Ultimate Quarterback Stat Pack: Jayden Daniels Rules
Dive deep into the stats and splits for Daniels, Caleb Williams, J.J. McCarthy, Drake Maye and others to discover hidden secrets and learn whose scouting reports may be filled with helium.
LSU’s Jaden Daniels produced the most impressive deep passing statistics of the last decade in 2023.
Daniels completed 53-of-79 passes of 15-plus air yards for 1,783 yards, 24 touchdowns and just one interception. His completion rate of 67.1% on deep passes led the nation. Don’t let your eyes gloss over that number: a completion percentage of 67.1% would be impressive on all passes, including screens and dump-offs. For deep passes, it’s beyond exceptional.
Daniels’ Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (ANY/A) of 28.1 were 34.4% higher than the second-place figure (20.9) of USC’s Caleb Williams.
Here are the 2023 deep passing statistics for the major quarterback prospects in the 2024 NFL draft. All stats in this feature come from Sports Info Solutions.
Passes of 15-plus Air Yards, 2023
Jayden Daniels: 53-of-79 (67.1%), 1783 yards, 24 TD, 1 INT, 28.1 ANY/A
Caleb Williams: 47-of-86 (54.7%), 1612 yards, 16 TD, 3 INT, 20.9 ANY/A
Bo Nix: 44-of-78 (56.4%), 1,420 yards, 14 TD, 3 INT, 20.1 ANY/A
Drake Maye: 63-of-122 (51.6%), 1884 yards, 15 TD, 4 INT, 16.4 ANY/A
J.J. McCarthy: 47-of-87 (54.0%), 1,145 yards, 12 TD, 2 INT, 14.9 ANY/A
Michael Penix: 72-of-150 (48.0%), 2,186 yards, 18 TDs, 8 INT, 14.6 ANY/A
Spencer Rattler: 35-of-74 (47.3%), 1,081 yards, 7 TD, 6 INT, 12.9 ANY/A
Jordan Travis: 28-of-85 (32.9%), 831 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT, 10.7 ANY/A
South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler and Florida State’s Jordan Travis will appear throughout this feature’s tables as a kind of control group to illustrate what a lower-tier prospect’s stats typically look like. Rattler and Travis are a clear notch below the others in this category.
Daniels attempted just 327 total passes in 2023. Washington’s Michael Penix led the nation with 555 attempts. Naturally, there is a wide disparity in their raw deep-passing numbers. But Daniels threw for just 403 fewer yards in a little more than half as many attempts! And Penix was among the nation’s best-regarded deep passers.
Penix’s eight interceptions on deep passes nerf his ANY/A and should give draft analysts pause. No one else besides Daniels really sticks out. Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy and Oregon’s Bo Nix, the purported dink-and-dunkers of this draft class, have competitive deep-passing numbers.
Here are the highest ANY/A figures for deep passes (minimum 50 passes of 15-plus air yards) in the Sports Info Solutions database since 2016:
Jayden Daniels, 2023: 67.1% completion rate, 28.1 ANY/A
Mac Jones, 2020: 61.8% completion rate, 24.2 ANY/A
Joe Burrow, 2019: 61.2% completion rate, 23.2 ANY/A
Mike White, 2015: 52.0% completion rate, 22.8 ANY/A
Grayson McCall, 2021: 63.3% completion rate, 22.7 ANY/A
Sam Howell, 2020: 50.6% completion rate, 21.1 ANY/A
If we focus on completion rate – a useful metric for accuracy when discussing only deep passes – Daniels posted the highest figure on record in 2023. The only rates over 60% in the database: Coastal Carolina’s Grayson McCall in 2019; Mac Jones at Alabama in 2020, Joe Burrow at LSU in 2019 (all listed above), Nix in 2022 (61.4%) and Matt Corral at Ole Miss in 2021 (60.0%).
Daniels’ eye-popping deep-passing figures in the SEC, coupled with his scrambling ability and measurables, are enough to clearly make him a better overall prospect than Drake Maye. In fact, these figures make me wonder if he is a better overall prospect than Williams.
We’re about to hit the premium subscriber paywall, dear reader. But there’s much more of the Ultimate Quarterback Stat Pack to come, including:
Passing statistics when pressured;
Third down passes past the sticks;
Sacks and sack rates;
Passes over the middle; and
Some scrambling/rushing data.
It’s information you can use! Plus, a paid subscription gets you the Too Deep Draft Assessments in three weeks and much more, including Walkthrough – the Most Respected, Least Respectable NFL Column on the Internet – starting in August.
Too Much Pressure
One of Williams’ most obvious strengths is his ability to keep plays alive, escape danger and make big throws under duress. Therefore, it’s shocking to see him produce some of the worst figures under pressure among the top prospects.
Passing Under Pressure, 2023
Bo Nix: 43-of-67 (64.2%), 603 yards, 9 TD, 1 INT, 6 sacks, 9.7 ANY/A
Jayden Daniels: 27-of-54 (50.0%), 524 yards, 7 TD, 0 INT, 22 sacks, 7.5 ANY/A
J.J. McCarthy: 54-of-79 (68.4%), 799 yards, 7 TD, 3 INT, 19 sacks, 6.6 ANY/A
Michael Penix: 64-of-147 (43.5%), 1,033 yards, 6 TD, 4 INT, 12 sacks, 5.5 ANY/A
Jordan Travis: 37-of-75 (49.3%), 601 yards, 4 TD, 2 INT, 14 sacks, 5.3 ANY/A
Drake Maye: 42-of-99 (43.4%), 750 yards, 8 TD, 3 INT, 29 sacks, 5.1 ANY/A
Caleb Williams: 47-of-105 (44.8%), 738 yards, 9 TD, 4 INT, 33 sacks, 3.5 ANY/A
Spencer Rattler: 62-of-117 (53.0%), 884 yards, 5 TD, 4 INT, 42 sacks, 3.2 ANY/A
Nix played in an offense full of micro-passes, giving him lots of ways to avoid pressure. That said, a 64.2% completion rate under such circumstances is impressive.
Daniels had an obvious Plan B when pressured, which kept his raw totals low. We will get to that in a moment.
McCarthy has a knack for extending plays AND a greater willingness than the others to just dump the ball off. It’s worth noting here that lots of sexy-armed prospects fail early in their NFL careers because they have no instincts for just dumping the ball off. Completing nearly 70% of passes under duress can keep a quarterback in the lineup for a long time.
Penix, again, threw 12 billion passes last year, so both his stats and (critically) his scouting film has lots of examples of everything. Pressure really impacted Penix against Michigan in the BCS Championship, but his overall pressure statistics are competitive, and he doesn’t incur many sacks.
Maye has Hero Ball tendencies, and they show in his pressure stats: not bad, but a little light on completions and heavy on sacks.
Which brings us to Williams. His overall pressure rate of 33.8% was higher than any other quarterback on this list than Rattler, so he attempted more passes under duress than most of his peers. His receivers were not as good as Daniels’ or Penix’s receivers, and his overall supporting cast could not match McCarthy’s, so he didn’t have as many wide-open targets to throw to and often found himself getting chased around in shootouts and losses. Still, I suspect some self-imposed pressure when watching Williams. He definitely makes lots of impressive late-window throws. But these numbers make me wonder: were many of those highlights really necessary?
Scrambles, Sacks and Broken Tackles
One way to escape pressure is to scramble. (Don’t you just love insightful analysis like that?) Sports Info Solutions isolates scrambling data from designed-rushing data AND isolates scrambles under pressure from “coverage” scrambles where the quarterback just shrugs his shoulders and takes off after five seconds. Let’s look at the data for our roundup of suspects:
Pressure Scrambles, 2023
Jayden Daniels: 23 scrambles for 324 yards.
Spencer Rattler: 22 scrambles for 194 yards
Drake Maye: 18 scrambles for 124 yards
Caleb Williams: 14 scrambles for 81 yards
J.J. McCarthy: 8 scrambles for 77 yards
Jordan Travis: 6 scrambles for 57 yards
Bo Nix: 5 scrambles for 36 yards
Michael Penix: 3 scrambles for 22 yards
Ho-hum. Another statistic in which Daniels laps the field.
Williams and Maye will probably be capable NFL scramblers. Rattler and Travis will run around entertainingly in preseason games. Nix has some wheels and niftiness. McCarthy and Penix are mobile enough to get by. Daniels looks like Jalen Hurts, if not Lamar Jackson.
While we are in Scrambletown, let’s check out each prospect’s Broken Plus Missed Tackle Rate ((BT+MT)/A). This data includes all rushing attempts:
Broken Plus Missed Tackle Rates, 2023
Jayden Daniels: 33.3%
Jordan Travis: 31.9%
J.J. McCarthy: 29.7%
Caleb Williams: 22.9%
Drake Maye: 15.3%
Spencer Rattler: 10.2%
Bo Nix: 7.4%
Michael Penix: 5.7%
Daniels’ (BT+MT)/A rate was also over 30% in 2021 (at Arizona State) and 2022. For comparison’s sake, Justin Fields’ (BT+MT)/A at Ohio State in 2020 was 25.9%. Hurts’ rate at Oklahoma in 2019 was 21.9%. Sneaks and kneels can skew these rates a bit, but still.
Travis finally gets a chance to shine a bit in the list above, and Williams flashes some more of his highlight-reel capability. Maye, as usual, is just sorta there.
Do you notice how McCarthy keeps looking as good or better than Williams and Maye in many of these splits? NFL evaluators have noticed. The McCarthy phenomenon may be filled with helium, but it is by no means utter bullsnot.
Let’s wrap this segment with a look at a very simple, somewhat hard to find statistic: sacks. They are not on College Football Reference. They are on ESPN, but you need an extra click to find them. They were not readily available as recently as 10 years ago. Yet a high sack rate makes an incredibly useful Bust Detector, because:
College offenses are full of ways to avoid sacks;
Top prospects usually come from top programs with outstanding offensive lines; and
Top prospects are supposed to be mobile and/or resourceful enough to not get dumped.
Sacks and Sack Rates, 2023
Spencer Rattler: 42 sacks, 8.7% sack rate
Caleb Williams: 33 sacks, 7.3% sack rate
Drake Maye: 29 sacks, 5.8% sack rate
Jayden Daniels: 22 sacks, 5.4% sack rate
J.J. McCarthy: 19 sacks, 5.2%, sack rate
Jordan Travis: 14 sacks, 3.9% sack rate
Michael Penix: 12 sacks, 2.1% sack rate
Bo Nix: 6 sacks, 1.2% sack rate
I wrote about Rattler weeks ago; his sack rate alone is a red flag that excludes him from “top prospect” status.
Nix’s low sack rate is remarkable, especially when combined with his numbers under pressure and not-too-shabby deep passing figures. Oregon’s screen-crazy offense and Nix’s strong supporting cast cannot be the only factors at work here.
Daniels’ and Maye’s sack rates are in line with what we should expect from scramblers, who usually hold the ball longer than pocket passers.
And there’s Williams again, with a semi-alarming sack rate which goes hand-in-hand with his semi-alarming statistics under pressure. (Sack yardage is included in ANY/A, where “attempts” are really “dropbacks”.)
Williams’ sack rate in 2022 was 5.1%: a reasonable number for a scrambling playmaker. Of course, nearly all of Williams’ figures, particularly raw numbers, were better in 2022. That’s why Williams entered last season as the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and prohibitive favorite to be the top overall pick this year.
Maye also had much better numbers in 2022. Daniels, meanwhile, was just Scrambles Magoo until 2023, and I am pretty sure that McCarthy was grown in an Ann Arbor science lab from DNA found in Jim Harbaugh’s hairbrush two years ago.
We should take a quarterback’s entire college career into account when evaluating him. We should also be very wary of prospects who backslide in their final seasons. These players are supposed to be developing, and that development should shine through in the stats, even if teammates leave for the NFL or coaches move on.
If we start picking and choosing each prospect’s seasons, we risk grabbing Rattler at Oklahoma in 2020 or ripping Nix for his Auburn experience. Let’s stay focused on 2023 numbers. Otherwise, we’ll be quibbling until after the draft.
Over the Middle and Past the Sticks
McCarthy has been bugging me throughout this process. I am working on a separate piece about him, and I want to be extra-skeptical, but he keeps passing every statistical litmus test.
McCarthy checks down and throws more shallow crossers, as a percentage of overall attempts, than the other prospects on this list. On tape, he sure looks like he tosses a lot of Kirk Cousins Specials (three-yard passes on 3rd-and-5). So let’s compare all of our top prospects on third/fourth down passes past the sticks.
Because “completions” equal “first downs” on these passes, let’s just concentrate on completion rate, ANY/A and air yards per target.
Third/Fourth Down Passes Past the Sticks, 2023
Caleb Williams: 55 attempts, 61.8%, 15.1 Air Yards/Target, 15.3 ANY/A
Jayden Daniels: 33 attempts, 63.6%, 10.1 Air Yards/Target, 13.4 ANY/A
J.J. McCarthy: 56 attempts, 66.1%, 11.7 Air Yards/Target, 13.0 ANY/A
Bo Nix: 49 attempts, 67.3%, 10.0 Air Yards/Target, 12.0 ANY/A
Drake Maye: 55 attempts, 45.5%, 17.1 Air Yards/Target, 10.6 ANY/A
Spencer Rattler: 56 attempts, 53.6%, 14.0 Air Yards/Target, 9.4 ANY/A
Jordan Travis: 49 attempts, 46.9%, 14.9 Air Yards/Target, 8.8 ANY/A
Michael Penix: 75 attempts, 56.0%, 15.4 Air Yards/Target, 8.0 ANY/A
Williams leads the field in a category. Hooray! He also has a lot of attempts. That speaks to his ability to come through in high-leverage situations. Williams, remember, did not have many opportunities to sit on leads or munch the clock in 2023. He had to convert a lot of third downs.
Daniels again looks great in a small sample. McCarthy looks very good, despite his dump-off reputation. Maye, with his low completion rate but high air yard figures, is again in boom-or-bust territory. Penix (again) has more attempts than anyone else. Four interceptions kneecap his ANY/A, but his completion rate is fine.
Nix has the lowest air yard rate in the group. For the sake of control, I briefly increased the air yard threshold to five yards, eliminating easier 3rd-and-2-type throws. Nix was a fine 25-of-37 (67.6%) on such non-trivial third/fourth down throws past the sticks. McCarthy was 31-of-47 (67.4%). Both Nix and McCarthy can, indeed, deliver high-leverage downfield throws when called upon.
In an effort to cover a common pre-draft talking point – and perhaps take Daniels down a notch – let’s examine the over-the-middle passing statistics for our now-familiar friends. “Over the middle” means between the hash marks, which are further apart in college.
Over-the-Middle Passing, 2023
Jayden Daniels: 54-of-68 (79.4%) 714 yards, 12 TD, 1 INT, 13.4 ANY/A
Caleb Williams: 54-of-72 (75%), 839 yards, 7 TD, 1 INT, 13.0 ANY/A
Jordan Travis: 47-of-67 (70.1%), 750 yards, 5 TD, 0 INT, 12.7 ANY/A
Bo Nix: 82-of-97 (84.5%), 956 yards, 12 TD, 0 INT, 12.3 ANY/A
Drake Maye: 71-of-97 (73.2%), 1,126 yards, 5 TD, 1 INT, 12.2 ANY/A
Michael Penix: 63-of-81 (77.8%), 841 yards, 7 TD, 2 INT, 11.0 ANY/A
J.J. McCarthy: 65-of-88 (73.9%), 814 yards, 6 TD, 2 INT, 9.6 ANY/A
Spencer Rattler: 65-of-86 (75.6%), 797 yards, 5 TD, 1 INT, 9.9 ANY/A
Sigh. So much for taking Daniels down a notch: he leads this category, too.
Daniels throws fewer passes over the middle than any top prospect but Travis, but he also threw fewer total passes than anyone but Travis. If anyone appears reluctant to throw over the middle, it’s Penix, who did so on only 14.6% of attempts. Daniels threw over the middle 20.8% of the time, which seems non-noteworthy.
Daniels threw 10-plus yards downfield over the middle just 21 times. That sounds like a fairly low total, but Nix did so just 18 times in 113 more attempts, Penix just 27 times in over 200 more attempts, and Williams 29 times in 61 more total attempts.
Daniels may indeed be slightly less effective at throwing over the middle than Williams or Maye. But at 6-foot-4, he surely doesn’t have any Bryce Young-like issues seeing the whole field. Also … you have read the rest of this feature.
Every Prospect Shuffling
Sports Info Solutions allows users to sort for passes on which a quarterback’s feet are “moving” or “shuffling,” as opposed to planted. It’s worth examining this data in search of some illustration of our prospects’ abilities to throw off-platform or on the run.
Footwork “Moving” or “Shuffling” 2023
Jayden Daniels: 33-of-45 (73.3%), 580 yards, 5 TD, 0 INT, 15.1 ANY/A
J.J. McCarthy: 51-of-70 (72.9%), 621 yards, 10 TD. 1 INT, 11.1 ANY/A
Bo Nix: 109-of-140 (77.9%), 1,147 yards, 18 TD, 2 INT, 10.1 ANY/A
Caleb Williams: 65-of-117 (55.6%), 1,027 yards, 13 TD, 3 INT, 9.8 ANY/A
Jordan Travis: 73-of-110 (66.4%), 811 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT, 8.1 ANY/A
Drake Maye: 64-of-110 (58.2%), 760 yards, 8 TD, 2 INT, 7.5 ANY/A
Spencer Rattler: 81-of-128 (63.3%), 845 yards, 8 TD, 1 INT, 7.5 ANY/A
Michael Penix: 56-of-111 (50.5%), 545 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT, 5.2 ANY/A
Once again we see Daniels dominating in a small sample size. McCarthy looks capable. Williams and Maye, the creative off-structure heroes, deliver low completion rates, though Williams again flashes more of his gigantic-play capability.
Nix’s footwork could stand to be tidied up a bit: he takes little hop steps when flinging screens or flat passes, something he does a lot. His touchdown total above looks wild, but remember that he threw 45 of them in 2023.
Penix gets happy-footed under pressure and sometimes fails to set his feet properly when throwing to the sidelines (he remains positioned to throw over the middle but swivels at the waist). He may be something of a lefty Jared Goff.
Some soft conclusions
I didn’t compile all these statistics so I could pass mighty judgments on Williams, Daniels or anyone else. I compiled them so subscribers like you (including those of you in the sports media industry) could have access to them and draw your own conclusions. Oh, and so I can reference them in podcasts or on the radio.
Still, it’s hard to spend days sifting through databases and writing up the results without drawing a few inferences, if not firm conclusions:
Williams remains the best quarterback prospect in the 2024 draft due to his career accomplishments, readiness and so forth. Still, the tables above illustrate that he is not a Trevor Lawrence/Andrew Luck caliber prospect.
The NFL world appears to be about 95% certain that Williams is better than Daniels or anyone else. I am about 55% certain.
That said, Daniels is too much like Justin Fields to be a realistic option for the Bears. Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus need someone with at least a reputation as a more polished passer.
Maye has slipped behind Daniels in most mock drafts and may be slipping behind McCarthy for some evaluators. The numbers above illustrate several reasons why. Maye doesn’t perform well statistically under pressure (by the standards of a top prospect) and doesn’t blow the field away as a deep passer or in any other area. He doesn’t have Josh Allen OMG traits to make up for what we see in the data.
Maye and Williams may both benefit from a “sticky” scouting report: both entered the 2023 season as top prospects, a status that can be hard to lose unless you really screw up.
Maye and Williams may both also benefit from the sexiness of their sizzle reels. Both have lots of wowza highlights, but both may also scramble more than necessary, and their incomplete Hero Balls are easy to overlook or dismiss. Meanwhile, McCarthy converts two-thirds of third/fourth downs with short on-target passes, but some folks scoff at the “system quarterback.”
I joked about McCarthy “as Kenny Pickett 2.0, aka slower Daniel Jones, aka Mac Jones with a more rectangular jawline” earlier in the week. I was indeed joking. I like him better than I liked any of those three prospects coming out of college. The numbers illustrate that he belongs in the conversation with the likes of Maye.
Nix, similarly, is not just some system dink-and-dunker. He’s a better deep passer and decision maker under duress than he’s given credit for. As I wrote after the combine, he reminds me of the current version of Baker Mayfield.
Penix is vexing. He has fine pressure numbers but a bad pressure reputation, which again might just be largely the result of a rattling by Michigan in a game the whole world watched. He completed lots of downfield passes but also suffered some interceptions. His numbers over the middle are relatively limited. He offers little scrambling or throw-on-the-run capability. He also turns 24 in May and benefited from perhaps the best receiving corps in the nation. In short, there are lots of little yellow flags in his data.
I would take any of the top six prospects over any “retread,” with the possible exception of Justin Fields, whose raw talent makes him more enticing than at least Penix and Nix. I would rather take my chances rehabilitating Sam Howell or Kenny Pickett than dipping into the Rattler/Travis pool, though Joe Milton (Tennessee) is toolsy enough to make me pause.
Finally, I don’t think teams like the Giants, Broncos or Raiders should punt at quarterback this year if they get a chance to land one of the six-pack. This is a strong class, stronger than 2021 in my opinion, and it will be better to pick fourth or fifth this year than second or third in a more typical draft class.
I've been a bit of a JJ McCarthy skeptic, for no real solid reasons as is my right as a football fan. I have heard that the Vikings are interested in him. McCarthy seems the most "Kirk Cousins-like" of the top QBs. Do the Vikings see McCarthy as an immediate fit into their current offense and as a draft capital savings when moving up compared to Daniels or Maye? Still, as a Packers fan, I'd rather face McCarthy in the coming years than Daniels on an annual basis.
Very interesting numbers. Stats can be quite bland so I play old tapes in the background of Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless arguing like junior high kids to establish a proper ambiance.
So: Williams isn't as good as we think, McCarthy is better and the Bears won't draft anyone with even the vaguest passing resemblance to Justin Fields....
Thus: Bears trade #1 to Giants for #6, #71, 1st Round 2025 and Brian Burns, then draft McCarthy; Giants take Williams.
Result: 2 for 1 clickbait available on the headline..
"The shocking reason Brian Burns will NEVER play for the Giants!"
"You won't BELIEVE how the Bears can get #1 pick three years in a row!"