Which Quarterback in the 2018 NFL Draft Class Is Statistically Superior?

What We're Looking For

So, if stats actually do tell us something about college quarterbacks, what exactly are we looking for? I'm glad you asked.

The three main categories we'll be looking at are how many games the player played in college (with a minimum of 10 pass attempts), his final-year passing efficiency rating, and his final-year adjusted yards per attempt (AY/A, which factors both touchdowns and interceptions into a yards-per-attempt-esque number). We'll also list each quarterback's collegiate Total QBR because it factors rushing into the equation, but it will not be weighed into the ranking because it has had less statistical significance in past years than the other numbers.

In order to find benchmarks here, we looked back at past first-round picks to see which ones wound up being successful in the NFL and in which areas they thrived. "Successes" were determined by a quarterback's finishes in Total Net Expected Points (NEP), numberFire's metric used to track the expected points added over the course of a season both as a passer and a rusher. Of the 48 quarterbacks drafted in the first round from 2000 on, 19 have yet to record a single top-15 season in Total NEP. That does include Paxton Lynch, Patrick Mahomes, and Mitchell Trubisky, who will be excluded from the next set of calculations because they haven't yet had three full seasons since their draft year.

Below is a comparison of the average marks for the first-round quarterbacks who have logged at least one top-15 finish to those who have not (again, excluding the recent draftees yet to make the cut). We're not setting the bar high, but there's a pretty clear split here.

And if you're skeptical of averages in small samples, here's the same chart except with median marks.

The big thing that should jump out there is draft slot, and it validates the work that scouts do. If they deem a player to be worthy of a high-end selection, they're far more likely to succeed than someone who goes later in the first round. Scouts are good at what they do, which is another reason why we should take the stats on the passers with a grain of salt. But the other numbers do legitimize looking at this.

If we want to set the bar a bit higher, we can instead look at quarterbacks who have been top-10 passers in one third of their seasons in which they had at least 200 drop backs. This leaves us with just 10 total passers out of our trimmed-down list of 45, but those 10 had some sparkly stats.

And again, here are the median values.

These are basically the benchmarks we want out of a quarterback when he's leaving college. If he has played roughly 36 games while holding a passing efficiency rating around 160 with an AY/A of 9.0 or higher, there's a decent chance he'll be successful. If he falls short of those marks, we'll want to be skeptical at best.

There will obviously be exceptions (Matt Ryan has been a fixture in the top 10, and his final-year stats at Boston College were abysmal), but for the most part, you need good stats to succeed at the next level.

As we get into this year's batch, each player will have his stats listed along with a former first-round pick whose passing stats mirrored his when they were coming out. Again, this is based only on their statistical resumes as a passer, which will clearly be important for the discussion around Jackson.

With that in mind, let's get to the ranking. If you paid attention during the college football season, the guy topping this list won't shock you.