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Tequilla Thoughts: 2019 Season Review - Passing Game
Tequilla
Member Posts: 19,825
When looking at the passing game, the 3 very obvious stats to look at are completion % (somewhat overrated), yards per attempt (good measure of passing game efficiency), and yards per completion (a sign of explosiveness)
Completion %
This is a really interesting walk through of the state of offense over the last 4 years and IMO really illustrates why completion % is the most overrated stat when it comes to evaluating the passing game.
The completion % for UW in conference is as follows since 2016:
2016: 59.6%
2017: 66.5%
2018: 62.9%
2019: 58.1%
We know that the drops have been really bad this year. Adding 2 completions per game in conference to the total brings the completion % up to 64%. It's an area that I was critical of Oregon going into the season with them losing essentially the only WR that did anything for them last year (Dillon Mitchell) and only completing 60% of their passes in conference last year. The Oregon people were all saying that the issue was tied to drops. Oregon's up to over 66% this year. So WR play and improvement can have a material impact to this number. In evaluating Eason, it's not a great number to look at in terms of saying that he should come back.
Yards per Attempt
Now this is an area where you can really some changes in the trajectory of the offense since 2016 (UW yards per attempt / comparison to conference average):
2016: 8.59 / +21%
2017: 7.54 / +4%
2018: 8.11 / +11%
2019: 6.86 / -9%
This is really startling when you think about it. To think that UW went backwards a bit from 2016 to 2017 makes sense given how dynamic that John Ross was (and we'll see that in the Yards per Completion numbers). It's a little surprising to see an uptick in 2018 but can be explained in part by the combination of a Senior QB and teams stacking the box against the run game. But with largely the same crew, the falloff in 2019 is massive and the only time that this passing offense has gone below league average. For perspective, if I add the 2 completions per game back to the total at the season to day yards per completion, the yards per attempt go up to 7.58 and just above league average.
Yards per Completion
This follows a very similar trend to Yards per Attempt ...
2016: 14.42 / +18%
2017: 11.34 / -5%
2018: 12.90 / +8%
2019: 11.81 / -1%
The drop off from 2016 makes complete sense. When you think of 2017, that was a team that had Dante Pettis and ??? to throw to at times. In 2018, we had largely the same WR crew that we have had this year although as the year has gone on the amount of young players that have been playing has increased which makes the 2017 vs 2019 comparison make some sense. It's really a curious case.
Coaching/Positional Evaluation
Digging deep, you have to look at the performance of the OL (are they giving time), the QB (is he making the right plays), and the Receiving options.
The first order of business is looking at the OL. I haven't looked at the sacks per game, but through 10 games the offense has given up 13 sacks. I don't think it requires much more analysis to exclude the fact that the OL isn't the root cause of the passing game.
From the QB perspective, already addressing the issues with completion % and it's impact on yards per attempt, the overall view in my mind is that Eason has a lot of talent to work with but the fact of the matter is that this is an average at best passing offense. His decision making is largely sound with some notable mistakes. His biggest weaknesses are tied to handling pressure, escaping it (he'll never be super mobile), manipulating the pocket, and throwing under pressure. IMO, he looks like a QB that has not had any material snaps in a 2 year time period (can't be understated) and it shows in his overall consistency. He'd definitely benefit from another year of getting game reps ... provided he's supported by coaching/players that enable him to grow as a QB.
When you look at the overall receiving performance this year, you realize really quickly that the primary options are Hunter Bryant and Aaron Fuller. Once you get past that, the options go downhill really quickly. But digging deeper you have a couple of trends that really are material:
1) Ty Jones accounted for 31 catches and almost 500 yards last year. There has not been a WR on the roster that has been able to step up consistently and provide a solution. Hunter's filled the numbers but it's essentially resulted in a replacement to Ty's lost offensive production instead of being incremental. That's been absolutely brutal.
2) We do not use our RBs in the passing game ... in total, we have 24 receptions in 10 games. In 2018, we had 51 receptions in 13 games. In light of having a really poor set of options on the outside (as upper class players, but talented youth), finding a way to create opportunities in space for RBs would be an ideal way to create alternative options.
3) The performance of the senior options at WR have been largely disappointing. For Aaron Fuller, he's largely stepped up as a senior. In conference last year, he averaged 3 catches for 48 yards per game. This year, excluding the Oregon game given his injury, he's averaging close to 5 catches per game for 65 yards ... that's reasonable performance. Opera Singer on the other hand, this is the truly maddening one. Last year, he averaged 3.3 catches for 36 yards per game in conference (not that dissimilar to Fuller). If he followed the trajectory of Fuller, you're probably looking at somewhere around 4-5 catches per game for about 50 yards. That'd be a MASSIVE IMPROVEMENT over what he's done so far this year at 1.6 catches and 11 yards per game. That's BRUTAL. Add into it the reality that Chico brought nothing to the table and you've got 2/3 of the primary WR rotation literally flaming out for the season. That's beyond brutal.
It's hard not to view the WR position as a massive liability on this team and offense. If you believe Pete that the positional coaches drive the rotations, then that's a massive red flag with respect to Junior Adams. While the recruiting is positive and when the young players have seen the field they've actually performed (Puka displaying his obvious talent, Bynum making a strong leap, and some glimpses from Spiker and Chin), the reality is that sticking with Opera Singer and Chico for as long as he did made absolutely ZERO sense. This really feels like something that needs to be asked and answered at some point.
The other primary issue in the passing game is that for as complicated as we are pre-snap, we're actually very uncomplicated after the snap. As others have mentioned, when you see certain players, you can readily predict the routes they are running (Chin a go route, Bynum either a drag/cross or option route, etc). The overall play calling also doesn't help when you get into predictable situations ... huge issue. There's also spacing issues that cause congestion in routes (this really showed up during the Stanford game and Hugh's breakdown). So when you combine sub-optimal play calling with some really sloppy performance (again, what is Jordan Adams doing), and you get some terrible performance.
Overall Conclusion
Bush deserves a lot of criticism for his play calling not only in terms of putting himself in some lengthy down/distance situations but also in terms of variety and predictability. However, when looking at Junior Adams and the WR performance, regression seems to be the trend. The performance whether from looking at a technique standpoint in running routes to catching the ball is lacking. The accountability does not appear to be present. Not being able to recognize poor performance is a massive liability. Being unable to recognize until halfway through the season that the experienced options available weren't going to get the job done and not have younger options ready and able to play is a giant miss. Leadership isn't waiting until it's painfully obvious that you should make a change. By that point, it's too late. Leadership is making changes before it is obvious. It's making changes in a visionary fashion. It's being ahead of the curve. None of that is really present with Junior Adams this year. His resume suggests that he has some ability. But it hasn't shown itself this year. That's concerning. If he wasn't recruiting well, it'd be a slam dunk door.ass.out. There's a lot of explaining to do here though ... and I'm not really sure that the answers are going to be satisfactory.
Completion %
This is a really interesting walk through of the state of offense over the last 4 years and IMO really illustrates why completion % is the most overrated stat when it comes to evaluating the passing game.
The completion % for UW in conference is as follows since 2016:
2016: 59.6%
2017: 66.5%
2018: 62.9%
2019: 58.1%
We know that the drops have been really bad this year. Adding 2 completions per game in conference to the total brings the completion % up to 64%. It's an area that I was critical of Oregon going into the season with them losing essentially the only WR that did anything for them last year (Dillon Mitchell) and only completing 60% of their passes in conference last year. The Oregon people were all saying that the issue was tied to drops. Oregon's up to over 66% this year. So WR play and improvement can have a material impact to this number. In evaluating Eason, it's not a great number to look at in terms of saying that he should come back.
Yards per Attempt
Now this is an area where you can really some changes in the trajectory of the offense since 2016 (UW yards per attempt / comparison to conference average):
2016: 8.59 / +21%
2017: 7.54 / +4%
2018: 8.11 / +11%
2019: 6.86 / -9%
This is really startling when you think about it. To think that UW went backwards a bit from 2016 to 2017 makes sense given how dynamic that John Ross was (and we'll see that in the Yards per Completion numbers). It's a little surprising to see an uptick in 2018 but can be explained in part by the combination of a Senior QB and teams stacking the box against the run game. But with largely the same crew, the falloff in 2019 is massive and the only time that this passing offense has gone below league average. For perspective, if I add the 2 completions per game back to the total at the season to day yards per completion, the yards per attempt go up to 7.58 and just above league average.
Yards per Completion
This follows a very similar trend to Yards per Attempt ...
2016: 14.42 / +18%
2017: 11.34 / -5%
2018: 12.90 / +8%
2019: 11.81 / -1%
The drop off from 2016 makes complete sense. When you think of 2017, that was a team that had Dante Pettis and ??? to throw to at times. In 2018, we had largely the same WR crew that we have had this year although as the year has gone on the amount of young players that have been playing has increased which makes the 2017 vs 2019 comparison make some sense. It's really a curious case.
Coaching/Positional Evaluation
Digging deep, you have to look at the performance of the OL (are they giving time), the QB (is he making the right plays), and the Receiving options.
The first order of business is looking at the OL. I haven't looked at the sacks per game, but through 10 games the offense has given up 13 sacks. I don't think it requires much more analysis to exclude the fact that the OL isn't the root cause of the passing game.
From the QB perspective, already addressing the issues with completion % and it's impact on yards per attempt, the overall view in my mind is that Eason has a lot of talent to work with but the fact of the matter is that this is an average at best passing offense. His decision making is largely sound with some notable mistakes. His biggest weaknesses are tied to handling pressure, escaping it (he'll never be super mobile), manipulating the pocket, and throwing under pressure. IMO, he looks like a QB that has not had any material snaps in a 2 year time period (can't be understated) and it shows in his overall consistency. He'd definitely benefit from another year of getting game reps ... provided he's supported by coaching/players that enable him to grow as a QB.
When you look at the overall receiving performance this year, you realize really quickly that the primary options are Hunter Bryant and Aaron Fuller. Once you get past that, the options go downhill really quickly. But digging deeper you have a couple of trends that really are material:
1) Ty Jones accounted for 31 catches and almost 500 yards last year. There has not been a WR on the roster that has been able to step up consistently and provide a solution. Hunter's filled the numbers but it's essentially resulted in a replacement to Ty's lost offensive production instead of being incremental. That's been absolutely brutal.
2) We do not use our RBs in the passing game ... in total, we have 24 receptions in 10 games. In 2018, we had 51 receptions in 13 games. In light of having a really poor set of options on the outside (as upper class players, but talented youth), finding a way to create opportunities in space for RBs would be an ideal way to create alternative options.
3) The performance of the senior options at WR have been largely disappointing. For Aaron Fuller, he's largely stepped up as a senior. In conference last year, he averaged 3 catches for 48 yards per game. This year, excluding the Oregon game given his injury, he's averaging close to 5 catches per game for 65 yards ... that's reasonable performance. Opera Singer on the other hand, this is the truly maddening one. Last year, he averaged 3.3 catches for 36 yards per game in conference (not that dissimilar to Fuller). If he followed the trajectory of Fuller, you're probably looking at somewhere around 4-5 catches per game for about 50 yards. That'd be a MASSIVE IMPROVEMENT over what he's done so far this year at 1.6 catches and 11 yards per game. That's BRUTAL. Add into it the reality that Chico brought nothing to the table and you've got 2/3 of the primary WR rotation literally flaming out for the season. That's beyond brutal.
It's hard not to view the WR position as a massive liability on this team and offense. If you believe Pete that the positional coaches drive the rotations, then that's a massive red flag with respect to Junior Adams. While the recruiting is positive and when the young players have seen the field they've actually performed (Puka displaying his obvious talent, Bynum making a strong leap, and some glimpses from Spiker and Chin), the reality is that sticking with Opera Singer and Chico for as long as he did made absolutely ZERO sense. This really feels like something that needs to be asked and answered at some point.
The other primary issue in the passing game is that for as complicated as we are pre-snap, we're actually very uncomplicated after the snap. As others have mentioned, when you see certain players, you can readily predict the routes they are running (Chin a go route, Bynum either a drag/cross or option route, etc). The overall play calling also doesn't help when you get into predictable situations ... huge issue. There's also spacing issues that cause congestion in routes (this really showed up during the Stanford game and Hugh's breakdown). So when you combine sub-optimal play calling with some really sloppy performance (again, what is Jordan Adams doing), and you get some terrible performance.
Overall Conclusion
Bush deserves a lot of criticism for his play calling not only in terms of putting himself in some lengthy down/distance situations but also in terms of variety and predictability. However, when looking at Junior Adams and the WR performance, regression seems to be the trend. The performance whether from looking at a technique standpoint in running routes to catching the ball is lacking. The accountability does not appear to be present. Not being able to recognize poor performance is a massive liability. Being unable to recognize until halfway through the season that the experienced options available weren't going to get the job done and not have younger options ready and able to play is a giant miss. Leadership isn't waiting until it's painfully obvious that you should make a change. By that point, it's too late. Leadership is making changes before it is obvious. It's making changes in a visionary fashion. It's being ahead of the curve. None of that is really present with Junior Adams this year. His resume suggests that he has some ability. But it hasn't shown itself this year. That's concerning. If he wasn't recruiting well, it'd be a slam dunk door.ass.out. There's a lot of explaining to do here though ... and I'm not really sure that the answers are going to be satisfactory.
Comments
Fuller and the rest of the senior WRs have been horrible or been perfect tackling dummies once they get the ball in their hands.
Chin and the TEs are the only guys I remember running away from their man after the catch
Puka and the newbies should change that. A lot of people think of speed generating big plays, but making a catch downfield and having the balance to stay on your feet and break a tackle is huge.
Spiker, Bynum, and Puka all look like they're ready to take over next season, IMO. The group is at its floor right now. If there's not a huge improvement next season Adams should be gone.