Evaluating 2018's NFL Rookie Quarterbacks
Josh Rosen
Jackson, Darnold, and Allen were all below-average in 2018. Rosen was blood-fissuring-from-the-eyes bad. But as with Allen, it's hard to evaluate him because of the surrounding talent.
Rosen finished 2018 ranked dead last in Passing NEP per drop back at -0.23. McCown and Cody Kessler were the only other qualified quarterbacks below -0.09. Rosen finished with -100.79 Passing NEP in total, the seventh-worst mark in numberFire's database (which dates back to 2000) and the worst since Jamarcus Russell in 2009. Not great, Bob!
A lot of the blame for that does belong to the offensive line. Rosen lost 79.93 Passing NEP due to sacks this year, ninth-most in the league. If you take the sacks out of his Passing NEP, he does at least slide ahead of McCown on a per-attempt basis. Progress!
Another culprit seems to be the Arizona Cardinals' pass-catchers. Rosen didn't do too poorly when he was targeting Larry Fitzgerald or Christian Kirk, but the rest of the group was an absolute disaster.
| Rosen in 2018 | Passing NEP/P | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Targeting Fitzgerald and Kirk | 0.15 | 47.3% |
| Targeting Others | -0.15 | 41.1% |
Kirk was pretty easily Rosen's best target as Rosen had 0.25 Passing NEP per target when going Kirk's way. It makes sense, then, that the offense reached new levels of bad after Kirk's season-ending injury.
Kirk will be back in 2019, and they could trade out of the first overall pick in order to load up on offensive linemen in the draft. That would help. But would that enough to inspire optimism for Rosen's future?
This situation seems pretty similar to what the Los Angeles Rams had with Jared Goff two years ago.
As you know, Goff was a nightmare his rookie season. In fact, his numbers were even worse than Rosen's.
| As Rookies | Passing NEP/P | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Rosen in 2018 | -0.23 | 37.0% |
| Goff in 2016 | -0.28 | 33.8% |
In the offseason, the Rams changed coaches, spent big on the offensive line in free agency, and put quite a bit of draft capital into pass-catchers. They did everything they could to support Goff, and it has worked.
Goff's turnaround was historic. It would be foolish to bet on a similar change for Rosen. But there is a broader takeaway here that is more important to focus on.
Sometimes, the situation around a player is bad enough where you almost need to actively ignore the numbers that stem from it. At some point, a team is just irredeemably bad, and it's going to take the quarterback and everybody else down with it.
For the Cardinals, that really seemed to take place from Week 11 on when left tackle D.J. Humphries got hurt. Rosen was a hair better at -0.19 Passing NEP per drop back at the time of Humphries' injury, and he was at -0.18 when Kirk was lost for the year. The last couple of games really put everything in the pooper, even moreso than they were previously.
Rosen has a lot of question marks around him heading into 2019, more than any other quarterback in this class. Because of that, we're going to need to remain highly skeptical of excitement around either Kirk or David Johnson for fantasy (or Fitzgerald if he decides to come back). It'll also make betting the over on the Cardinals' team win total a hard sell as things stand now.
That would change if the Cardinals were to make the proper changes. If they hire an offensive mind and upgrade the offensive line, then we can start to sniff pieces tied to this team again. For now, though, our baseline vibe around this entire team -- including Rosen -- should be heavy skepticism.
