Awesome Goff Deep ball article---

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There is hot take PFT article from yesterday that argues that Tom Brady is declining, because his passing yards per attempt are way down during a season in which QB passing stats in general have been going up. I would offer a different hypothesis. The Pats miss Brandin Cooks, a player they anonymously and cowardly ripped in the press after the trade with the Rams.

Tom Brady has generally been a poor deep ball passer during his career, but he did well with Randy Moss was with the Pats and then with Cooks last season Brady completed 38.8% of his deep passes (more than 20 yards in the air) with a total of 28 deep completions. So far this year, Brady has pathetic deep passing stats, connecting on only 7 out of 30 attempts (23.3%), for a measly 219 yards, 1 TD and 2 Ints. Cooks could have had even more deep production last season, but Brady's weak arm ruined several potential huge plays, though the Pats did get some pass interference penalty yardage to supplement the official yardage.

Meanwhile, Cooks has had a demonstrable positive impact on Jared Goff's deep passing production (an area where Sammy Watkins surprisingly had very little success last season). In effectively 9 games (due to the concussion he had earlier this year), Cooks has 9 deep ball receptions for 325 yards, which would have been on pace to surpass his production playing with Drew Brees and Tom Brady on deep passes.

The trade with the Pats effectively was for Isaiah Wynn (a lineman I think will be a Pro Bowler eventually, but who suffered a torn Achilles this year) in exchange for Cooks and Micah Kiser. I wonder if Bill Belichick is regretting sending Cooks away.

Goff's improved stats

Last season, Goff completed 37.2% of his deep passes with 3 TDs and 1 Int. Jonathan Kinsley evaluates NFL QBs on their deep throws and last year he scored Goff as 17th best in this category, ahead of Brady at 22 and Carson Wentz at 25. So, whether by conventional stats or more advanced metric methods, Goff was a middle of the pack deep ball passer in 2017.

So far in 2018, Goff is completing 58.6% of his deep passes, an improvement of over 20% from 2017. In only 10 games, Goff already has more deep ball completions than he did during the entire 2017 regular season. The majority of the deep completions have gone to Cooks, with Woods and Kupp combining for almost all the remainder. The only area where Goff hasn't been hot is the deepest area beyond 40 yards. From 21 to 40 yards, Goff is completing 71.4% of his passes, which is an astoundingly high rate and almost exactly twice as high a completion percentage compared to 36.1% in this area last season.

Goff compared to benchmarks

The 2 best deep ball QBs in the history of Kinsley's Deep Ball Project are Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. Though some adjustment has to be made for the game has changed in even a brief decade's time and the "stat inflation" the current young crop of QBs enjoy, Goff's current statistical pace outperforms even those future HOF QBs during comparable periods of their respective careers.

Jared Goff (2017 to current in 2018, Sean McVay as coach): 45.8% overall deep ball completion percentage, 11.1% TD rate, 2.8% Int rate, 52.2% (21-30 yards) 36.4% (31-40 yards), 33%(over 40 yards)

Drew Brees (2006 to 2008, age 27 to 29 with Sean Payton and the Saints): 41% overall deep ball completions, 16.1% TD rate, 6.8% Int rate, 37.8% (21-30 yards), 41.5% (31-40), 55.6% (over 40)

Goff has a better overall completion rate with a decided edge at the shorter range and a much lower interception rate. Brees had an abnormally high success rate at longer throws, which is counterintuitive since Brees has a relatively weak arm. After a very good 2006 season throwing deep passes, Brees had some considerable struggles in 2007 and 2008. In 2007, Brees only completed 26.7% of his passes from 21 to 40 yards with a bunch of interceptions, leading to questions about his "disappearing" arm strength. The following season, Brees would top 5,000 passing yards for the first time, a mark he has reached 5 times in total.

Aaron Rodgers (2008 to 2010, age 25 to 27): 35.2% overall deep pass completion percentage, 11.9% TD rate, 6.2% INT rate, 36.4% (21-30), 37.8% (31-40), 28.9% (over 40)

Goff surpasses "early ARod" as a deep passer. Better overall accuracy, better in the short area, about the same in the middle, a small edge in the deepest range, about the same rate of TDs and a much lower interception rate. In his MVP seasons (2011 and 2014) ARod had outstanding deep passing numbers (Goff is on pace to match those stats in 2018). This year, ARod (who is about to turn 35) has only completed 34.9% of his deep passes.

Carson Wentz: 31% overall deep pass completion percentage, 10.9% TD rate, 7.8% INT rate, 38% (21-30), 25.8% (31-40), 18.5% (over 40)

An irony of this topic is that on the day of the Titans trade with the Rams for the Goff draft slot, I was researching NFL QB deep ball passing. Some draft experts assume that a QB who is perceived to have a "stronger arm" will be a superior deep passer, but this is a faulty assumption. Perhaps they are imagining Dan Marino. The careers of Brees versus say Big Ben or Joe Flacco illustrate that size and being able to throw the ball a long distance don't necessarily correlate with being an elite deep passing QB.

I've always believed that Goff had more potential than Carson Wentz as a deep passer and at least to this point in their young careers the stats support that side of the argument. Maybe the lightbulb will go on at some point for Carson. He has plenty of physical talent to make every throw and attack all areas of the field, but there just isn't that consistency in terms of accuracy and decision making that is necessary to excel in this stat category. He's a dangerous deep ball QB who scares defenses due to his unpredictability and ability to turn a potential negative play into a long TD, but Carson's not really a good deep ball QB. I do see some improvement in Wentz this year compared to 2017, so while he's not getting MVP buzz like he was last season, Eagle fans should still be optimistic about the team's future, even if they miss out on the playoffs this year.

The sky is the limit

If Goff continues his current pace, his 2018 deep ball passing season will be very strong. Even Peyton Manning in his prime would have been hard pressed to match Goff's level of deep ball production and efficiency. Cooks is only 25, so there is a potential for the two to become a historically powerful duo. Is this a mirage created by the "juiced ball era" of NFL football or are we witnessing the beginning of one of the great NFL offensive dynasties? Maybe it is both. The scary thing for opponents is that unless the Rams offensive line implodes or McVay has a mental breakdown where he starts scribbling alien symbols on the walls while imitating zoo animal sounds, the Rams should be even better offensively about 2 to 3 years from now when players like Goff, Gurley and Cooks are all still in the heart of their primes in overlapping seasons. How many more points can they possibly score? Will we see a 40 points per game season? Will Goff hit 6,000 passing yards in a season? Rams football could become a Michael Bay movie full of never ending random explosions.