Justin Fields Player Profile: Looking Forward

Author: Billy Jones

Inspiration: Paul Sabin (@SabinAnalytics/SumerSports)

Introduction

Welcome back, football analytics fam! I’m excited to finish this series where I analyze Justin Fields' production compared to other elite rushing quarterbacks over their first two years. Now, it's time to shift the focus to the future and look into what Year 3 might hold for this talented quarterback. As I analyze his performance and potential, I'll explore how the other quarterbacks in our study performed in year 3. So, let's dive in and take a final look at what could be in store for Justin Fields in Year 3!

Ground Rules

Before we jump back into the analytics, I would like to remind the readers of the ground rules we will be playing with. The data used for this analysis was obtained from NFLFASTR for 2000 through 2022. For each of the quarterbacks in the analysis we will be looking at only their first 3 years in the NFL. The quarterbacks included in the study are the top 10 rushing quarterbacks based upon total rushing EPA in their first 2 years. These are Cam Newton, Justin Fields, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Andrew Luck, Dak Prescott, Mike Vick, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, and Robert Griffin III.

Visualizations and Analysis

With that now explained, let’s get into the data. Let’s start the analysis with EPA per rush attempt.

Analysis: In this visual we see that 4 players had increases to their EPA per rush attempt while 5 players had decreases to their EPA per rush attempt. The players who saw increases on their EPA per rush attempt saw minor increases while the players who saw decreases saw larger reductions in their EPA per rush attempt. To me this shows how there were two groups that diverged at this point in their career. Group A (Hurst, Vick, Newton, and Jackson), which increased their EPA per rush attempt, continued to lean into their rushing game and became even more efficient on a per attempt basis. Group B (Murray, Allen, Prescott, Griffin, and Luck), transitioned away from their running game and became more passing centric as they became less reliant on their legs. 

Next, I was curious to analyze passing production for this group of quarterbacks in their third year. To do so I presented the same analysis and visuals as above but for passes. 

Analysis: In this visual we see that 6 players had increases to their EPA per pass attempt while 3 players had decreases to their EPA per pass attempt. Additionally, Lamar Jackson had a reduction in EPA per pass attempt, but it was from MVP level to very good in his 3rd year and Michael Vick only played 5 games which only leaves Robert Griffin III as the remaining quarterback to have a reduction in EPA per pass attempt. This visual is great support to the assumption that this group really hits their stride passing the football in their 3rd year. 

The final visualization I wanted to present was EPA per pass attempt vs EPA per rush attempt by player on a scatterplot. In the original Sumer Sports article there was a similar-ish chart that showed the change in rushing and passing EPA but with such a small sample size it was easy to review the movements visually. 

Analysis: While this is an incredibly small sample size there is something clear that stands out to me. We can see that the red dots, the quarterback’s 3rd year in the NFL, appear to be grouped together (ignoring Mike Vick’s 5-game season – at this point in the analysis I have pretty much thrown out that seasons results from my opinions). This is a really great visual for connecting the dots between movements in EPA per attempt by play type. This visualization highlights the transition to a more passing centric approach and a shift away from heavily relying upon their legs. 

With the larger trends being shown, let’s wrap this up with putting some names on the chart as well as adding back Justin Fields first two seasons to put them into context. 

Prediction-ish

In this section I am going to make a prediction-ish. I call it a prediction-ish as it is an informed guess based upon everything I have seen in the review so far and not based upon some sort of predictive model. If I had if I had the data to feel good about a formulaic prediction I would but you know, sample size issues. 

• EPA per Pass Attempt: 0.175 -> This would put him on the very bottom end of the range of 3rd year EPA per Pass Attempt outcomes, but Fields has also shown to be the weakest passer in the study. I expect improved pass efficiency, but I am hesitant to predict a higher figure with his poor passing figures in his first two years. 
• EPA per Rush Attempt: 0.3 -> This is between his first two years and aligned with the other quarterbacks in the study. This reduction in EPA per Rush Attempt is something I would expect (hope) for Fields as he likely isn’t having to scramble nearly as often with the Bears investing their first-round pick in Darnell Wright, the offensive tackle out of Tennessee. 

* I will be providing a more detailed player projection for per game totals of passing yards, rushing yards, touchdowns, etc. as we get closer to the NFL season. *

Conclusion

This concludes the Justin Fields player profile series. I hope you found this deep dive into Justin Fields and his elite rushing quarterback peers insightful and thank you again to Paul Sabin and Sumer Sports for the inspiration.  Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more football analytics posts!

*This blog post was enabled by ChatGPT. The text was generated by me, and the content is my own, but some sentences and wording were provided by the model. I take full responsibility for all information produced in this blog. More information about OpenAI and their technology can be found at https://openai.com.*