





Back in June I posted an article in which I introduced a way to put a degree of difficulty on Colin Kaepernick's passes he attempted during 2014 regular season. Some of you, who read the article, suggested that it would be more useful to see the data also for other NFL quarterbacks so that we would be able to compare those with the ones already presented for the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers.

For those not familiar with the mentioned article, you can catch up and read it HERE.

To sum it up, the idea was to put a grade on quarterback's passes based on three selected factors:

distance between nearest defender and targeted receiver at time of throw

pressure

depth of target or length of a pass.

For a quick reminder, here's the chart of possible combinations of the three components which define easy, moderate and difficult degree of difficulty.

So in order to further analyze Kaepernick's performance on easy, moderate and difficult throws and to see where he stands against similar-type of quarterbacks, I've decided to collect the data for Russell Wilson. Wilson, just like Kaepernick, is considered to be a mobile version of today's NFL quarterbacks. Similar to 49ers' signal-caller, Wilson too, likes to scramble and make plays with his legs. Actually, in 2014 (regular season only) Wilson led the league with 51, not far behind was Kaepernick with 48 scrambles. The ability to avoid pressure and extend plays certainly helps, but that kind of quarterbacking leads to more negative plays and a much higher sack rate when compared to a more pocket-orientated style of playing. Before we dig deep into the collected data and draw parallels and point to differences between Kaepernick and Wilson, a few words on some of 2014 stats for both signal-callers from the NFC West.

Standard passing stats suggest Wilson had a better year. He finished with 63.1 completion percentage and a 2.9 TD-to-INT ratio, which led to a 95.0 passer rating. Kaepernick on the other hand, had lower completion percentage, lower TD-to-INT ratio and consequently lower passer rating. Kap was also sacked 10 more times, but Wilson's 7.7% sack rate isn't that far away from Kap's alarming-high 9.0% rate. If we take into account all pass attempts, sacks and scrambles, we can again come to the same conclusion. Wilson had a better year, finishing regular season with 6.8 yards versus Kap's 6.1 yards per dropback. Advanced stats agree, Wilson's 5.5% passing DVOA was good enough for 14th in the league, Kap ended up with -8.4% putting him in 29th place among all passers. Both players are ranked much higher based on revised ESPN's total QBR, Wilson is 8th and Kap ranked as 14th best player, but it has to be said that total QBR measures quarterbacks on all plays, not just pass plays.

Just like in Kaepernick's case, in order to put a degree of difficulty on Wilson's throws, I filtered out throw-aways and spikes. That way we are left with 413 Wilson's pass attempts eligible to receive a degree of difficulty. By the way, number of throw-aways is another category in which Wilson led the league in 2014. He intentionally threw away 38 passes, 14 more than Kap did. The difference is even bigger if we consider the fact that Kaepernick dropped back to pass 33 times more. Interestingly enough, Kap never spiked the ball to stop the clock so far in his NFL career.

The data I'm about to present will shed some light on why Wilson had higher completion percentage. We'll go over the numbers through a series of Q&As.

Q: Which quarterback attempted more easy passes, Kaepernick or Wilson?

A: Wilson.

One of the reasons why Wilson completed higher amount of passes is that he attempted more throws labeled as easy, and considerably lower number of difficult passes.

Q: Why did Wilson finish with higher percentage of easy passes?

A: Mainly, because he tossed higher percentage of passes behind the line of scrimmage.

In general, I believe that the number of easy passes quarterback attempts during NFL game is very much dependent on his ability to read defenses, finding open receivers and getting the ball out quick to avoid being pressured. In other words, quarterback has to do the difficult part pre snap and before he releases the ball in order to reward himself with an easy pass attempt. But I don't think that is what separated Kaepernick and Wilson. Both players tend to hold the ball too long and are pressured a lot more than an average NFL quarterback. In fact, Wilson was under duress more frequently than Kaepernick. Wilson attempted more easy throws for a different reason. The reason lies in the way Seahawks attacked opposing defenses, with a lot more screen passes if compared to 49ers' style of offense. I further broke down Wilson's pass attempts to see how many were thrown behind the line of scrimmage. It turns out, he threw 99 passes to targets positioned at or behind the line of scrimmage, that's 24.0 percent of all considered passes. Kaepernick attempted just 48 such passes, which makes it only for 10.6 percent of the total. That's quite a difference. Tossing passes to receivers stationed behind the line of scrimmage in majority of cases means two things. First, quarterback gets to throw short passes. Second, distance between nearest defender and targeted receiver is greater when compared to passes thrown past the line of scrimmage. To back those two statements up, here are the averages for Russell Wilson.

Q: Which quarterback had a higher completion percentage on difficult throws, Kaepernick or Wilson?

A: Wilson.

Again, the answer here is Wilson. He was better not only on difficult throws, but on easy and moderate too. The differences are slim, Wilson ended up with higher total completion percentage simply because he attempted more easy throws and a lot less difficult ones, as we have already seen in this post.

Obviously, short passes to wide open receivers will be completed at higher rate than those thrown deep and into tight coverage. Here's a look at completion percentage split by degree of difficulty.

Q: Which player had to throw more passes into coverage?

A: Kaepernick.

As explained in my first post, the distance between nearest defender and targeted receiver is measured at time of throw. Depending on the distance, I defined three possible outcomes: pass to wide open, open and covered receiver. Kaepernick was the one who threw more passes into coverage. On average, he saw nearest defender located 4.3 yards away from his intended receiver, Wilson's targets on the other hand, were located 5.4 yards from closest defender at time of throw.

Above we can see percentages of passes thrown to wide open, open and covered receivers. Wilson threw more than 50 percent of his passes to wide open receivers with only 21.8 percent of passes thrown into coverage. Kaepernick almost equally distributed passes to wide open, open and covered receivers, with more than 30 percent thrown into coverage when defender was located within two-and-a-half yards of the intended receiver.

Q: Which player was more accurate when throwing into coverage?

A: Wilson.

The players were almost dead even when throwing to wide open targets, with completion percentages just above 86. Kaepernick completed a lot more passes (67.9%) thrown to open receivers, located between five and two-and-a-half yards away from closest defender. But when it comes to passes thrown into coverage, Wilson was more accurate of the two, with 41.1 completion percentage. Further more, he passed for four touchdowns and only one interception. Meanwhile, Kap completed 31.4 percent of those passes and was picked off seven times and tossed three touchdowns when throwing to covered receivers.

Q: Who had to deal with more pressure, Kaepernick or Wilson?

A: Wilson.

Wilson was pressured on 41.1 percent of plays if we look at all dropbacks, meaning that all the scrambles, sacks and throw-aways are included. Kaepernick's pressure rate was noticeably lower, 34.8 percent to be exact. Since the topic here are mainly pass attempts qualified to receive a degree of difficulty, we'll ignore sacks, scrambles and throw-aways. With that adjustment, the pressure rates drop to 25.2% for Wilson and 21.4 percent for Kaepernick. Even though Wilson was more inclined to throw passes away when forced to scramble and leave the pocket, he still was most pressured quarterback of the two players in comparison on passes he actually tried to complete.

Q: On average, which quarterback threw longer passes?

A: Kaepernick.

The third component considered when putting degree of difficulty on quarterback's passes is depth of target or better put, length of a pass. Each pass length was measured from the spot of a throw to the location of targeted receiver. Depending on length of a pass I labeled each pass as short, intermediate and deep. Kaepernick on average threw 22-yard long pass, two yards longer than Wilson's average of 20 yards. Those averages may not tell the whole story. To reveal more let's look at percentages for short, intermediate and deep passes.

Of all Wilson's passes, 36.3 percent were short. This may be eye-opening stat, but not really, if we recall the fact that Wilson threw almost one quarter of his passes behind the line of scrimmage. Kaepernick, tossed only 28.0 percent of his passes short, in other words, less than third of his passes measured 15 yards or less. Both players have similar numbers when it comes to intermediate passes. Wilson threw lower amount of deep passes, but his average bomb (39 yards) was longer than Kaepernick's by three yards.

Q: Which player was more effective when throwing deep?

A: Wilson.

Kaepernick completed intermediate passes, between 16 and 30 yards long, with slightly higher percentage. It was Wilson who finished regular season with better completion percentage throwing deep. He completed 37.5 percent of his passes thrown longer than 30 yards, with five touchdowns and three interceptions. Kaepernick wasn't far behind with a bit lower completion percentage and with even better TD-to-INT ratio. Six of his 91 deep passes resulted in touchdowns and only three with interceptions.

Wilson was very consistent throughout his short NFL career. He completed 64.1 percent of his passes in 2012 and finished with 63.1 percent, both in 2013 and 2014. I'm expecting Seattle to have another good year defensively and an effective running game behind RB Marshawn Lynch with occasional designed runs from the quarterback, who I don't think will be asked to do a whole lot more in the passing game. So it is fair to expect Wilson will be completing passes in the 63 to 64 range also in the upcoming 2015 season. After completing 62.5 percent of his passes in 2012, Kaepernick saw his completion percentage drop to 58.4 in 2013, before bouncing back up above 60 percent last season. The addition of RB Reggie Bush combined with reportedly improved touch passes from Kaepernick got many of 49ers fans excited and hopeful that the offense will employ more screen plays and utilize solid group of running backs in the passing game more that they did in the Harbaugh-Roman era. If that happens, chances are Kaepernick will improve on his 60.5 completion percentage from last year.