Cian Fahey's Take on Dak in 2016 and Beyond

[ActualCowboysFan]

It's the floor vs. ceiling argument.

Dak would be considered a high-floor, low-ceiling quarterback in this case based on his rookie year, where what we saw is basically what we're going to get. I don't disagree with that completely, but there is certainly room for some growth that would allow him to become even better overall.

Wentz would be low-floor, high-ceiling since clearly he needs a lot of work but has the skill set to be great, which is what got him drafted so early. The trouble with the high-ceiling player is he may never get off the floor and might pretty much be the player he showed himself to be.

I disagree with the author on which one I would prefer.

I think you've got it except Fahey seems to think Wontz is a low ceiling bottomless pit floor player.

 

[Cowboysfan917]

And he himself has only 3 seasons of over 67%. Just find it weird that Dak needs room to improve from a year he went 67.8%.

I don't think the point is what the percentage ending up being as much as pinpoint accuracy. Dak throws catchable passes but not necessarily dead eye passes. That's how I took it

 

[wrongway]

I think the fact that Dak has an elite running game and o-line has stamped him as having a low ceiling by the "experts".

But he took a college team in Mississippi State to a #1 ranking that had no business being ranked that high. And he did that playing in the toughest conference in the country.
He basically carried Miss. State on his shoulders to a #1 ranking by himself. That tells me he's not just a guy who needs elite players around him to play at a high level.

It's only been one year. And maybe this is as good as it gets with him. Maybe he won't get better.

But it's also possible he can get better. Maybe a lot better. To write off that possibility is simply speculation that I don't buy.

If he's as good as he was last year every year, I'll take it!

 

[gimmesix]

I think you've got it except Fahey seems to think Wontz is a low ceiling bottomless pit floor player.

Don't get that.

Floor is essentially how far you can fall or how a player is projected to be at worst. Having a high floor means you aren't expected to possibly fall very far and are expected to start off on a high level.

Ceiling is how high you can rise or how they are projected to be at best. Having a high ceiling means the sky's the limit for you as a player.

I don't think he believes Wentz can't rise very high but can fall into a pit.

 

[TheHerd]

Completion % does not equal accuracy

I remember this discussion back in the days of Aikman. Though Troy's comp % was pretty good outside the under siege years at the start and end of his career, his accuracy may have been the best ever since a huge percentage of his incompletions were throwaways.

There wasn't as much in depth analysis back in Troy's day, but iirc one group had him completing just under 90% of the throws he actually was trying to complete in 1993.

 

[BoysfanfromCanada]

One of the best plays from Dak I saw last year was an incompletion. There was a blitz, and he had to run backwards. A couple defenders were on him but he saw Zeke open in the flat, but through it at his feet for an incompletion. Which great considering an LB was screaming towards Zeke and would have tackled him for a loss. And there was no grounding since it was by a receiver.

That type of thinking as a rookie really impressed me.

 

[PJTHEDOORS]

I don't think the point is what the percentage ending up being as much as pinpoint accuracy. Dak throws catchable passes but not necessarily dead eye passes. That's how I took it

So what 'accuracy' is acceptable? 75-80%?

 

[TheHerd]

I think he's just saying Dak has a low ceiling, weak arm, etc. He thinks Dak will be a good starter for a long time, but never elite.

I disagree, but whatever.

This is the downfall of most arm chair QB analysts. Fans and most analysts love arm strength, height, speed, etc but being a truly elite NFL QB is almost never about arm strength. It's about performing under duress, creating space with your eyes, picking the open receiver, throwing to space when required, knowing when to give up, making the "right" bad throws, etc. A QB needs to have at least an adequate arm, but there's no need to be Elway.

Dak's arm strength is not what could keep him from being elite.

 

[CowboyGil]

Tldr.


Had similar time in pocket to Wontz but used it to progress and disect the defense instead of whatever the ginger did with it.

 

[CWR]

I fully expect to see Risen here giving his best fan boy effort to promote Wentz, while pretending he isnt a closet eagles fan.

 

[kevm3]

dak is both a high floor and high ceiling quarterback. We didn't draft him because we thought he was going to step in day 1. He was expected to sit for a few years and hopefully develop into a starter. He came in and looked like a franchise qb from year 1. You only have to see how dak progressed through college to see that through his work ethic, he drastically improves his skills from year to year. We thought he was going to be a running qb, but he stayed and played from the pocket even though he was doing a ton of running in college. One of the areas he can definitely improve in now that he has established he can be a pocket qb is to take off more.

 

[School]

So what 'accuracy' is acceptable? 75-80%?

78.32%, +-0.10.

I don't know how he can say Dak isn't a precise passer. Outside of passes longer than 20 yards and the occasional footwork gaffes, his ball location was quite excellent last season. Of course, Fahey was the same guy stating that Romo should be starting and that Romo should have been the starting QB in the playoff game which is nutty in itself.

Again...he's not a scout. Just playing one on the interwebs.





YR

From what I could tell on the Romo situation, Fahey just wanted the best qb to be on the field. He obviously likes Dak, but he thought Romo was still superior and gave them a better chance to win.

If he said to make the switch right when the playoffs start, then I don't agree with that, but I think he began saying start Romo back when Romo had returned to health and Dak was starting to hit the rookie wall a bit.

 

[School]

There are parts where I disagree or was surprised that Fahey left things out on each QB.

Wentz has a major issue with his throwing motion as he abducts the right arm too much and gets the right humerus bone parallel to the ground. He could make the argument that the footwork causes throwing motion, but I'm not really buying into that all the way. And that throwing motion is why his passes sail more than his footwork being the issue.

Dak's issues with his footwork are that he tends to not make a long enough stride. And on some touch passes he will not follow thru. But he's very precise with his ball location from under 10 yards. And he's excellent throwing the ball with precision while running right or left. While EE is great and the O-Line was great last year, Dak made things very difficult for defenses with his ability to throw while running left or right because the weakside defender had to account for him on the bootleg and when we ran the ball it would lead to more 10 vs. 10 running plays instead of 10 vs. 11 running plays. If the weakside defender bit on the run to EE, a play action bootleg could come up and create a very easy to execute big play.

I thought Kirk Cousins dramatically increased his arm strength last year to the point where I would not say he has a weak arm. I just don't see how anybody could state that after last year. He threw some big time deep passes (which are more about mechanics than arm strength), but also threw a lot passes that required some big-time velocity to them. I also felt that Cousins got off to slow starts in games and would then start to turn it on as defenses grew tired or were playing more conservatively to not allow big plays to allow the Skins back into the game. That is usually a sign of a quality QB with some serious deficiencies that teams can take advantage of early on and put themselves at a serious advantage to win the game. I agree with most of Fahey's evaluation on Cousins, but how he missed Cousins' slow starts is a little surprising.

Eli has struggled against Cover 2 and Cover 3 concepts. You can't play Cover 0 or Cover 1 against him with success, he'll eat it up. I don't think Eli is accurate even under 5 yards. He also has some throwing motion issues but his footwork has improved. I like the idea of what they are trying to do offensively, but I don't know if Eli can execute it anymore as Fahey mentioned...his arm strength is going downhill and he was never accurate to begin with.




YR

Thanks for taking the time to write a well thought out post. Again, there's a lot I left out for each qb.

Here's a bit more on Wentz's footwork/throwing motion/accuracy:

Everything starts with your feet as a quarterback. Your feet set your weight distribution and maintain your balance. Wentz’s throwing motion and feet don’t help him throw the ball, but he’s never shown a natural ability to throw the ball either. Throwing the ball isn’t simply a footwork plus throwing motion plus arm strength equation where every inaccuracy can be attributed to one of the three. The idea that you can coach accuracy into a player is a peculiar one that carries credence with more people than it should. You can refine a player’s control of the ball for sure, but passing is as much mental as it is technical and physical.

For Cousins, he didn't necessarily call it a weak arm, just a below average one, and didn't really go much further into it besides giving an example of when his lack of arm strength became a problem:

Note his interception in Week 14 against the Eagles last year when Leodis McKelvin easily broke on a short out to the opposite hash. That lack of velocity leads to more floated and errant throws when the ball has to be pushed further downfield. (Summarized, not quite a direct quote.)

In another section, like you, he mentions that deep throws are more about mechanics than arm strength.

For Eli, his accuracy percentage to 5 yards was 89.24%, which ranked 5th in the league. That surprised me a bit. Where he struggled was on throws past 5 yards, where he dropped to 58.46%, 23rd in the league, although to be fair, the average depth of his throws past 5 yards were probably deeper than average (12.07 percent of Manning’s passes traveled further than 20 yards downfield, more than all but 7 qbs).

He does say this about his arm:

Manning’s arm isn’t completely done. It’s not even close to completely done. The decline in his arm strength is only really seen when he can’t set his feet or step into his throw.

Could spell trouble with their oline.

 

[RoboQB]

Well, no one is gonna be a RoboQB in terms of accuracy.

Even the greatest qb of them all TBrady (to most), isn't elite in terms of accuracy.

Not including rookie year when he played only a few games, here are the years after.
2001 - 63.9%
2002 - 62.1%
2003 - 60.2%
2004 - 60.8%
2005 - 63.0%
2006 - 61.8%

Only 2 times has Brady thrown 67% or above in his career. 2007, and last year 2016. For his career, he is 63.8%.

Hey, that's copyright infringement... lol

 

[waving monkey]

I remember this discussion back in the days of Aikman. Though Troy's comp % was pretty good outside the under siege years at the start and end of his career, his accuracy may have been the best ever since a huge percentage of his incompletions were throwaways.

There wasn't as much in depth analysis back in Troy's day, but iirc one group had him completing just under 90% of the throws he actually was trying to complete in 1993.

Troy had a laser arm

 

[Yakuza Rich]

78.32%, +-0.10.

From what I could tell on the Romo situation, Fahey just wanted the best qb to be on the field. He obviously likes Dak, but he thought Romo was still superior and gave them a better chance to win.

If he said to make the switch right when the playoffs start, then I don't agree with that, but I think he began saying start Romo back when Romo had returned to health and Dak was starting to hit the rookie wall a bit.

I'm sure that he wanted the best QB on the field. I just don't see how anybody could say that was Romo at that time. As I've said a million times, Dak had a better QBR in 2016 than Romo has ever had in any year of his career. Dak also worked well with this offense because of his ability to bootleg in opposite directions so effectively and when Dez got hurt, the offense ran like a well oiled machine because of Dak's ability to throw the ball with excellent ball location on short and intermediate routes. He also sped up the offensive pace to make it easier to get the rest of the team on the same page and to wear out opposing pass rushes.

Analysts like Fahey tend to fall in love with the QB's that can audible every which way and overvalue that and think that makes for a 'better QB.' It's why guys like Christian Hackenberg get such praise in college. But, just because your QB has a good schematic mind doesn't means it's always best for the offense. And while I tend to greatly favor good throwing QB's that anticipate passes well, sometimes the QB that is a lesser thrower of the ball but a better runner can make the offense operate more efficiently.

I think anybody that wanted Romo to start over Dak when Dak was well into the season just wasn't seeing the forest from the trees. Particularly since Dak was throwing the ball at an incredibly efficient level last year.







YR