[Goose]

I think all of us watching have an intuitive sense that QB is what is most holding this team back and that with competent QB play things would look a lot different. I think it's pretty much impossible to quantify this or to have too developed of a sense of what we're missing and what the team's ceiling could be with good QB play, and your guesses are as good as mine. But because it's the topic du mois, I thought it might be interesting to ruminate on it a bit.

I don't know how to isolate non-QB play from QB play in assessing teams and establishing salient comparisons. For now I'll just look at PFF and see if I can observe anything interesting based on teams that grade somewhat similarly to us aside from the problems with QB.

Kudos to you for attempting to quantify what effect an upgrade to "average" in our QB play might have. I totally agree that nobody knows how to deconvolve QB performance from total team performance.  PFF attempts to do that but like all deconvolutions it is at best a noisy and often unstable process.

<snip>
But by and large this tells a story - get a thoroughly mediocre QB like Kyron Drones or Eli Holstein and Stanford could maybe be a top 40 team. Considering the caveats I mentioned above about receiving and running grades and that our run blocking grade is lower than these other four, perhaps something like a top 65-70 team is the right expectation/adjustment for a hypothetical 2024 Stanford With a QB.

I like your approach and analysis. In the main I like both the theory and the "feel" of the result. However I would change the phraseology a bit. IMO the hypothetical new Stanford QB would need to achieve an "average" PFF to have the expected outcome. The concept of an "average QB" (and "average" PFF) is not an inherent attribute of the QB. It is an attribute of that QB playing on a particular team at a particular time. This relates to the caveats you referred to above as well as (IMO) a lot of other considerations. Ideally, PFF could account for all those factors, but empirically it doesn't.

How hard is it to have a Drones/Holstein-like QB? The four Stanford QBs in this most mediocre of ranges historically have been 2005 Trent Edwards, 2008 Tavita Pritchard, 2012 Josh Nunes, and 2021 Tanner McKee. Just think, put Pritchard or Nunes on this team and it's respectable. I guess that's encouraging. It really should not be hard for Taylor to get Brown or Bachmeier to be that level of QB. If they're better, maybe one day we can actually be good. So much depends on being able to break through our QB crap of 2022 McKee, 2023 Daniels, and 2024 Daniels/Lamson. Our kingdom for a mediocre QB.

Interesting examples and IMO quite enlightening. We do have some subsequent data on these QBs. Trent Edwards was drafted in the 3rd round. He played in the NFL and started a few games as the #1 QB. He played 5 years in the NFL, mostly as a back-up. His career at Stanford was marred by injuries that limited his play, but he was still "good enough" to get drafted and play in the NFL.

You regard McKee as average in 2021 and as crap in 2022. Indeed McKee's PFF was much worse in 2022 than 2021. The PFF in 2022 dropped even more alarmingly near the end of the season. So which is it? Did McKee radically change in 2022, or did his circumstances? Arguably it was both, but IMO https://firstroundmock.com/2023/01/draft...ts-sacked/ describes the situation. Both Jones and Peat, who helped take some of the pressure off McKee, were gone in 2022. Their unforced departure was notable at the time. Stanford consequently had no running game. They adopted the crazy Slow-Mesh RPO that never worked. McKee got beat up. At best he isn't all that mobile. Absent any alternative strategy available for Stanford  the defense came after McKee and his sack rate skyrocketed. On top of that, the second bad year in a row coupled with somewhat acrimonious departures had really depressed team chemistry. Nobody was happy. I think this argues heavily that the drop in PFF wasn't driven by McKee but rather by the team's other "issues". PFF couldn't separate the two. Despite his drop in draft stock McKee was drafted by the Eagles in the 6th round and is in his second year of the NFL. He is yet to play in a game but seems well established with the Eagles.

The NFL doesn't draft "average" college QBs and certainly doesn't keep such players around, even if they get a look as a UDFA. These two QBs were clearly much better than average no matter what their PFF in college may say. Drones/Holstein are not going to have that opportunity. It also shows that even having an "above average" QB will not inevitably yield a "respectable" team if 0.500 is defined as respectable. McKee won 3 games twice. Edwards won 5 games one year and was hurt a lot. The exact "fit" between the QB's skills (whatever they may be), his teammate's skills, and the coach's use of these skills matters. Stanford has had a some skilled QBs that have overall losing records. Elway was 20-23, not even 0.500.

FWIW I do agree that Pritchard was overall an "average" QB. Stanford won 4 games in 2007 and 5 in 2008. Nunes is harder to classify. He played 9 games in 2012. Hard to conclude much about him with that sample size. It was an unusual situation.

So, what would happen with Pritchard on the current team? Pritchard wasn't a statue but also wasn't a "running QB". He had real problems when pressured. He was unquestionably a much more accurate passer than Daniels. IMO he would be good for 2 more wins with a wide standard deviation. His contribution would be heavily dependent on how he was used in the passing game and to what extent Stanford has a running game with him at QB. Pritchard didn't have a cannon, so the "throw it up and hope" approach we sometimes see from TT with Daniels won't work. OTOH if the receiver got "open", either by separation or geometric advantage, Pritchard could put the ball where it needed to be. Keeping him upright would be the issue.

One big intangible is team morale. Once a team decides it isn't good and won't get better because of inherent limitations (at QB or elsewhere) it is hard to generate belief and enthusiasm. OTOH if the team thinks it can "succeed" it can play "over its head" sometimes. Pritchard definitely provided that, at least for awhile. Let's see what Brown can do and how it all fits together. The whole may be greater than the sum of the parts if we are fortunate.

[Goose]

I think all of us watching have an intuitive sense that QB is what is most holding this team back and that with competent QB play things would look a lot different. I think it's pretty much impossible to quantify this or to have too developed of a sense of what we're missing and what the team's ceiling could be with good QB play, and your guesses are as good as mine. But because it's the topic du mois, I thought it might be interesting to ruminate on it a bit.

I don't know how to isolate non-QB play from QB play in assessing teams and establishing salient comparisons. For now I'll just look at PFF and see if I can observe anything interesting based on teams that grade somewhat similarly to us aside from the problems with QB.

Kudos to you for attempting to quantify what effect an upgrade to "average" in our QB play might have. I totally agree that nobody knows how to deconvolve QB performance from total team performance.  PFF attempts to do that but like all deconvolutions it is at best a noisy and often unstable process.

<snip>
But by and large this tells a story - get a thoroughly mediocre QB like Kyron Drones or Eli Holstein and Stanford could maybe be a top 40 team. Considering the caveats I mentioned above about receiving and running grades and that our run blocking grade is lower than these other four, perhaps something like a top 65-70 team is the right expectation/adjustment for a hypothetical 2024 Stanford With a QB.

I like your approach and analysis. In the main I like both the theory and the "feel" of the result. However I would change the phraseology a bit. IMO the hypothetical new Stanford QB would need to achieve an "average" PFF to have the expected outcome. The concept of an "average QB" (and "average" PFF) is not an inherent attribute of the QB. It is an attribute of that QB playing on a particular team at a particular time. This relates to the caveats you referred to above as well as (IMO) a lot of other considerations. Ideally, PFF could account for all those factors, but empirically it doesn't.

How hard is it to have a Drones/Holstein-like QB? The four Stanford QBs in this most mediocre of ranges historically have been 2005 Trent Edwards, 2008 Tavita Pritchard, 2012 Josh Nunes, and 2021 Tanner McKee. Just think, put Pritchard or Nunes on this team and it's respectable. I guess that's encouraging. It really should not be hard for Taylor to get Brown or Bachmeier to be that level of QB. If they're better, maybe one day we can actually be good. So much depends on being able to break through our QB crap of 2022 McKee, 2023 Daniels, and 2024 Daniels/Lamson. Our kingdom for a mediocre QB.

Interesting examples and IMO quite enlightening. We do have some subsequent data on these QBs. Trent Edwards was drafted in the 3rd round. He played in the NFL and started a few games as the #1 QB. He played 5 years in the NFL, mostly as a back-up. His career at Stanford was marred by injuries that limited his play, but he was still "good enough" to get drafted and play in the NFL.

You regard McKee as average in 2021 and as crap in 2022. Indeed McKee's PFF was much worse in 2022 than 2021. The PFF in 2022 dropped even more alarmingly near the end of the season. So which is it? Did McKee radically change in 2022, or did his circumstances? Arguably it was both, but IMO https://firstroundmock.com/2023/01/draft...ts-sacked/ describes the situation. Both Jones and Peat, who helped take some of the pressure off McKee, were gone in 2022. Their unforced departure was notable at the time. Stanford consequently had no running game. They adopted the crazy Slow-Mesh RPO that never worked. McKee got beat up. At best he isn't all that mobile. Absent any alternative strategy available for Stanford  the defense came after McKee and his sack rate skyrocketed. On top of that, the second bad year in a row coupled with somewhat acrimonious departures had really depressed team chemistry. Nobody was happy. I think this argues heavily that the drop in PFF wasn't driven by McKee but rather by the team's other "issues". PFF couldn't separate the two. Despite his drop in draft stock McKee was drafted by the Eagles in the 6th round and is in his second year of the NFL. He is yet to play in a game but seems well established with the Eagles.

The NFL doesn't draft "average" college QBs and certainly doesn't keep such players around, even if they get a look as a UDFA. These two QBs were clearly much better than average no matter what their PFF in college may say. Drones/Holstein are not going to have that opportunity. It also shows that even having an "above average" QB will not inevitably yield a "respectable" team if 0.500 is defined as respectable. McKee won 3 games twice. Edwards won 5 games one year and was hurt a lot. The exact "fit" between the QB's skills (whatever they may be), his teammate's skills, and the coach's use of these skills matters. Stanford has had a some skilled QBs that have overall losing records. Elway was 20-23, not even 0.500.

FWIW I do agree that Pritchard was overall an "average" QB. Stanford won 4 games in 2007 and 5 in 2008. Nunes is harder to classify. He played 9 games in 2012. Hard to conclude much about him with that sample size. It was an unusual situation.

So, what would happen with Pritchard on the current team? Pritchard wasn't a statue but also wasn't a "running QB". He had real problems when pressured. He was unquestionably a much more accurate passer than Daniels. IMO he would be good for 2 more wins with a wide standard deviation. His contribution would be heavily dependent on how he was used in the passing game and to what extent Stanford has a running game with him at QB. Pritchard didn't have a cannon, so the "throw it up and hope" approach we sometimes see from TT with Daniels won't work. OTOH if the receiver got "open", either by separation or geometric advantage, Pritchard could put the ball where it needed to be. Keeping him upright would be the issue.

One big intangible is team morale. Once a team decides it isn't good and won't get better because of inherent limitations (at QB or elsewhere) it is hard to generate belief and enthusiasm. OTOH if the team thinks it can "succeed" it can play "over its head" sometimes. Pritchard definitely provided that, at least for awhile. Let's see what Brown can do and how it all fits together. The whole may be greater than the sum of the parts if we are fortunate.