With the NFL preparing for another great season, here are some of the key questions still hanging around a few different young signal-callers ready to break through. Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Bo Nix are just exceptional. Each of them is masterfully controlling their environment and growth funnels in the league. This article takes a look at their performances and names the biggest factors that will determine their success in the future.
Caleb Williams’ second-year campaign carries some of the highest expectations for any player in college football history. Analysts highlight a critical area for improvement: his sack rate. In his last season, Williams showcased an elite sack rate, being 43rd among qualified quarterbacks. If he fails on this front, his promise will yield little long-term. Jayden Daniels is the talk of the town with his record-setting rookie chiefs rushing yards. While all of this is certainly true, he has glaring weaknesses in his overall game. Finally, even though Nix showed a lot of promise on Thursday, his performance showed just how he can be more effective.
Caleb Williams’ Growth and Challenges
Caleb Williams’ career in the NFL has been a rollercoaster ride of genius moments. His tendency to invite pressure and take sacks has been a big red flag. Football analysts claim that until he takes ownership of this part of his game himself, his gains will have a ceiling.
Through all that made a tumultuous career so far, Williams has shown flashes of the talent worthy of an early-round draft pick. The same unteachable qualities that blew scouts away have to turn into advanced decision-making and poise at a rapid pace on the gridiron. His touch and precision in the intermediate level—between 5 and 20 yards—will be key for his growth. As he gets better at this though, it should help cut down on the number of avoidable pressures he takes significantly.
Even more wrenching, downfield throws were Williams’ bread and butter last season but he only managed a 40% catch rate on those attempts. His longest completion was a 40-yard pass, showing that though the arm strength is there, consistency is still a concern. As he enters Year Two, all eyes are on him to see how he can adjust. Is he able to hone his craft and take his game to the next level?
Jayden Daniels’ Record-Setting Performance
Making the accomplishment even more astounding in glaring contrast to Williams, Jayden Daniels did it as a true freshman. He broke the single season rushing yards record for rookie quarterbacks, racking up an impressive 891 yards. Analysts praise Daniels for what might’ve been the best scrambling season by any QB in recent memory.
Daniels proved to have an elite sense for avoiding pressure. On these scramble percentage, 11.8% of his dropbacks, he finished as the seventh-highest on record, dating back to 2000. Even when forced, he did most of his best work on the run—scrambling on a staggering 24.7% of his dropbacks. That’s the fastest rate seen in at least 20 years. That flexibility freed him up, in other words, to play in challenging circumstances.
With more quick pressures (under 2.5 seconds) than all but one passer—Joe Burrow—Daniels showcased an ability to respond swiftly to defensive challenges. His 40% catch rate on downfield throws is even more impressive and proves that he should be considered a franchise quarterback moving forward. His aggregate EPA (expected points added) on downfield targets was up to a jaw-dropping 27.6. That’s over two times the entire amount of his nearest competitor!
Bo Nix’s Potential for Improvement
Having come into Seattle and shown flashes of elite ability, Nix is now under a hypothetical microscope when it comes to performance-related metrics. He led the league with 227 pressure dropbacks last season, indicating that while he faced pressure frequently, he managed to mitigate its effects better than many of his peers.
Nix was pressured on only 28% of his dropbacks. Shockingly, only 13.4% of those pressures turned into a sack, which is not only abysmally low, it’s a league-low average. These numbers indicate that Nix is generally under duress. He has learned the elusive skill of playing it the right way, almost never falling like the best of them do.
For example, Nix’s time to throw decreased significantly from 3.1 seconds to 2.9 seconds. Further, his air yards per attempt fell over a full yard from 7.9 to 6.6. On top of that, he was 37.7% of passes thrown in under 2.5 seconds—the lowest percentage among rookie QBs last year. If Nix can speed up his decision-making while being precise and accurate in stacked areas, he can reach the heights of his ceiling. That growth will fuel his own ongoing development.
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