Which Quarterback in the 2019 NFL Draft Class Is Statistically Superior?
4. Will Grier, West Virginia
Age: 23 | Games Played: 27 | AY/A: 10.7 | Passing Efficiency Rating: 175.5 | Total QBR: 81.9
Top Statistical Comp: David Carr
If we were to just ignore age, Grier would look pretty intriguing. He's more experienced than Murray and Haskins, and his efficiency numbers were on par with Haskins this year. The guy played well.
It's just that prospects in his mold don't succeed all that often.
As you'll recall from the section on Lock, quarterbacks who are experienced but inefficient tend to have higher hit rates than those who are the opposite. Grier fits into that latter group with just 27 games played coming out of college.
Let's ignore efficiency for a second and focus on just Grier's mix of a higher-end age with limited experience. Recently, we've seen two players -- Mitchell Trubisky and Carson Wentz -- succeed despite fitting into that label. That could give Grier some hope, but it more so looks like those two success stories are outliers.
In our sample of 48 first-round quarterbacks through 2017, 14 of them left college with fewer than 30 games under their belt. Eight of them were 22 or older with the other four being younger guys. The older group has graded out poorly in the NFL through the lens of Total NEP.
| QBs With Limited Experience | Top 5s | Top 10s | Top 15s | Total Seasons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age 22 or Older | 2.50% | 2.50% | 25.00% | 40 |
| Age 21 or Younger | 5.88% | 20.59% | 50.00% | 34 |
Prior to Wentz's 2017 near-MVP season, no quarterbacks in that grouping had ever had a top-10 finish in Total NEP. Wentz and Joe Flacco are the only players with multiple top-15 Total NEP finishes in that group, and Flacco has been a top-15 passer just 4 times in 11 qualified seasons while never reaching the top 10.
For a younger prospect, this isn't as big of a red flag, as you can see above, which is why Murray and Haskins were higher on the list. A lot of that is influenced by Newton, but Smith and Vick are also in that bucket and logged some solid seasons in the NFL. With Grier being older, it's not impossible for him to succeed -- as Wentz has shown -- but the odds are truly not in his favor.
The reason that Grier is still on this list, though, is because he did play well at West Virginia. That absolutely matters, even if his odds of hitting are relatively low.
Grier's 10.7 AY/A ranks second among the quarterbacks in this study, edging out Haskins and sitting behind Murray. He's also second in passing efficiency rating and third in Total QBR, so he's in the same tier as those others from an efficiency perspective.
One potential rebuttal to Grier's stats is that he was propped up by a good offense and Dana Holgorsen's system. But we saw this team without Grier in the Camping World Bowl against Syracuse, and things didn't go so hot for the Mountaineers.
Jack Allison started that game for West Virginia, and he finished with a 6.6 AY/A and a passing efficiency rating of 109.3. Those were far cries from Grier's marks during the season, though the team was also without wide receiver Gary Jennings Jr.. Syracuse's pass defense was legit this year, sitting 48th in S&P+, but it did show that you can't plug just any quarterback into the system and have it succeed.
Syracuse's defensive strength makes it more frustrating that Grier was unable to play in that game, which he says was due to an ankle injury. The "strength of schedule" knock on Murray didn't hold much water because he played in the Big 12 title game and in the playoffs, giving him two more games against stout defenses, but it's a legitimate concern with Grier.
Grier's final season included just three games against top-50 pass defenses, the lowest number in our group of seven. His 96 pass attempts against top-50 passes defenses were 54 fewer than any other quarterback, meaning 75.57% of his pass attempts came against lower-level defenses. Seven of his 12 games were against either teams ranked outside the top 75 against the pass or FCS schools. This isn't Grier's fault, but it does toss extra shade on his efficiency metrics.
In those limited samples against good defenses, Grier wasn't bad, but his numbers did take a hit. His AY/A was 8.7 against top-50 pass defenses, a good step down from Haskins' mark of 9.9. Although Grier still ranked third in his class in AY/A against top defenses, there's enough here to view Grier's competition as a legitimate cause for concern.
If Grier winds up slipping into the middle rounds of the draft, then the downsides of these concerns will be reduced. Again, it's worth repeating that he did play well at West Virginia, so it's not a terrible idea to roll the dice on him at some point. But the risks in his profile should likely encourage teams to not take that risk until after the first round has passed.
