A Statistical Analysis of Lamar Jackson's Usage

**RavenIsh** · 11-08-2018, 11:56 PM

Don't know how to cut and paste on my new phone yet but folks should go to YouTube and watch Michael Vick's first game. (Which also happened to be Tom Brady's first game).

He looked just like Lamar looks now.

**WrongBaldy** · 11-09-2018, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by RavenIsh

Don't know how to cut and paste on my new phone yet but folks should go to YouTube and watch Michael Vick's first game. (Which also happened to be Tom Brady's first game).

He looked just like Lamar looks now.

**organizedchaos21** · 11-18-2018, 11:55 PM

Cincinnati Update

Snaps
Finally, an easy one. 8 played all 79 snaps.

Opponent	Snaps	Pass	Sack	Rush	Handoff	Target	Decoy	Penalty
Buf	30	4	1	7	15	0	2	1
@Cin	6	0	0	2	1	0	3	0
Den	2	0	0	0	0	1	1	0
@Pit	9	0	0	4	2	0	2	1
@Cle	5	1	0	3	0	0	1	0
@Ten	2	0	0	1	1	0	0	0
NO	5	1	0	3	1	0	0	0
@Car	14	5	0	3	5	0	0	1
Pit	13	1	0	5	4	1	2	0
Cin	79	19	2	27	27	0	0	4
Totals	165	31	3	55	56	2	11	7

Lamar played roughly the same amount today as he has all season combined, meaning the sample basically doubled:

Type	Old Count	New Count
Snaps	86	165
Passes	12	31
Carries	28	59
Handoffs	29	56

N.B.(I'm running into comment length issues, so from now on I will separate each of my headings into its own post)

**organizedchaos21** · 11-18-2018, 11:58 PM

Passing
Lamar didn't throw much considering he played a 60 minute game (19 total attempts). Still, that's 1.5x the number of NFL passes he'd thrown coming in. What that means to me is that we should have a better idea of who LJ is as a QB.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited coming into today. That excitement grew as it became clear that Lamar was going to start, and I was probably the most excited following the opening scoring drive. In celebration, I'm going to take off my analytical hat here for a bit and describe my impressions of LJ's passing game. Feel free to disregard my opinion.

His passing numbers look ok: 13 completions (68%), 150 yards (7.89 YPA), 0 TDs, 1 (rookie) interception. The interception was bad, but it's the sort of pass you expect from a rookie in his first start. On the positive side, the play that stuck out to me the most was the completion to John Brown right before the end of the half (Q2, 0:19). 8 felt the pressure, pulled the ball down and tucked it. If he runs, it's very unlikely he gets into field goal range. Instead, the OL did a good job reestablishing the pocket, Lamar realized it, and he rolled right to find Brown for a huge completion. That play led to Tucker's 56 yard field goal. The game looks pretty different if those 3 points aren't on the board. I thought LJ showed amazing poise and understanding of the situation on that play.

Regarding the lack of TDs (and his low QB Rating), I'm not sure if Lamar really had a chance to throw a TD today. The red zone approach felt extremely run-heavy, more so even than the overall approach. I also felt like the options were intentionally limited even when he was allowed to throw, and I think that shows in the number of targets the outside receivers got today (Crab: 3, Brown: 1, Moore: 1). If I were to summarize 8's passing game today, I would say something like: I saw nothing to say that he can't be the QB of the future, but I also saw nothing to say he should take all the snaps if Joe is healthy. I do think he needs to be on the field more than he has been so far, even if/when Joe returns. I'm also pretty excited for the future. Ok, that's enough of that, back to numbers and facts.

Opponent	Completions	Attempts	Passing Yards	TDs	INTs	Sacks	Sack Yards
Buf	1	4	24	0	0	1	8
@Cin	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Den	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
@Pit	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
@Cle	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
@Ten	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
NO	1	1	5	0	0	0	0
@Car	4	5	46	1	0	0	0
Pit	1	1	12	0	0	0	0
Cin	13	19	150	0	1	2	12
Totals	20	31	237	1	1	3	20

**organizedchaos21** · 11-19-2018, 12:00 AM

Carries
Well, whatever Pitt used to shut Lamar down, Cincinnati either missed it or wasn't able to do it. Lamar had 27 carries for 117 yards (4.33), including some clutch conversions on 3rd down (3 of 5 on the day). Those numbers are even more impressive when you remove my 3 favorite plays of the day: 3 kneels for -3 yards to run out the clock. Non-kneel stats: 24 for 120 (5.00). He was successful on 13 of those carries (13/24 = 54%), which is in-line with the sample from the rest of the season. Cincinnati was able to shut him down as the game wore on as LJ was only Successful once on his final eight non-kneel carries (that means he was 12/16 at one point!). I might take a deeper look at that later in the week.

Opponent	Carries	Rushing Yards	Rush TDs	Success
Buf	7	39	0	3
@Cin	2	6	0	1
Den	0	0	0	0
@Pit	4	17	0	3
@Cle	3	10	0	1
@Ten	1	22	0	1
NO	3	9	1	2
@Car	3	26	0	3
Pit	5	10	0	1
Cin	27	117	0	13
Totals	55	256	1	28
No Kneels	52	259	1	28

Weird stat keeping note: Lamar was credited with 2 yards and a carry on the option play with Ty Montgomery (Q3, 1:44). Montgomery gets 5 yards, but no carry. It's a bit odd to me, and I'm not really sure how I should deal with it. But like the kneels, this play lowers Lamar's YPC on a play that gained 8 yards and was a Success (I have not counted it as one above). Removing it from his stat line improves his numbers further to: 23 carries for 118 yards (5.13), 56% Success rate (13/23).

**organizedchaos21** · 11-19-2018, 12:02 AM

Handoffs
Well, I think we all know the hero of the day: Gus Edwards. I've privately been very hard on him, going so far as to wonder why he's even still on the team, let alone taking carries away from Collins or Montgomery. I am very happy to eat those words today. Seasoned with the win, they taste delicious!

Lamar handed off 27 times, and those runs gained 143 yards (5.29). Of those 27 carries, 14 were Successful (52%). That's well below the season average of 66%. Like Lamar, other ball carriers were very streaky, Succeeding on 8 straight carries and 10 of 11 between (Q2, 9:55) and (Q3, 1:07). Those 11 carries gained 84 yards (7.63). However, the Bengals also shut down other ball carriers late in the game as the final 6 carries gained only 22 yards (3.67) and only 1 was successful!

For the game:

Category	Carries	Yards	TDs	Success
G.Edwards	17	115	1	11
A.Collins	7	18	1	2
C.Moore	1	8	0	1
Javorius Allen	1	2	0	0
J.Brown	1	0	0	0
T.Montgomery*	0*	5*	0*	1*
Totals	27	143	2	14

For the season:

Rusher	Carries	Yards	TDs	Success
G.Edwards	20	137	1	14
A.Collins	17	88	2	8
K.Dixon	13	44	1	8
Javorius Allen	4	17	0	2
C.Moore	1	8	0	1
J.Brown	1	0	0	0
Totals	56	294	4	33

As a reminder, Ty Montgomery gained 5 yards on an option play from Lamar. He was not officially credited with a carry.

That's all I'm able to do for now. I'll update "The Lamar Effect" tomorrow. I'm confident saying that it's still in full effect!

**BearArms** · 11-19-2018, 12:08 AM

I can't understand why some can't see the almost 8 YPA and his year to date completion % of 64.5. He's a few rookie who shows incredible poise and attitude that you just can't teach.

**organizedchaos21** · 11-19-2018, 12:45 AM

The Lamar Effect
my success numbers don't add up properly. I'll do a full accounting for them tomorrow. For now, assume that they have an error of 1-2 Successes.

	Snaps	Total Yards	YPP	Success
All	165	766	4.64	83
No Penalties	158	796	5.04	82

Breaking down the 158 "real" snaps by play type:

	Snaps	Total Yards	YPP	Success
Passes	43	242	5.63	18
Rushes	115	559	4.86	65

Looking only at plays where Lamar takes the snap (removed 11 decoy plays + 2 target):

	Snaps	Total Yards	YPP	Success
Passes	34	217	6.38	17
Rushes	111	564	5.08	64

Examining 8's effect on the Ravens run game:

	Rushes	Rushing Yards	YPP	Success	Success Rate
All	285	1099	3.86	143	50%
No Kneels	276	1109	4.02	143	52%
The Lamar Effect	112	562	5.02	65	58%
Without Lamar	164	547	3.34	80	49%

Sidenote: I didn't see the game on TV, but I was alerted that CBS put up a graphic similar to mine. Unfortunately, they compared runs w/ 8 vs. runs w/out 8 without removing kneels! Some statistician at CBS needs to get their act together...

**organizedchaos21** · 11-19-2018, 01:07 AM

Originally Posted by BearArms

I can't understand why some can't see the almost 8 YPA and his year to date completion % of 64.5. He's a few rookie who shows incredible poise and attitude that you just can't teach.

I can understand tempering expectations. Coming into today, we really hadn't seen him throw very much (12 passes total). Even though he more than doubled those numbers today (19), he's still only thrown 31 passes which is probably less than the average game's worth (some rough data I randomly grabbed tells me the average NFL team throws 35.4 passes per game). So I'm completely on board with the people who say something akin to "he's looked good in limited opportunities, but let's not declare him the starter yet." However, what his performance and those numbers do say to me is that it's time to give him more opportunities. In particular, he needs opportunities to do the things we haven't seen him do yet. Namely, throw the ball. And we're in luck! He's probably going to start again next Sunday!

**Filmstudy** · 11-19-2018, 12:20 PM

This is excellent information. Can you give me the post # in this thread that has the definition of success by play?

**Paintballguy** · 11-19-2018, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by Filmstudy

This is excellent information. Can you give me the post # in this thread that has the definition of success by play?

I believe he's using these percentages.

A play is successful when it gains at least 40% of yards-to-go on first down, 60% of yards-to-go on second down and 100% of yards-to-go on third or fourth down.

**organizedchaos21** · 11-19-2018, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by Filmstudy

This is excellent information. Can you give me the post # in this thread that has the definition of success by play?

I think it'll be easier just to repost the definition here. For reference, I found the definition here.

Success is binary (a play is either a Success or not). Success depends on down and distance. On first down, a play must gain 40% of the yards to go to be considered a Success. On 2nd down, that number jumps to 60% of the yards to go. For 3rd and 4th down, a play must gain a first down.

In tabular form:

Down	% of Yards to Go
1st	40%
2nd	60%
3rd	100%
4th	100%

So a play that gains 4+ yards on 1st and 10 is a success. A play that gains 4+ yards on the ensuing 2nd and 6 would be a success. Any 3rd or 4th down conversion is a success.

I've seen slightly different numbers used, but they're always very close to these. I know that others use an adjustment for 4th quarter runs, but I have not yet found what that adjustment is. As a result, my run success count differs from Sharp on 2 plays. I'm hoping to take a deeper look into this concept in the offseason.