*How Knight, Carter, Sailor, and Savage Stack Up

[SouljaBoy2007]

Just a couple days ago, we watched 4 of the 14 starting QBs make their ISFL debut. 4 rookie starters is tied for the most the league has seen in the last 10 seasons. In honor of this, I wanted to dive into how each of the rookie QBs stacked up against their peers when it came to their debut game.

Passing Yards



The above chart shows the passing yards of every QB in their debut. As you can see, the sim switch in season 27 led to a major revolution for the rookie QB. Young talents were able to get off the ground quicker and the adjustment period that used to be very common among young QBs was no longer a brick wall for team success. The peak of this newfound idea that QBs could start out hot was Panda McKyle in season 31. He was one of just 3 QBs to even break 300 yards and he was the only one to crack 400. He led his Sabercats to a shootout win and despite his mediocre rookie season, he was undeniably slinging it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, just as far away from the pack in the opposite direction, is poor Charlemagne Cortez. In his debut he got absolutely shelled by Sabercats, completing less than 55% of his passes and wasting a ridiculous outing from the elite Outlaws rushing attack. Of the newest class of rookies, Carter Knight was the passing leader, tossing 337 yards in a close loss.


Pass Attempts



Pass attempts are an interesting metric to look at when evaluating rookie QBs. It’ll tell you a lot about the team their on and the situation they’re in. If a QB is airing it out in their first game, their team probably isn’t going to be very good. The exception to this is Mike Boss Jr. in season 26, when he led the league in passing yards AS A ROOKIE which is just absurd. His sailfish finished with an 8-8 record and actually made the playoffs. To say they were a great team would be me lying to you, but they were a game winning field goal away from an Ultimus appearance led by a QB who flashed the same talent as his father did. The lowest total on this chart again comes from Charlemagne Cortez, who did end up leading the Outlaws to an 11-5 record. As for our new rookies, Carter Knight actually had the highest attempts total of the last 10 seasons while Wendell Sailor had the lowest total of our 4. Carter Knight also managed to grab the most completions of the last 10 seasons as well. This statistic doesn't do much to help Knight's reputation as a check-down artist.


Completion Percentage



Unfortunately, the completion percentage graph doesn’t paint as sharp of a picture as I had hoped. The S27 revolution that was readily apparent in the passing yards graph doesn’t seem to have affected completion percentage. What this graph does tell us is that rookie QBs are generally pretty bad at completing their passes. 7 of the 23 games I looked at featured a QB with 50% completion or lower. The masterpiece of these was of course Suleiman Ramza’s 10/28 performance in a game that the Orange County Otters actually won. Ramza’s career started ugly, and the end wasn’t much better, but the middle was quite pleasant. The most efficient rookie was Gimmy Jarropolo Jr. which may come as a surprise given his tendency to throw into coverage. Of our most recent crop, the most completion-oriented was Carter Knight who completed 70.8% of his passes. This makes him one of just 2 rookies in the last 10 seasons to complete over 70%.


Passer Rating



The ISFL operates on archaic statistics for the most part. Passer rating is the closest thing we have to an “advanced stat”. Its main value is found in that it boils QB performance down to one number. As you may have heard, a QB rating of 39.6 can be attained by throwing the ball directly into the ground or the stands or the sideline every single play. We had a few rookies come dangerously close to this dishonor. Suleiman Ramza, as we discussed, had a rough start to his career and his 40.6 passer rating in his debut was about where you’d expect. Charlemagne Cortez, who we also discussed, is right in his neighborhood with a 41.5 passer rating. On the other end of the spectrum, despite only being 4 passers over a 100, there are 3 passers over a 120. Ben Slothlisbergher, Gimmy Jarropolo Jr., and Wendell Sailor all put up elite ratings to start their career. As for the rest of our new rookies, eagle-eyed readers may notice only 3 dots on the graph. That’s because Carter Knight and Malcolm Savage had nearly identical passer ratings, finishing with 97.3 and 97.6 respectively. Tron Carter lagged behind the pack, but he gets a bit of a pass because OCO is a nightmare scenario.

The Average QB

The average rookie QB threw for 208.74 yards, with 20.83 completions on 34.91 attempts. This went along with an average of 1.17 touchdowns and 0.74 interceptions. This all works out to a passer rating of 86.4. When extrapolated to a full season, which is mathematically a bad idea but fun to think about, we get a QB who throws just around 3340 yards, 19 TDs, and 12 INTs on a 59.7 completion percentage. This statline is eerily close to IsHe ReallyInvisible’s rookie season. While IsHe had a higher completion percentage, our average rookie had a higher YPA. I guess this makes IsHe ReallyInvisble the most average young QB in the league.

Conclusions?

Being a rookie QB is hard, and being a rookie QB in your debut is even harder. Fortunately, a QBs debut does not determine their future. Charlemagne Cortez holds the single season passer rating record, Suleiman Ramza is top 10 in career passing yards, Ryan Negs followed up a 2 INT performance in debut by leading the Liberty to being one of the best teams in the league, and so many other success stories. It’ll be interesting to see if the ISFLs newest class of rookie QBs can live up to the standard set by their contemporaries.

[Pat]

Dude this was awesome. Great read.