According to this metric, Bryce Young is the most accurate QB in the NFL when targeting an open WR

[CRA]

all stats lie, mislead, and tell incomplete stories. 

we run such a heavy small ball pass game....Bryce should have terrific numbers when throwing to open WRs.  Because they most often aren't very challenging throws. 

[Pejorative Miscreant]

14 minutes ago, joemac said:

Which is why he is the only WR who gets targeted for the most part.  And he has been absolutely eating. Bryce has demonstrated with AT that if you are open he will get you the ball.  Only problem is that AT is the only guy whos open. 

Yep.  I would like it if another deeper threat could get some separation on a more regular basis.  I know there have been times they have been open but I don't know if there is enough consistency for the rookie to depend on them.  Would just be nice to see if he could get it to someone else further downfield.  I don't think BY has the greatest/strongest arm but I think he has enough.  We need teams to at least know we are capable to go deep. 

[45catfan]

57 minutes ago, WUnderhill said:

You know there are other QBs on the chart with small sample sizes? Stroud, Pickett, Howell, just to name a few. But you’re right we don’t have open throws per pass attempt. Would love our resident statistician here to break down the open throws per pass attempt. Would you do it? Wouldn’t be hard. Would love that data.

Back in college when I was intrigued with such things I would have taken on the task. It's not hard, just time consuming.  Now, I have no desire to do so.  Maybe if @TheCasillas would like to take it on.  I believe he's the one that enjoys going down these statistical rabbit holes.  The average yards per attempt should be a metric too, which goes back to one of my points that someone got snarky about.  That chart posted by the OP is vague and incomplete. Honestly, if a QB can't hit a open WR, then they aren't a good QB.  PJ Walker topping the list seems about correct.  Also, if this chart meant anything, really, Trubisky would be starting somewhere and Nick Mullins would be a hot prospect when he hits FA.  As a comp, Check-down Teddy is right there in the conversation bringing my point full circle.

[45catfan]

This says it all, no need to dive in much deeper: yards/attempt.  Only a 3rd string rookie playing due to injury has fewer than 5 yards.  Corners playing off coverage usually give that amount of buffer.

[Brooklyn 3.0]

I was thinking just now, the ONLY thing Bryce HAS is accuracy. When teams scout QBs they're about to face, they look at his strengths and how to stop that. They look at what scares them, and how to deal with it. Guys like Cam, Lamar Jackson, Brady, Josh Allen, Mahomes, Rodgers, Brees, Hurts, and more all had these strengths and scary attributes that would give the DC a headache.

When people look at tape on Bryce, what will they see? He's accurate.

That's it. Good DBs can shut us down. He's not very fast, he's not big, his arm isn't the strongest, he's an average scrambler. His computer brain is good at hitting the open man in different ways, yeah ... accuracy.

In other words, if I was gameplanning against Young ... I wouldn't be worried. At all.

[joemac]

44 minutes ago, 45catfan said:

This says it all, no need to dive in much deeper: yards/attempt.  Only a 3rd string rookie playing due to injury has fewer than 5 yards.  Corners playing off coverage usually give that amount of buffer.

Yeah but Bryce is tied with Joe freaking Burrow, one of the best QBs in the game.  And Burrow also happens to have Tee Higgins and Jamar Chase. Bryce has improved pretty much every game.  His yards per attempt number is so low due to the first 2 games of having so many attempts and so little yardage.  His last 3 games or so have been much better in that regard, at least from just watching the games.

[joemac]

14 minutes ago, Brooklyn 3.0 said:

I was thinking just now, the ONLY thing Bryce HAS is accuracy. When teams scout QBs they're about to face, they look at his strengths and how to stop that. They look at what scares them, and how to deal with it. Guys like Cam, Lamar Jackson, Brady, Josh Allen, Mahomes, Rodgers, Brees, Hurts, and more all had these strengths and scary attributes that would give the DC a headache.

When people look at tape on Bryce, what will they see? He's accurate.

That's it. Good DBs can shut us down. He's not very fast, he's not big, his arm isn't the strongest, he's an average scrambler. His computer brain is good at hitting the open man in different ways, yeah ... accuracy.

In other words, if I was gameplanning against Young ... I wouldn't be worried. At all.

Come on man.  He has more good traits than just accuracy.  And even if that is true, accuracy is probably the most important trait a QB can have.  Jeff George probably had one of the strongest arms in NFL history, but half the time he didn't know where it was going.  Bryce shows great accuracy, great anticipation, very good touch and layering of his throws.  He nearly always makes the correct decision as to where to go with the ball.  The more I watch Bryce, the less worried I am about his maturation and how good hes going to be moving forward.  Even with the poo-show our team has been so far, Bryce is likely going to end up at 65% completion, around 3300 yards, 20 something TDs and around 13-15 INTs.  You have to think that is a successful rookie year for just about any QB. 

[Waldo]

10 minutes ago, joemac said:

Yeah but Bryce is tied with Joe freaking Burrow, one of the best QBs in the game.  

Not this year, that is an injured Burrow. Says he had a calf strain he reaggravated in week 2. You are literally comparing him to Burrow who is having his worst year with a lingering injury who is throwing 2.1 yards less on average this year compared to last year...

Stat Link  Burrow's rookie year was 6.7 ypa

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by Waldo

[45catfan]

18 minutes ago, joemac said:

Yeah but Bryce is tied with Joe freaking Burrow, one of the best QBs in the game.  And Burrow also happens to have Tee Higgins and Jamar Chase. Bryce has improved pretty much every game.  His yards per attempt number is so low due to the first 2 games of having so many attempts and so little yardage.  His last 3 games or so have been much better in that regard, at least from just watching the games.

Everyone knows Joe is playing on a bum leg.  I almost most put that in the post as a disclaimer, but I figured most people knew that Joe is basically playing on one good leg.

[MasterAwesome]

38 minutes ago, 45catfan said:

This says it all, no need to dive in much deeper: yards/attempt.  Only a 3rd string rookie playing due to injury has fewer than 5 yards.  Corners playing off coverage usually give that amount of buffer.

I would say IAY/PA is the more reliable stat you're looking for.  Y/A doesn't control for things like YAC where your receiver catches a short pass and takes it 80 yards to the house (we're among the worst in the league for YAC).  Young is actually 0.1 yards higher than Mahomes, the best QB in the league who has largely been dinking and dunking his way to basically a top-2 QB statistically this year.  He threw for over 400 yards and 4 TDs last night in a game where his longest throw was 22 yards.  So is this a useless metric?  Not at all, but it's just one chapter of a bigger story.  I think people like to point to this stat as one of the most indicting testaments to Young's struggles but awkwardly ignore several of the elite QBs who are right there with him in that same statistic.

[d-dave]

@MasterAwesome, careful bringing nuance to the huddle....  Few posters here have the time for that!

Jokes aside, I didn't realize that.  That's quite an interesting statistic.  And while some would say "statistics are for loser," I appreciate how they can be contextualized to better understand what the heck we're looking at.

As an idiot with a keyboard, I can see that Young is struggling to get the ball down the field.  Is it because he's got a weak arm?  No.  It's not a great NFL arm, but it's OK.  Not weak.  Is it is height?  Nope.  Is it the horrific guard play?  There's got to be something there.  Is it because our WRs can't get open, like at all, especially versus man?  Indeed, probably something there.  To me, the Panthers' struggles in the passing game are a combination of problems instead of simply one big glaring issue.  But it's so easy to place the blame in one place!

I'm looking forward to seeing how we play against Houston.  Maybe we'll learn something.  Or we'll see more of the same.  Who knows!

[45catfan]

8 minutes ago, MasterAwesome said:

I would say IAY/PA is the more reliable stat you're looking for.  Y/A doesn't control for things like YAC where your receiver catches a short pass and takes it 80 yards to the house (we're among the worst in the league for YAC).  Young is actually 0.1 yards higher than Mahomes, the best QB in the league who has largely been dinking and dunking his way to basically a top-2 QB statistically this year.  He threw for over 400 yards and 4 TDs last night in a game where his longest throw was 22 yards.  So is this a useless metric?  Not at all, but it's just one chapter of a bigger story.  I think people like to point to this stat as one of the most indicting testaments to Young's struggles but awkwardly ignore several of the elite QBs who are right there with him in that same statistic.

Reid runs a WCO.  They have the play makers to turn short passes to house calls, we don't.  On the flip side, if they need Mahommes to push the ball down the field the Chiefs have no reservations in having Patrick letting it rip.  Regardless of the names at 30-32, Bryce's air yards is still bottom 4 in the League of starting QBs.  There is only one real question: is the staff holding Bryce back from taking shots based on scheme or are they shielding him from his weakness?

[joemac]

Bryce's yards per attempt, and whatever the hell IAY/PA is are heavily skewed due to his first 2 games.  He averaged 3.8 and 4.6 yards per attempt Weeks 1 and 2.  Other than that he's been 6.4, 6.0 and 5.7.  

[MasterAwesome]

10 minutes ago, 45catfan said:

Reid runs a WCO.  They have the play makers to turn short passes to house calls, we don't.  On the flip side, if they need Mahommes to push the ball down the field the Chiefs have no reservations in having Patrick letting it rip.  Regardless of the names at 30-32, Bryce's air yards is still bottom 4 in the League of starting QBs.  There is only one real question: is the staff holding Bryce back from taking shots based on scheme or are they shielding him from his weakness?

I don't really disagree with much of this, but mainly because you've now arrived to my same argument lol.  Your post I quoted literally said "This says it all, no need to dive in much deeper" and now you are actually diving deeper beyond the statistic, which is what I was advocating.  It's not enough to say "hey look at this damning stat" - you've gotta evaluate what is contributing to that statistic.  Same thing you just did with Joe Burrow.  It would be foolish to go "Look at Joe Burrow...worst in the league in Y/A.  Enough said, no need to go any further than that".

The application of nuance and critical thinking seems to often be selective on these boards; people are willing to go to great depths to offer rational comprehensive analyses of other QBs, but when it comes to Bryce, it's all of a sudden extremely black and white for some reason.  So yeah, our offense clearly emphasizes the short to intermediate passing game to where we're too one-dimensional, but we can't say for sure why that is.  Sure it could be in part because the staff views Young as limited, or it could be because our o-line struggles to hold a block beyond 2 seconds, or because we seemingly only have one reliable receiver who seems to know how to run a proper route (and he's the furthest thing from a deep threat), or a number of other reasons.