Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones: Strengths and Weaknesses

Thanks to Pro Football Focus, Pro Football Reference, NFL.com and the nflFastR project for being awesome sources of weekly data.

I’ve spent the offseason enhancing my data and created a new graph I’m excited about. To test it out, I’m comparing Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones.

The graph offers a focused look at quarterback efficiency—one of the best ways to evaluate performance and project future success. Of course, as I’ve been told once or twice, no single stat tells the full story—which is why I use a range of metrics to paint a more complete picture.

The graph presents a progression of efficiency metrics, starting with simple measures and gradually incorporating more elements of quarterback play, ending with a comprehensive final stat. It’s similar to what I do in my weekly QB dashboards, but with a sharper focus and a few new measures to fill in some gaps.

I’ll take it step by step.

PASSING DEPTH

This is the graph with just the beginning and ending numbers for Anthony Richardson’s 15 career starts.

The ending metric is overall EPA efficiency. I’ve typically used EPA per dropback, but with the rise of running quarterbacks, most analysts now include designed QB runs — shifting the metric to EPA per play (EPA/p). I could write a thousand words on why designed runs shouldn’t be part of QB stats, but it’s not a hill I’m willing to die on. Since everyone else is including them, fine—I’ll throw them in too (although I really shouldn’t). Unfortunately, Richardson ranks 25th out of 32 by that measure.

My starting metric is air yards per completion on passes under 20 yards. I know that’s an obscure thing to measure, but the desire is to capture passing depth without explosive plays. Richardson’s fourth-ranked depth shows he isn’t simply checking the ball down. Despite this, he has still struggled to consistently translate other aspects of his play into overall value.

As I add more stats, the blue line beomes an efficiency curve that highlights the underlying causes of those struggles and explains why he’s been one of the league’s least efficient quarterbacks thus far in his career. To that end, I’ll now layer on the remaining air yards from his deep completions.

Richardson gets 9.5% of his completions on passes of 20+ yards, the fifth-highest rate among all quarterbacks. That contributes to a league highest 7.7 air yards per completion (ay/c), meaning no one throws deeper completions.

Next, I’ll add the complement to air yards— yards after the catch (yac).

Not only does Richardson throw deep on his completions, but he also benefits from the second-highest yards after the catch, leading to the most yards per completion (yd/c) in the league.

COMPLETION RATE

For a graph meant to measure a drop in efficiency, it looks like I’m going in the wrong direction. Let’s fix that by adding incompletions—you can probably guess where this is headed.

Ooph. Richardson is dead last in completion rate. I even adjusted it by removing the bias of drops and throwaways (ac%) — still dead last. Given the depth of his throws, a lower completion rate is expected, but even with that context, the number is far too low. I know this because he also ranks dead last in ‘completion percentage over expected’, though that stat isn’t shown here.

Multiplying his 57.0% adjusted completion rate by 13.7 yards per completion yields 7.8 adjusted yards per attempt (aypa), plunging him to 21st in the rankings. Keep in mind, this metric excludes drops—so for those who argue his numbers would look fine without dropped passes, think again.

His trouble completing passes explains much of his efficiency decline, but not all of it. To account for the remaining incompletions, let’s now factor in both drops and throwaways.

Richardson faced the second-highest drop rate (drp%) and had an average throwaway rate (ta%). These two factors somewhat offset each other, bringing his rank down to 23rd in yards per attempt (ypa).

RUNNING ABILITY

Up to this point, I’ve accounted for his arm, but not his legs. Next, I’ll incorporate sacks and scrambles.

His ability to avoid sacks (sck%) boosts his efficiency, which is reflected in his 21st-ranked net yards per attempt (ny/a). He also has a high scramble rate (scr%), which typically lowers efficiency—but since he gains above-average yardage on his scrambles (a stat not shown here), he maintains a 21st-place rank in net yards per dropback (ny/d).

At this stage, I factor in designed runs. Woohoo!

AR led QBs in carry rate (car%) and ranked second in yards per carry (not shown), which pushes him up one spot to 20th in net yards per play (ny/p).

NON-YARDAGE EVENTS

So far, I’ve accounted for every type of play a quarterback is involved in, yet I still haven’t fully explained why he ranks just 25th in efficiency. That’s because events in football carry more value than raw yardage alone. This hasn’t been factored in yet, so the next step is to layer in first downs and touchdowns using standard ‘yardage equivalents’.

When I add in the impact of first downs, Richardson drops to 21st in adjusted net yards per play (any/p), and his roughly average touchdown rate does nothing to change that.

There’s just one key metric left: turnovers.

Richardson has the second-highest turnover rate of any quarterback over the past two years. When factoring in the yardage-equivalent impact of those plays, he drops to 24th in the final version of adjusted net yards per play (any/p).

Up to this point, all of these metrics have been measured in terms of yards—an imperfect proxy for value. So, I will take one more step and convert everything to a far better value measure — Expected Points Added (EPA). This yields his final ranking of 25th in EPA per play (epa/p).

Well, almost final. I’ve recently added the ability to adjust EPA for opponent defenses in my models. While this adjustment gives Richardson a modest two-percentile boost in adjusted EPA per play (adj/p), it actually causes him to drop one spot to 26th.

CONCLUSION

The efficiency curve highlights Richardson’s key weaknesses: completions, getting first downs, and turnovers. At the same time, his strengths are just as clear: explosive passing ability, efficient running, and good decision making using scrambles and throwaways to avoid sacks.

Now that we’ve broken down the chart and what it reveals about Anthony Richardson, let’s apply the same analysis to Daniel Jones. Since Jones missed most of the 2023 season due to injury, I’ve expanded the dataset to include his 2022 performance—which remains, by far, his best year.

Although Jones ends up in roughly the same spot as Richardson, he gets there by a very different path. He’s much better in terms of accuracy, moving the chains, and ball security. However, he’s worse at generating explosive plays, scoring touchdowns, and he takes far too many sacks for being as mobile as he is.

Honestly, I have no idea why the Giants were willing to pay Jones $160 million, and I’m not sure why the Colts want to chip in another $14.5 million. It’s still far too early to know if Richardson can improve, but I’m pretty confident Jones can’t. I hope he’s a good mentor, because I just don’t see a world where the Colts make the playoffs with Jones under center.