Analysis: Beyond The Completion Percentage - Why Carolina's Scheme And Weapons Made Life Hard For Cam

[Saca312]

Cam Newton had one of the worst seasons of his NFL career in 2016. His 52.9% completion percentage was easily one of the worst in the league. Many analysts everywhere were quick to use this as their excuse as to why 2015 was a supposed "anomaly" and make sure they don't even attempt to look deeper.

In a very in-depth QB Analysis compilation, it appears that Cam Newton shouldn't be taking even half the blame for his low completion when you look at how everything went together. In fact, you'll probably be wondering how Shula still has a job after reading this. It's very concerning when you see play-calling had a very negative effect on Cam.

Excerpt: 

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Cian Fahey took a deeper look into quarterback play in his Pre-Snap Reads Quarterback Catalogue. If you’re a fan of football and words on pages, I highly recommend you check it out. He has gone through the trouble of charting every pass made by quarterbacks that played extended time and compiled his findings with stats that isolate the quarterback from their teammates and situations. These numbers paint a different picture of Cam Newton’s play in 2016.

The main stat of Fahey’s catalogue is accuracy percentage. This stat measures the percentage of attempted passes that should be caught, discounting plays where the quarterback threw the ball away or was hit while throwing. Cam Newton was accurate on 71.2% of his passes, good for an underwhelming 24th in the league. But look deeper, and you see how impressive that number is. Consider this paragraph from the catalogue:

Newton’s passes travelled more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage on average. His 10.76 average depth of target ranked 1st in the league. Only once did Newton have a game where his average depth of target fell below eight yards. For comparison; Sam Bradford’s average depth of target was below eight yards in 13 of his 15 games. The Panthers’ passing game was so aggressive that more of Newton’s passes travelled 21+ yards downfield than did to or behind the line of scrimmage.

It stands to reason that the more frequently a quarterback throws the ball deep, the lower his accuracy rate will be. Cam struggled a bit with his accuracy throwing the ball within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, but he was terrific in every other range. He was the second most accurate quarterback in the league in the 11-20 range and the eighth most accurate on passes that traveled more than 20 yards in the air.

Newton wasn’t putting up these deep passing numbers behind a Raider-esque offensive line. The Panthers used the most offensive line combinations in the entire NFL in 2016 and regularly found themselves using 3rd stringers and guys playing out of position to fill the holes. Despite the porous protection in front of him, Newton impressively only took 36 sacks on the season.

So Mike Shula is expecting his quarterback to stand tall in the pocket and deliver deep shots down the field while the offensive line crumbles all around him on a regular basis. You’d like to have receivers that can create separation and give their quarterback some margin for error considering the precarious situation that quarterback finds himself in on a regular basis. The Panthers did not have those guys.

Only one of the 33 quarterbacks that threw at least 200 passes in 2016 was let down by their receivers more. Newton lost 59 receptions to receiver error in just 510 pass attempts. In contrast, his receivers bailed him out just 11 times in those attempts, the 25th worst percentage among those charted. Accounting for these numbers, Newton lost 9.41 percentage points off his completion percentage and 1.48 yards per pass attempt, both most in the league.

There’s one more way Cam Newton’s offensive teammates could help him out - gaining yards after the catch when they actually catch it. They couldn’t do that either. Just 38.24% of Newton’s passing yardage came after the catch, the third lowest mark in the league. The lack of a threat in the screen game didn’t help; only 4.79% of Newton’s passing yards came on screens. Only 4 quarterbacks had a lower percentage.

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When you look at the stats, his completion percentage looks like a downright miracle. The degree of difficulty Cam Newton was forced to endure was insanely high for any normal NFL QB. Forced to throw deep passes to WRs who can't get separation while operating under a patchwork o-line would be a nightmare for any QB. Avoiding pass rushers while trying to fit the ball in very small windows seemed to be an expectation from the Panthers staff.

Cam Newton may have had a bad season on paper. But beyond the face numbers, it appears Cam truly had an underrated season.

What say you?

[Hogmolliesmaht]

LOL. I wonder what brought this on? Let's face it. Cam missed a lot of throws last year. Yes, the O-line  and several other factors played a part in it, but the really consistently great QB's always find a way to win.

 

I love Cam and I wanted the Panthers to draft him as much as anybody here, but that doesn't make him untouchable. I know he can be consistently great, but there is no way you can make the argument that he has done that up untill now.

[Porn Shop Clerk]

Almost all of the "great" quarterbacks were surrounded with great talent and worked within a system that maximized their talents.

[Hogmolliesmaht]

1 minute ago, Porn Shop Clerk said:

Almost all of the "great" quarterbacks were surrounded with great talent and worked within a system that maximized their talents.

Tom Brady has played behind makeshift lines, with mediocre WR's, and has gone through plenty of OC's who left the Patriots and failed elsewhere and he has never had a losing season. Maybe it is unfair to hold Cam to the same standard as the GOAT, but I'm gonna because he's been around long enough to learn all the lessons and he's making GOAT money.

[Porn Shop Clerk]

Tom Brady and the Patriots have been proven to be cheaters too.

[mikeholiday]

2 minutes ago, Hogmolliesmaht said:

Tom Brady has played behind makeshift lines, with mediocre WR's, and has gone through plenty of OC's who left the Patriots and failed elsewhere and he has never had a losing season. Maybe it is unfair to hold Cam to the same standard as the GOAT, but I'm gonna because he's been around long enough to learn all the lessons and he's making GOAT money.

Forgetting that they still win even when he is out. Brady is overrated. 

[TheRed]

5 minutes ago, Hogmolliesmaht said:

Tom Brady has played behind makeshift lines, with mediocre WR's, and has gone through plenty of OC's who left the Patriots and failed elsewhere and he has never had a losing season. Maybe it is unfair to hold Cam to the same standard as the GOAT, but I'm gonna because he's been around long enough to learn all the lessons and he's making GOAT money.

Oh shut it.

The Patriots play in one of the worst divisions in league history. They've only lost that division like one time in the past 10+ years. Brady may go down as the GOAT but he has Belichick. We have inconsistent Ron Rivera who if we are being just totally upfront with ourselves is mediocre at times just as he is good. Ron and this staff have gotten by on merely Newton's natural talents for too long as opposed to maximizing those talents by successfully building around him offensively. It took 6 years to get to this point with our most recent draft, it shouldn't have.

[gmonjimbo]

1 minute ago, Hogmolliesmaht said:

Tom Brady has played behind makeshift lines, with mediocre WR's, and has gone through plenty of OC's who left the Patriots and failed elsewhere and he has never had a losing season. Maybe it is unfair to hold Cam to the same standard as the GOAT, but I'm gonna because he's been around long enough to learn all the lessons and he's making GOAT money.

Tom Brady is a great but I believe the Patriots  scheme is even greater. Watch Jimmy Grappolo's games last year, especially against the Dolphins where he had 4 tds before halftime. People like to discredit Brady's teammates but Blount had 18 rushing tds, Julian Edeleman played better than any WR we had last year. Would Ted Ginn or Philly Brown even be in the vicinity to make that grab Edeleman had on three Atlanta defenders in the SB? 

[RealBitsOfPanther]

Also, the Pat's system is essentially 3 WR/1 TE or 4 WR in spread formations and runs slants, drags, ins and outs  with quick, agile guys like Edelmen or freaks of nature like Gronk. The ball is literally out in 2 seconds. Meanwhile, Cam has to hold onto the ball for 5-7 seconds behind a bad O Line to throw a ball 40 yards down the field to a WR that has less than a foot of separation. 

[dcpanther89]

Last year was some poo because of the line and injury after injury if we can hold most poo together this year we will be back in the super bowl hunt without an issue


Sent from my iPhone using CarolinaHuddle

[falconidae]

The guy that wrote this sells his analysis for 17.00 or 5 for individual QBs. Might want to consider that he might want to make a QB look as good as possible to bump sales.

Would also like to point out that Anderson, with the same players and OC, has a career comp% as a panther of 68% Granted, he's making shorter throws and taking the checkdown, but those plays aren't available to Cam? Of course they are.

Part of the reason that Cam has so many  difficult throws is because he consistently chooses to go deep rather than taking the shorter easier throw. Which is fine, he's got the arm to do that., but it's not all Shula's fault.

[Peppers90 NC]

I say he did not have an underrated season, that would would be having terriblely low expectations. Take everything this article said in to consideration, it did not consider the decision to make these passes rather than throwing shorter ones when the opportunity was there.

[dpm0409]

13 minutes ago, RealBitsOfPanther said:

Also, the Pat's system is essentially 3 WR/1 TE or 4 WR in spread formations and runs slants, drags, ins and outs  with quick, agile guys like Edelmen or freaks of nature like Gronk. The ball is literally out in 2 seconds. Meanwhile, Cam has to hold onto the ball for 5-7 seconds behind a bad O Line to throw a ball 40 yards down the field to a WR that has less than a foot of separation. 

This is right on point.  For years, I've wished our offense could get the ball out of Cams hands quicker.  I hate Cam having to hold onto the ball for long developing routes.  I'm not implying long routes should never be ran, but there has to be a balance.

 

[Saca312]

@falconidae So what was your opinion of that play in the Superbowl right where Patriots DT Flowers sacked Matt Ryan.

Whose fault? Playcalling or Matt Ryan?