pick. But after destroying his knee in a playoff game and taking a year off to recover, he just doesn't look like the same quarterback. And I will still defend Matt Leinart but I'm sad to say it looks like his development has been too stunted at this point for him to succeed. The only real chance Leinart ever got was in his rookie year and I will never judge how good a QB truly is in his rookie year- despite the flashed of greatness we have seen from Leinart.

But Mark Sanchez still has a shot. I saw many of his games early and he looked good. He looked like he was making great decisions and making many accurate passes, but his receivers have probably the worst hands in the league. Sure he makes a lot of short passes, well guess what, not everybody can be Peyton Manning. Plus, the few long bombs I've seen him throw (especially to Braylon Edwards) he's looked pretty darn good doing it.

I said I won't fully judge a QB based solely on his rookie season and I certainly will take the fact that Sanchez doesn't even have two full years under his belt. But what that being said, this is a debate on who's the best USC quarterback RIGHT NOW.

We'll start off with the basic statistics. In five less games from 2010 to 2009, Mark Sanchez has thrown 3 more TD passes (12 to 15) and 14 less interceptions (20 to 7). He's increased his TD% by 136% and decreased his INT% by a whopping 262%. He currently holds a 2.14 TD/INT ratio- and anything over 2/1 is commendable and respectable. Cassel's biggest problem, like Sanchez, last year was interception. He threw 16 touchdown, but just as many interceptions. In five less games Cassel has thrown two more touchdowns (16 to 18) and 12 less interceptions (16 to 4) from 2009 to 2010. Cassel currently is fourth in the league in INT% (considering he only has FOUR interceptions on the year) and has a 4.5 TD/INT ratio- more than double that of Sanchez.

Somewhat frustrating is Sanchez's completion percentage. You always like to see a QB improve as he plays more games and a critical part of a QB's game to develop is his completion percentage. While it did go up slightly (53.8 to 55.1), it's still not close to being ideal (at least 59-60%). Versus Cassel who also had a mediocre comp% last year (55%) and raise it up to where it should be this year (59%).

My initial thought for this was because Sanchez has some pretty bad receivers from a catch rate perspective. Edwards has a 51% and Holmes has a 54% of the year. But Dwayne Bowe also has a 54% catch rate. Jamaal Charles has a 71%, LT has a 68%, and Thomas Jones has a 56%. All pretty much the same across the main receivers and backs which tells me the completion percentage of the quarterbacks is mostly the result of the quarterbacks and not the receivers.

Currently, Cassel has more touchdowns, less interceptions, and a better: completion percentage, passer rating, and yards per attempt than Sanchez with essentially the same sack percentage. Although Sanchez does have more yards. And more attempts.

Now onto the advanced stuff! We're getting kinky now. Matt Cassel is 13th in DYAR (essentially total value) and 14th in DVOA (essentially value per play). Sanchez is 18th in DYAR and 25th in DVOA. I think you can make your own conclusions about what this means. Where Sanchez does beat Cassel is in clutchiness. Sanchez has a 2.32 WPA and a 31.2 EPA versus Cassel's .75 WPA and 59.3 EPA.

Lastly, its helpful to look at offensive lines. Drastic differences in offensive line play can greatly affect a QB's play. You can chalk up a lot of bad stats to poor offensive line play. It's hard to throw the ball effectively when you have a guy in your face constantly. But luckily for us, Kansas City has the 9th ranked passing offensive line and the Jets have the 10th this year. Even more reason to think these players' numbers are the result of their true talent right now and not some other, outlier factors.

So who is currently the best USC QB playing the game? Matt Cassel. You can see this cat Cassel is a bad mother- shut your mouth! But I'm talking about Matt!

Analyzing the Santonio Holmes Trade

Through my first analysis, I have told you that trading for Braylon Edwards was a waste. And all Jets fans who saw Edwards drop easy passes that fell in his lap get dropped came around to what I told them. But cheer up baby birds, I'm about to chew up some analysis and spit some knowledge in your mouth (too graphic?), you got Edwards part II.

Last year, Holmes collected 1248 yards on 79 receptions (138 targets) good for a 15.8 YPR (yards per reception). Holmes was 10th in DYAR (roughly measures total value) and 21st DVOA (roughly measures value per play). However, it's his 57% catch rate that worries me. Out of the top 15 players last year (according to FO DYAR), there are three receiver with a catch rate under 61% (besides Holmes, A. Johnson and C. Ochocinco) and Holmes (along with Ochocinco) rank last out of the top 15 players in catch rate. 32 of the top 45 players had a better catch rate than Holmes. In fact, Holmes has a career 55% catch rate.

Despite Holmes low catch rate however, he does do pretty darn good things when he gets the ball. He was tied for second in the league last year for plays 20+, had no fumbles, 5th in first downs and still was at minimum a top 15 wide out (despite his slight inefficiencies). And at only 27 years old and only four years in the league, he is very very good.

And he is absolutely no doubt better than Jerricho Cotchery and David Clowney.

Because Santonio Holomes is better than probably any current Jets receiver, he will make young Mark Sanchez better. So let's take a look at Big Ben and the Sanchize's numbers to see how Holmes will actually produce in the Meadowlands

Over the past three years, 24.4% of Big Ben's passes went towards Holmes and he has caught 12.7% of Big Ben's total passes while Holmes was in Pittsburgh. While those numbers seem low, that's not THAT bad considering how many passes any QB throws that don't get caught and how many players any QB has to distribute the ball to.


However, these low stats do become important because as little attempts as Big Ben has, the Sanchize will have even less. Big Ben has averaged 462 attempts over the past two years and Sanchez had 364 attempts in 15 games. Now while Sanchez will most likely get more attempts and get better- the number of passes he'll throw to Holmes will decrease thus decreasing the overall value of Holmes- at least for the 2010 season.

Last year, about 15.9% of Sanchez' passes went to his RBs, 21.4% went to Braylon Edwards, 26.6% went to Jerricho Cotchery, 22.3% went to Dustin Keller, and about 13.8% went to other receivers.

So based off of Sanchez' past numbers, percentages, improvement, and Holmes' catch rate, let's see what we can predict Holmes, at least for 2010.

If we generously say Sanchez gets more attempts and gets better accuracy (which he showed at the end of the 2009 season), let's generously say Sanchez gets 400 attempts (up from his 364 in 15 games in 2009). Let's say Edwards gets about 22% of Sanchez' passes and say Holmes (based upon Holmes' talent and what he did in Pittsburgh) gets 25% of Sanchez' throws. Thats means Holmes should get about 100 passes thrown his way.

So if we include Holmes' career catch rate, that means Holmes should get only about 55 catches- way below his 2009 mark, but right along his '06-'08 rate. Add his career 16.3 YPR rate, that means Holmes should get only around 900 yards- with maybe about 5 TDs (falls along with his career average and a crappier QB). But when you include the four game suspension- I'll say he gets about 675 yards with 4 TDs.


Now Holmes is still young and took a huge step forward so I can easily foresee my prediction that Holmes will regress will not come true. But I think a lot of Holmes' value came from Big Ben's career year and with a young and improving QB at the helm throwing to two drop heavy receivers does not bode well for the team. But hey, it was only a 5th round draft pick and the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets have still improved.

For an analysis on the Brandon Marshall trade, click here

Jay Cutler Is An Interception Machine!

When the Bears got Jay Cutler everyone (including myself) was excited. He was a good quarterback who was supposed to turn the Bears around and lead them in the right direction. One thing that wasn't talked about in the honeymoon period after we got him was how many interceptions he throws!

Jay Cutler leads the NFL with 20 ugly interceptions this season. Jake Delhomme and Matthew Stafford are tied for second with 18. Mark Sanchez is in 4th place with 17 interceptions. Matt Ryan in 5th place only has 12, a more respectable number. Out of the top 4, two of them are rookies, so they are given a free pass for their rookie season while they get adjusted to the NFL. This is because many times rookie quarterbacks don't even start their rookie season so they can learn first from the sideline. Jake Delhomme only has 2 interceptions less than Cutler, but no one ever said he was good!

In 2008 Cutler had 18 interceptions which was second most in the NFL. Cutler was good in Denver, but he had a very good receiver in Brandon Marshall, and a better team around him, especially that offensive line. So until we get a better team around Jay Cutler, we shouldn't be surprised he is struggling. He has always thrown a lot of interceptions and now he has less time with a bad offensive line so he is trying to force the ball even more, which he has a track record of doing. So why is everyone surprised he is so bad and throwing so many interceptions?

Sanchez Learns To Slide

The New York Jets and Coach Rex Ryan want rookie Quarterback Mark Sanchez to learn how to slide. They want Sanchez to "make more of a conscious effort to slide and avoid potential injuries". This is because they want him to stay healthy. So the Jets brought in former Chicago Cub Catcher and current New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi. This way Sanchez would learn how to slide properly feet first.