Clearing the Smoke: Anthony Richardson
Figuring Out What's Real & What Isn't with Anthony Richardson
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Now that the wide receiver portion of my pre-draft analysis is over, I can finally focus on the player and topic that has been most requested: Anthony Richardson.
When I wrote the article about Will Levis, all anyone did was call me a UT Homer (Roll Tide, bitches) and that I need to do an article on Richardson. Spoiler Alert: That was always the plan from the outset.
I know people think I have it out for Levis and only paint things in a bad light, but the fact of the matter is I am just objective. Objectively, Levis has a ceiling that is limit, and both his tape in 2021 and 2022 don’t show a Franchise QB that is able to elevate those around him.
Richardson’s tape is a tad bit different. There’s a lot of bad, but there is a lot of good too. He does things in the pocket no one else in this class can. He can quickly and violently (which is a good term for QBs) reset himself in the pocket when the pressure gets to him.
Richardson’s tape does get frustrating fairly quickly, because he just misses some easy throws, but a lot of that is because of inexperience and the work he will need to put in on improving his footwork.
I have watched six games of Anthony Richardson’s live and watched the All-22 of those same six and one additional one. Here are the games:
Utah
Kentucky
Tennessee
Georgia
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Florida State
What I will be talking about in this article is a mix of what I saw, what others smarter than me saw, and of course, the data.
Tale of the Tape: Anthony Richardson vs Florida State
One of the biggest hater reason surrounding Anthony Richardson from Big Orange Nation, is that Richardson threw 10 straight incompletions in the game versus Florida State. What’s hilarious is that myself and ESPN have him throwing 12 in a row
2nd Quarter: 3
2nd Quarter: 7
2nd Quarter: 2
However, what you’re going to learn throughout this article, if you haven’t been paying attention to prior articles/tweets of mine, is that not all incompletions, interceptions, and throws are created equal.
I spent my dreary Sunday morning going back and watching all twelve of the incompletions mentioned above. I watched them on its own film and also watched J.T. O’Sullivan break down roughly five or six of them to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing.
So, I am going to break down all of 12, and the interception he threw so we can keep score at home.
2nd Quarter Incompletions (3)
1st and 10: Anthony Richardson sees what he is supposed to, and makes the correct decision, but because of poor footwork it causes him to have accuracy issues and misses an easy shuffle pass to the running back.
Blame: Anthony Richardson
1st and 10: Richardson gets an A++ for throwing with anticipation. There is confusion on what route the wide receiver was supposed to run, but chalking this up as a miss because Richardson had poor footwork regardless.
Blame: Anthony Richardson
3rd and 10: The pass protection is horrible. This causes Richardson to have to use some of his athleticism and magic to avoid pressure. He makes moves in the pocket on this play that no one else in this class could. However, because of the bad pass pro, he’s late on the throw, his arm gets hit, and he misses the wide receiver.
Blame: Bad Pass Protection
3rd Quarter Incompletions (7)
2nd and 8: A safety blitz from the defense from way deep. Richardson misses a frustratingly easy lay up due to his heels being up off the ground. Bad footwork.
Blame: Anthony Richardson
3rd and 8: Running back comes from out wide pre snap to help with the blocking. Running back totally screws up his blocking assignment. Richardson shows his famous suddenness in the pocket and tries to make a hero play, but it’s just a tad bit off the mark.
Blame: Running Back
1st and 10: This is an easy miss straight up. No excuses. He puts the ball out on the screen way too far ahead of the pass catcher.
Blame: Anthony Richardson
2nd and 10: Midrange ball. Richardson showed touch and anticipation, but the defender just made a better play on the ball than the wide receiver.
Blame: No one, Broken Up pass
2nd and 8: Either a play-action or RPO, either way, Richardson makes the correct read, and throws deep, but the wide receiver fell down.
Blame: Bambi Legs Wide Receiver
3rd and 13: Beautiful deep ball that the receiver has his hands on down the sideline, but a second defender jostles it loose before the receiver can get control.
Blame: Great play by second defender
1st and 10: Anthony Richardson puts up a ball for his wide receiver to go make a play at it. However, the wide receiver just failed at the catch point, and let a defender knock the ball out.
Blame: Wide Receiver
4th Quarter Incompletions (2)
2nd and Goal: Richardson hits his pass catcher for the touchdown but the dude just straight up dropped it.
Blame: Pass catcher
3rd and Goal: This incompletion is due to pass interference on the wide receiver in the end zone. Richardson hit his wide receiver on the money.
Blame: No one
Interception (1)
The only interception of the game by Richardson is because his Tight End sabotaged him by drifting up field on a scramble drill. Massive no-no by the tight end, drifting up the field, allows the defender to undercut the route. the throw itself was very good but the route ran was terrible.
Blame: Tight End #87
Final Score out of 13 throws: 4 of 13 were Richardson’s fault.
But please, go on about that box score you were scouting for this game.
Completion Percentage is Overrated
Completion percentage is a stat that I have grown tiresome of over the years. When first getting into football and data, I thought that completion percentage was a great and concrete way to figure out who was a good quarterback and who wasn’t.
However, over the years I have come to the conclusion that it is a flawed metric. This is why I prefer now to look at other metrics like adjusted completion percentage, completion percentage over expected, catchable percentage, and on-target percentage.
All of these give you better insight into the quarterback, especially when you throw in a stat like a passers average depth of target into the mix. data website FiveThiryEight.com, explains that while NCAA completion percentage is a metric that can translate to the NFL, and be useful, it has its shortcomings.
One of those shortcomings is the fact that a player can pad their completion percentage with short, safe passes. We all know of that quarterback. the dink and dunk guy who gives you nothing in terms of explosiveness. He just carves up a defense. underneath all day.
The average depth of target also has a lot of carryover into the next level. This tendency to either go deep or throw short translates to the NFL, and those patterns persist.
However, what needs to be done is take into account the average depth of target. A quarterback who has a low completion percentage, but high average depth of target they should gain some ground in that regard. This quote from a former NFL QB Coach sums it up:
"The design of an offense has great impact on completion percentage. If we're going to, you can take a young man and encourage him to check down, suddenly you look up and he's completing 68 or 70 percent of his passes. That's wonderful. But what do you sacrifice to get that done? We don't have a vertical passing game suddenly."
"You have to be careful with completion percentage." - Steve Logan
So, as an offense how you want to operate will have a direct effect on the completion percentage. I will discuss the impact of the scheme more in the next section, but to be fair, and unbiased, I want to show where Richardson compares to Will Levis on the metrics that closely translate to NFL success, according to FiveThirtyEight:
Richardson has a clear advantage in aDOT and Total QBR rating. Richardson, due to his incompletions, has a lower yards per attempt. However when you take into account some adjusting for various other circumstances, he has a higher Y/A.
Richardson having the higher QBR is interesting because that includes an adjustment to account for the level of competition a player faced. It boosts players from conferences where it is tougher to complete a pass and dings players whose numbers are generated in conferences where passing is easier.
Both quarterbacks played in the SEC, so Levis just wasn’t as good versus the same level of competition compared to Richardson. I truly wish that CPOE was available, but I cannot find it anywhere, because I think that will shine a true light on Richardson’s accuracy.
In the end, the volatility of the Florida scheme does more harm than good for Richardson.
About that Scheme
"Explosion plays, that's where you make your living. Go look at any touchdown drive. Well, every now and then you'll get a 16-play touchdown drive, or a 12-play touchdown drive, it's first, second, third-down and you convert. But most touchdown drives are made up of first down, second down, third down, first down, explosion play, touchdown. That's where we want to live.." - Steve Logan
The Florida offense lived and died off of the explosive play. The Florida offense was built around the philosophy of “Go Big or Go Home” but it didn’t have any of the elite level surrounding talent to implement it.
Billy Napier is a fantastic coach, and I think he devised an offense that utilized Richardson’s arm strength and physical talent, but everyone else couldn’t give the offense what it needed.
This “go big” offense resulted in Richardson being the absolute lowest in terms of rate of passes that went from 1-10 air yards. Meaning they rarely ran quick game, RPOs, or screens. To be honest though, he also seemed almost uncomfortable running screen passes in the Florida State game.
Nate Tice, who is a fellow Richardson truther, put together a nice clip that essentially shows what Richardson was asked to do in this offense. Unfortunately, because Twitter and Substack are beefing I can’t embed it, but you can click the link above and see it.
Essentially, the offense is heavy PA with a Sail or Post-Over combo. Essentially all the routes are ran deep, meaning Richardson has to have anticipation, timing, and accuracy to deliver the ball. Which he does have on most of these concepts.
However, the make-up of this offense is why you see such weird stat lines for Richardson. Like 8/10 for 240 yards versus Eastern Washington or 9/27 for 198 yards versus Florida State.
That’s an insane 30 yards and 22 yards per completion respectively! That is an insane number. Remember Tannehill’s insanely efficient Green Bay game from last season? He posted 333 yards, 2 TDs, and 81.48% completion percentage. He had 22 completions for 333 yards, and 15.1 yards per completion.
That’s how crazy this offense is. What I do love about it though, is what they demanded of Anthony Richardson, a redshirt sophomore. This was Richardson’s first year as a full time starter, and first year in this offense. New head coach and new offensive coordinator, but they demanded a lot out of him.
Matt Waldman called him the Underrated Pocket Manager and Field General, and I fully agree with that. Richardson was consistently asked to make pre-snap and full field reads every game. His football IQ was remarkable for his age and environment, and it will only get better with more experience.
Remember, Anthony Richardson has a higher S2 score than C.J. Stroud, who is a year older in his development.
His Age is a Massive Plus
If you recall from my Clearing the Smoke: Will Levis article, I talked about a quarterback’s age and the role it plays in development and growth.
Including quarterbacks from 2018 doesn’t change the numbers much. What’s fantastic is that not only will he be 21-years old the opening day, but his breakout age was in the 84th percentile among quarterbacks. This why I love Richardson as a quarterback.
I truly believe that he is just inexperienced, not raw. I was super surprised when he decided to declare for the draft, because I thought he could’ve made himself more money by taking the NIL money and also getting better at the position.
However, I like the idea of him getting to a NFL offensive coordinator sooner rather than later. He is at that young impressionable quarterback age that can provide a big boom to your offense while going through the growing pains of quarterbacking in the NFL.
While I understand the belief that he needs a year to sit behind a starter, I disagree that it is a must. Unlike Malik Willis, Richardson was already asked to do a lot versus top-level competition from a mental standpoint. Richardson knows the nuance of the game and he’s already played with sub-par talent around him, so if he were to land with the Titans or any team, I think the best thing for him is to start.
He’s mentally tough, and physically tough, and while he may show flaws as a passer, his athletic ability as a runner is going to still provide you with some offensive success. To me, if I am looking at his fit with the Titans, I am seeing a younger version of Lamar Jackson in this offense. Run heavy, RPOs, play-action, and just carbon-copy what the Ravens have done this year.
His age, for me, is the biggest factor in my reasoning as to why I believe he is a better prospect than Will Levis, and has a better future than Hooker. This stuff matters.
The Stats
I just wanted to do a quick rundown of some stats. First, I want to put in perspective the different forms completion percentages. Quick Definitions:
Catchable%: The percentage of pass attempts that were deemed catchable, excluding spikes, throwaways, and miscommunications and including defensed accurate passes.
On-Target%: The number of on-target/catchable throws a quarterback makes divided by the total number of pass attempts. Does not include plays with no reasonable accuracy expectation such as: spikes, throwaways, QB/WR miscommunications, receiver slips, and passes batted at the line of scrimmage.
ADJ%: Adjusted Completion Percentage - the % of aimed passes thrown on target (completions + drops / aimed)
Now, let’s look at his numbers in these categories
Completion %: 53.8
Catchable %: 79.8
On-Target %: 65.4
Adj Cmp %: 64.1
Those look much better and depict a more accurate story about Richardson’s first year as a full-time starter. Out of the top-4 quarterbacks plus Will Levis, Richardson was pressured the most. He was pressures 37.10% of his drop backs which is 3% more than Levis. However, due to his athleticism, he was able to only be sacked on 3.8% of his drop backs.
Richardson and Levis both were the biggest victims of drops. 7.4% for Richardson and 7.5% for Levis. Neither had an excellent supporting cast, but Richardson was able to use his legs and not be a statue to try and create plays.
Richardson also wasn’t as turnover prone with a 2.8% interception rate to Levis’s 3.5%. Richardson utilized his arm strength way better than Levis did. Richardson had intended air yards totaling 3,232, while Levis only had 2,227 intended air yards. Even 2021 Levis falls short in this category. Levis just hasn’t been an effective deep passer compared to the other QBs.
Speaking of 2021 Levis, I wanted to do an advanced stat comparison between 2021 Levis, 2022 Richardson, and 2022 Levis.
Points Earned: The total of a player’s EPA responsibility on passes using the Total Points system that distributes credit among all players on the field for a given play. Totals are scaled up to map to the average points scored or allowed on a team level, with the player's snap count determining how much to adjust. For passers, this includes accounting for offensive line play, sacks, off-target passes, dropped passes, and dropped interceptions.
Points Above Average: The total of a player’s EPA responsibility on passes using the Total Points system that distributes credit among all players on the field for a given play. For passers, this includes accounting for offensive line play, sacks, off-target passes, dropped passes, and dropped interceptions.
Here’s where it stacks up:
When I talk about elevating a team around you, this is what I mean. Richardson in his first year added points at better clip than either of Levis’s seasons. Keep in mind: he was younger too.
Conclusion
Anthony Richardson is a highly talented athlete who has major upside as a NFL quarterback due to his age, work ethic, and unique talent. He was asked to do so much in a system that doesn’t benefit the completion percentage for a passer.
Richardson's physical abilities are simply off the charts. At 6'4" and 240 pounds, he possesses incredible speed, strength, and agility, which make him a formidable force on the field.
He also possesses incredible instincts and quick thinking skills, which allow him to read defenses and make split-second decisions on the field. This kind of mental agility is crucial for success at the quarterback position in the NFL, where split-second decisions can mean the difference between a touchdown and a turnover.
An under the radar attribute as to why Richardson is likely to succeed in the NFL is his work ethic. Throughout his college career, he has demonstrated a commitment to hard work and constant improvement, always striving to become a better player and leader. This kind of dedication and discipline is essential for success at the professional level, where the competition is fierce and the demands are high. Just read more about all of this on his recent Player’s Tribune article.
Finally, Richardson's talent and potential are simply undeniable. He has already shown flashes of brilliance on the field, dazzling fans and scouts alike with his impressive performances. As he continues to refine his skills and gain experience, there is no doubt that he will become an even more formidable force in the NFL.
Do not misconstrue any of this, Richardson will face challenges as he makes the transition to the NFL. The competition will be tougher, the demands will be higher, and the pressure will be intense. However, with everything I listed above, he is more than capable of rising to the challenge and achieving great success at the professional level.
I’m all in. You’re either getting Vince Young without the Cheesecake Factory Addiction or Lamar Jackson. I think he’s that good.
There is no doubt in my mind that he will become one of the NFL's most exciting and dynamic quarterbacks in the years to come.
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