Sturm Debunks Dak and Dunk

[bayeslife]

You can be a dink and dunk QB and have a high YPA if you're completing a high % of your passes. In games where he has a low completion percentage, he's got a bad YPA.

Comp % YPA
45.95 4.46
48.72 7.36
55.56 5.04
66.67 9.15
66.67 8.83
68.75 9.97
70.83 8.13
71.88 7.66
73.33 9.73
79.17 10.33
75.00 9.46
75.00 8.36
77.78 9.15
88.89 7.75

The three games with the lowest completion percentage is also his lowest YPA which suggests that he's not making big plays down the field to compensate for the high volume of shorter completions. Then you've also got instances like the Pitt game (68.75 and 9.97) that is drastically inflated by an 83 yard screen. End of the day it looks like he's pushing the ball downfield, but without that pass, he's got 31 attempts for 236 yards, which is only a 7.6 ypa. Still strong, but not great.

This isn't necessarily exclusive for Dak, as there's almost always a relationship between Completion % and YPA. However, the three low totals are far more indicative of whether or not Dak, or any other quarterback, is pushing the ball down the field. At the end of the day, YPA does nothing to prove that he's a downfield QB. If anything, it shows that when the consistent 6-10 yard passes are there, that's when he's hitting those higher YPAs. His numbers plummet without them because he isn't getting chunks to compensate.

Honestly, it's odd to me that people still can't recognize how limited Dak's vision down the field is. He does not see past the safeties at all.

I really don't know what Dak has to do to get any credit from some people. I guess we prefer him to throw into triple coverage because "muh downfield vision"

 

[jazzcat22]

Dak's strength is that he is a very smart QB and takes what the defense gives him. So what if it is an eight yard pass and Cole runs for another 15 yards...who cares. I sure don't, it gets a first down, and gets us 4 more downs.
At least he is not trying to fit it into those tight windows if not needed, only to get picked or be incomplete...take the completion for 6 yards over a low % throw for 15 yards. Deep throws are too often over rated.

 

[DogFace]

It helps when you have Zeke taking a 5 yard screen for 83.



Incidentally, watch what T Fred did on this play. Amazed it wasn't called back.

Because it was close and not called. It was accessed once on each of the three games that followed.

 

[Super_Kazuya]

This should have been a no-brainer. The guy goes mid and deep regularly.

He's pretty much dead last in the league at "going deep". Talk about delusional.

 

[SDCowboy]

I really don't know what Dak has to do to get any credit from some people. I guess we prefer him to throw into triple coverage because "muh downfield vision"

There seems to be a lot of fans that want the QB throwing bombs regularly.

 

[Don Corleone]

The only thing that's interesting is how little of a clue people have about what YPA is. Dak is a dink and dunk player because he is only capable of straight line, short passes to wide open receivers while not even looking at receivers downfield. The fact that great players like Cole Beasley and Dez Bryant are tough guys to bring down once they get that dink and dunk pass doesn't change anything.

I was waiting for you to chime in...

 

[DogFace]

The problem with using YPA to try to show that a QB isn't dinking and dunking is that YPA doesn't tell you how much of that 7.93 is air yards and how much is YAC.

Look at Air Yards per Attempt for the answer.
1 Winston 4.86
2 Ryan 4.84
3 Cousins 4.79
4 Mariota 4.71
5 Prescott 4.61

On Dak's average attempt of 7.93 yards, he gets 4.61 yards from air yards (5th in NFL) and 3.32 yards from YAC.

How did you know I was wondering that even before I knew I was?

 

[erod]

Sturm totally misses the point. Apparently, Jerry Falwell didn't teach mathematics very well at Liberty University, his alma mater.

Yards Per Attempt can be very misleading.

If you throw passes for 8 yards on 20 consecutive passes, you have a tremendous YPA. But you are dink and dunk.

If you throw 20 passes for 30, 2, 3, 20, 0, 1, 50, 4, etc, and total 160 yards, then you have the same YPA. But you aren't dink and dunk.

Reason number 1,000 why I hate statistics.

 

[JJHLH1]

The problem with using YPA to try to show that a QB isn't dinking and dunking is that YPA doesn't tell you how much of that 7.93 is air yards and how much is YAC.

Look at Air Yards per Attempt for the answer.
1 Winston 4.86
2 Ryan 4.84
3 Cousins 4.79
4 Mariota 4.71
5 Prescott 4.61

On Dak's average attempt of 7.93 yards, he gets 4.61 yards from air yards (5th in NFL) and 3.32 yards from YAC.

Great information here Percy!

 

[Paniolo22]

You do realize is ypa.......yards per attempt which means how far the ball went before it was caught. Has nothing to do with how many yards total after the catch

Don't think this is accurate. YPA is total yards divided by total attempted passes.

 

[erod]

So still one of the highest.

Receivers have been running wide open downfield all year. Dak doesn't look down there yet. He will one day.

 

[JJHLH1]

Dak's strength is that he is a very smart QB and takes what the defense gives him. So what if it is an eight yard pass and Cole runs for another 15 yards...who cares. I sure don't, it gets a first down, and gets us 4 more downs.
At least he is not trying to fit it into those tight windows if not needed, only to get picked or be incomplete...take the completion for 6 yards over a low % throw for 15 yards. Deep throws are too often over rated.

This is 100% true. Dak's biggest strength is his outstanding decision making and intelligence. Avoiding big mistakes is critical in the NFL. A lot of quarterbacks never learn that lesson. Great to see a rookie who understands the best way to win games. Parcells would love Dak.

 

[AbeBeta]

Seems like yards per completion is more relevant. YPA is confounded with completion %.

 

[bayeslife]

Sturm totally misses the point. Apparently, Jerry Falwell didn't teach mathematics very well at Liberty University, his alma mater.

Yards Per Attempt can be very misleading.

If you throw passes for 8 yards on 20 consecutive passes, you have a tremendous YPA. But you are dink and dunk.

If you throw 20 passes for 30, 2, 3, 20, 0, 1, 50, 4, etc, and total 160 yards, then you have the same YPA. But you aren't dink and dunk.

Reason number 1,000 why I hate statistics.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

This is going through mental gymnastics to try and discredit Dak.

Hitting 8 yards an attempt means you are in the redzone on 6-7 plays

 

[MichaelWinicki]

You can be a dink and dunk QB and have a high YPA if you're completing a high % of your passes. In games where he has a low completion percentage, he's got a bad YPA.

Comp % YPA
45.95 4.46
48.72 7.36
55.56 5.04
66.67 9.15
66.67 8.83
68.75 9.97
70.83 8.13
71.88 7.66
73.33 9.73
79.17 10.33
75.00 9.46
75.00 8.36
77.78 9.15
88.89 7.75

The three games with the lowest completion percentage is also his lowest YPA which suggests that he's not making big plays down the field to compensate for the high volume of shorter completions. Then you've also got instances like the Pitt game (68.75 and 9.97) that is drastically inflated by an 83 yard screen. End of the day it looks like he's pushing the ball downfield, but without that pass, he's got 31 attempts for 236 yards, which is only a 7.6 ypa. Still strong, but not great.

This isn't necessarily exclusive for Dak, as there's almost always a relationship between Completion % and YPA. However, the three low totals are far more indicative of whether or not Dak, or any other quarterback, is pushing the ball down the field. At the end of the day, YPA does nothing to prove that he's a downfield QB. If anything, it shows that when the consistent 6-10 yard passes are there, that's when he's hitting those higher YPAs. His numbers plummet without them because he isn't getting chunks to compensate.

Honestly, it's odd to me that people still can't recognize how limited Dak's vision down the field is. He does not see past the safeties at all.

Well yeah, it's going to be a similar story with all QBs...

They complete fewer passes as a percentage of passes attempted and their YPA drop.

Ben Roethlisberger on 9-18 completed 19 out of 37 and had a YPA of 7.00
Next week vs. Philly he 24 out of 44 and he had a YPA of 5.84
Vs. Miami he was 19 out of 34 for 5.56 YPA
Vs. Baltimore he was 23 out 45 for 5.58 YPA

Even a good completion % game like vs. Cleveland when he was 23 out of 36 his YPA was only 4.64.

 

[NorthTexan95]

Watch Dak play and then watch Wentz play. You'll quickly notice the difference between Wentz (dink and dunk) and Dak (not dink and dunk).

 

[dallasfan4lizife]

Receivers have been running wide open downfield all year. Dak doesn't look down there yet. He will one day.

But they didn't while Romo was here huh? Else he would have had at least one 5,000 yard season.

 

[erod]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

This is going through mental gymnastics to try and discredit Dak.

No, it's called 5th-grade math.

 

[ElGatoGrande]

Most passing is short to intermediate, that's just the nature of the game and these stats don't address the topic sufficiently. I think what people want to see is the ability to throw deep balls accurately and consistently,,,, the over-the-shoulder kind with air under it. Do that and the dink/dunk thing goes away, but hey, if you're beating the socks off of everybody, who cares?! It sure would be a good thing to make teams pay for ignoring the deep ball and taking away our intermediate stuff though,,,

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Nice list. See Joe Montana on it. Wonder how much that number is inflated by the RAC by Jerry Rice. As I recall Montana wasn't a downfield passer either. He was great hitting Rice/Taylor with room to move and rack up yardage.

You bet.

The Niners lived off that short slant pattern that the WR would run for ages on.