[h=1]How valuable are scrambling QBs?[/h][h=3]Despite popular opinion, elite mobility doesn't translate to high fantasy value[/h]By KC Joyner | ESPN Insider
One of the biggest fantasy football stories of the 2012 season was the advent of the read-option quarterback. This instantly gave leagues a fairly deep set of dual-threat options and changed the way owners approach draft-day strategies, keeper choices and auction bids.
A potential 2013 season impediment for these owners is that every NFL defensive coordinator is working overtime to find ways to slow down or stop the read-option in its tracks.
Those labors bring up a quandary in dealing with mobility value, as that trait generally is divided into two areas: productivity on planned plays, and productivity on unplanned plays, which in this case are most often scramble-type plays.
Because the coordinators will concentrate most of their efforts on stopping the planned plays, how much added value will the scramble plays end up offering these fantasy owners? Will it be enough to warrant paying the extra cost for this skill set, or is it a price too high to pay for the expected return on investment?
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To begin to answer this question, let's first look at how scrambling impacts rushing gains.
In general, as noted in a terrific mobile QB fantasy primer article by ESPN.com's Christopher Harris, the big names in the agile quarterback category (Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson and Michael Vick) generate a large percentage of their fantasy point totals via the ground attack.
Those numbers change when this item is viewed through a pure scrambling perspective. To illustrate this, let's start with the scramble rushing numbers for those five quarterbacks:
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Scramble Rush Stats For NFL's Most Mobile QBs[/h]
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<!-- end inline 1 -->The highest point total (46) is by RG III, who averaged slightly more than three points per game in this category. But project this to 2013, a season when we expect Griffin to preserve his body with a few more throwaways and fewer scrambles, and that number figures to decline.
Now contrast those figures with the totals posted by Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck and Matt Ryan.
<!-- begin inline 2 -->[h=4]Scramble Rush Stats For Lesser-Known Mobile QBs[/h]
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<!-- end inline 2 -->It's notable that the difference between Rodgers and Luck and the five passers listed above is negligible, but what really stands out is the fact that Ryan, who isn't noted for his mobility, earned more than a point per game from scrambling.
Let's say that a full season from Kaepernick doubles his scrambling yards. Throw in a pair of scrambling touchdowns for good measure. That's a jump of 3.25 points per game, but it's still just a marginal gain of roughly two points per game over a non-scrambler like Ryan, Matthew Stafford (27 scramble fantasy points) or Jay Cutler (24). Simply put, assuming defensive coordinators can solve the scripted run plays, mobility pays off only if it leads to a quarterback scrambling for a lot more fantasy points than these quarterbacks put up last season. Otherwise, it should be viewed as an incidental fantasy point bump and valued accordingly.
So if the rushing gains aren't that great, what about the aerial additions? Does having a quarterback who can hit receivers on improvised plays make it worth the extra fantasy draft-day investment?
To answer this, let's start by noting some leaguewide trends on scramble passes.
Scramble plays generated an average of 7.5 yards per attempt (YPA) last season, which is only slightly higher than the league average of 7.1 YPA on all passing plays (a number that includes throwaways, passes knocked down, etc.).
That indicates the scramble-passing-productivity gains aren't stellar and those potential pluses are offset by a ridiculously high 6.3 percent bad-decision rate (BDR) on scramble throws. (BDR is a metric that gauges how often a quarterback makes a mental error that leads to a turnover opportunity for the opposing team.)
The leaguewide BDR average on all passes last season was 2.2 percent, so scramble plays were nearly three times as likely as a standard pass to result in a bad decision.
Those figures illustrate that improvised passing on the run is generally a bad idea, but to answer the fantasy question, let's take a look at the scramble passing numbers generated by the eight quarterbacks listed in the charts above.
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]Scramble Pass Stats For Mobile QBs[/h]
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<!-- end inline 3 -->Five of those passers tallied five or fewer fantasy points on scramble plays, so their point upside here was almost nonexistent.
For Luck and Wilson, this talent led to double-digit fantasy-point gains that still added only somewhere between half a point to one point per game to their fantasy bottom line.
</PHOTO2></P>For Rodgers, he excelled in this arena even more than he did in the rushing category. He was the only quarterback in the NFL last season to top the 500-yard passing mark on scramble plays (no other passer even managed top the 300-yard mark), and Ben Roethlisberger was the only other field general to tally five scramble touchdown passes. But is this fact going to lead you to draft Rodgers any earlier? Hardly.
Add all of these items up and they offer two bottom-line takeaways on mobility:
First, if planned rushing plays are taken out of the equation, mobility is a trait that is generally not going to add a high amount of fantasy point value. And second, when it comes to using mobility to make something out of nothing on the run, no quarterback is equal to Rodgers, who is the clear No. 1 pick.
One of the biggest fantasy football stories of the 2012 season was the advent of the read-option quarterback. This instantly gave leagues a fairly deep set of dual-threat options and changed the way owners approach draft-day strategies, keeper choices and auction bids.
A potential 2013 season impediment for these owners is that every NFL defensive coordinator is working overtime to find ways to slow down or stop the read-option in its tracks.
Those labors bring up a quandary in dealing with mobility value, as that trait generally is divided into two areas: productivity on planned plays, and productivity on unplanned plays, which in this case are most often scramble-type plays.
Because the coordinators will concentrate most of their efforts on stopping the planned plays, how much added value will the scramble plays end up offering these fantasy owners? Will it be enough to warrant paying the extra cost for this skill set, or is it a price too high to pay for the expected return on investment?
<OFFER></OFFER>
To begin to answer this question, let's first look at how scrambling impacts rushing gains.
In general, as noted in a terrific mobile QB fantasy primer article by ESPN.com's Christopher Harris, the big names in the agile quarterback category (Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III, Cam Newton, Russell Wilson and Michael Vick) generate a large percentage of their fantasy point totals via the ground attack.
Those numbers change when this item is viewed through a pure scrambling perspective. To illustrate this, let's start with the scramble rushing numbers for those five quarterbacks:
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Scramble Rush Stats For NFL's Most Mobile QBs[/h]
| Quarterback | Scramble rush yards | Scramble rush TDs | Scramble fantasy points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robert Griffin III | 403 | 1 | 46 |
| Russell Wilson | 328 | 2 | 44 |
| Michael Vick | 309 | 2 | 42 |
| Cam Newton | 291 | 1 | 35 |
| Colin Kaepernick | 202 | 0 | 20 |
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<!-- end inline 1 -->The highest point total (46) is by RG III, who averaged slightly more than three points per game in this category. But project this to 2013, a season when we expect Griffin to preserve his body with a few more throwaways and fewer scrambles, and that number figures to decline.
Now contrast those figures with the totals posted by Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck and Matt Ryan.
<!-- begin inline 2 -->[h=4]Scramble Rush Stats For Lesser-Known Mobile QBs[/h]
| Quarterback | Scramble rush yards | Scramble rush TDs | Scramble fantasy points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron Rodgers | 261 | 2 | 38 |
| Andrew Luck | 255 | 3 | 37 |
| Matt Ryan | 148 | 1 | 20 |
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</TBODY>
<!-- end inline 2 -->It's notable that the difference between Rodgers and Luck and the five passers listed above is negligible, but what really stands out is the fact that Ryan, who isn't noted for his mobility, earned more than a point per game from scrambling.
Let's say that a full season from Kaepernick doubles his scrambling yards. Throw in a pair of scrambling touchdowns for good measure. That's a jump of 3.25 points per game, but it's still just a marginal gain of roughly two points per game over a non-scrambler like Ryan, Matthew Stafford (27 scramble fantasy points) or Jay Cutler (24). Simply put, assuming defensive coordinators can solve the scripted run plays, mobility pays off only if it leads to a quarterback scrambling for a lot more fantasy points than these quarterbacks put up last season. Otherwise, it should be viewed as an incidental fantasy point bump and valued accordingly.
So if the rushing gains aren't that great, what about the aerial additions? Does having a quarterback who can hit receivers on improvised plays make it worth the extra fantasy draft-day investment?
To answer this, let's start by noting some leaguewide trends on scramble passes.
Scramble plays generated an average of 7.5 yards per attempt (YPA) last season, which is only slightly higher than the league average of 7.1 YPA on all passing plays (a number that includes throwaways, passes knocked down, etc.).
That indicates the scramble-passing-productivity gains aren't stellar and those potential pluses are offset by a ridiculously high 6.3 percent bad-decision rate (BDR) on scramble throws. (BDR is a metric that gauges how often a quarterback makes a mental error that leads to a turnover opportunity for the opposing team.)
The leaguewide BDR average on all passes last season was 2.2 percent, so scramble plays were nearly three times as likely as a standard pass to result in a bad decision.
Those figures illustrate that improvised passing on the run is generally a bad idea, but to answer the fantasy question, let's take a look at the scramble passing numbers generated by the eight quarterbacks listed in the charts above.
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]Scramble Pass Stats For Mobile QBs[/h]
| Quarterback | Scramble passing yards | Scramble passing TDs | Scramble passing INTs | Scramble passing fantasy points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron Rodgers | 509 | 5 | 0 | 40 |
| Russell Wilson | 235 | 3 | 2 | 17 |
| Andrew Luck | 290 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| Cam Newton | 145 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Michael Vick | 77 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Colin Kaepernick | 91 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Robert Griffin III | 64 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Matt Ryan | 72 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
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<!-- end inline 3 -->Five of those passers tallied five or fewer fantasy points on scramble plays, so their point upside here was almost nonexistent.
For Luck and Wilson, this talent led to double-digit fantasy-point gains that still added only somewhere between half a point to one point per game to their fantasy bottom line.
</PHOTO2></P>For Rodgers, he excelled in this arena even more than he did in the rushing category. He was the only quarterback in the NFL last season to top the 500-yard passing mark on scramble plays (no other passer even managed top the 300-yard mark), and Ben Roethlisberger was the only other field general to tally five scramble touchdown passes. But is this fact going to lead you to draft Rodgers any earlier? Hardly.
Add all of these items up and they offer two bottom-line takeaways on mobility:
First, if planned rushing plays are taken out of the equation, mobility is a trait that is generally not going to add a high amount of fantasy point value. And second, when it comes to using mobility to make something out of nothing on the run, no quarterback is equal to Rodgers, who is the clear No. 1 pick.
