FanPost

Geno Smith. Did we miss anything this year?

As we come to the end of the season a lot of questions will be asked about the QB position on this team. Do we have a franchise QB? Can he get better? Should we move on? Etc etc.

When watching Geno play this year I noticed something that gave me a feeling that he could in fact be a good QB in the NFL. I noticed that when Geno was a threat to run the ball it seemed like his passing game also got better. So I decided to check and see if this was in fact the case. Here are the results.

These are the stats I used to gather the data needed. http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/gamelog/_/id/15864/geno-smith

His season stats were as follows:

Passing: 247 from 443, 3046Yds, 55.8 comp%, 6.88avg, 12TD’s, 21Int’s,

Rushing: 72 for 366yds, 5.1avg, 6TD’s

Firstly I decided to check and see how he looked on a strictly win/loss basis

The Jets had 8 wins this year. In those 8 wins Geno’s stats look like this:

Passing: 134 from 227, 1757Yds, 59.0 comp%, 7.74avg, 10TD’s, 5Int’s

Rushing: 50 for 274yds, 5.5avg, 6TD’s

In the 8 losses his stats are:

Passing: 113 from 216, 1289Yds, 52.3comp%, 5.97avg, 2TD’s, 16Int’s

Rushing: 22 for 92yds, 4.2avg, 0TD’s

As you can see Geno’s passing stats looked pretty decent in the games we won but lousy in the games we lost like you would expect. There is a full 1.77 yards difference in the yards per pass average and a huge 6.7% difference in the comp%. There is also a huge difference in the TD to Int Ratio of 10TD’s to 5Ints in the winning games and 2TD’s to 16Ints in the losing games. But his rushing stats in our 8 wins are off the charts in comparison to his rushing stats in those 8 losses. Maybe we can see if there is any type of connection by doing some more analysis.

For my next test lets break down the games where he had 4 rushing attempts or more. Geno had 8 games where he had 4 or more rushes. He has a 7-1 W/L record in these games with his single loss coming against Carolina. The game stats for those 8 games are as follows:

Passing: 133 from 235, 1725Yds, 56.6comp%, 7.34avg, 8TD’s, 6Int’s

Rushing: 53 for 297Yds, 5.6avg, 6TD’s

And in the 8 games with 3 or less rushing attempts his stats looked like this:

Passing: 114 for 208, 1321Yds, 54.8comp%, 6.35avg, 4TD’s, 15Int’s

Rushing: 19 for 77yds, 4.1avg, 0TD’s

As you can see Geno does much better in the passing game when he has 4 runs or more. His comp% is 1.8% better and the difference in his yards per attempt average is .99yards better. His TD to Int Ratio in those games with 4 or more rushes is now 8TD’s to 6Ints compared to 4TD’s to 15Ints. There is also a very noticeable difference in his run stats. There is a huge difference in attempts and yardage gained. His yard per rush average is 1.5 yards better in those 8 games with 4 or more rush attempts. The TD difference is also hugely in favor of the 4 or more games by 6TD’s to zero.

Now let’s check his stats in the games we lost by 10+ points( the blowout losses) in comparison to the games we were competitive in. The Jets lost 6 games by 10 points or more but how effective was Geno rushing in those games? Well let’s find out. His stats were as follows:

Passing: 83 from 153, 908yds, 54.2comp%, 5.93avg, 1TD, 12ints

Rushing: 13 for 31Yds, 2.38avg, 0TD’s

And in the other 1o games

Passing: 164 for 290, 2138yds, 56.6comp%, 7.37avg, 11TD’s , 9TD’s

Rushing: 59 for 355yds, 6.02avg, 6TD’s

For those 6 10+ point losses Geno’s comp% is 2.4% lower and the yards per attempt difference is 1.44yards less than the 10 other games. The TD to Int Ratio is now 1TD to 12Ints in our 6 blowout losses compared to 11TD’s to 9Ints in the other 10 games. But the difference in his rushing stats are astounding. His yards per rush difference is a whopping 3.64yards better in the 10 non Blowouts games and again the TD’s are also 6 zero in their favour.

Conclusion:

To me anyway, it looks like when Geno runs the ball effectively the Jets seem to be a harder team to beat. His passing accuracy seems to improve slightly but he also seems to take care of the ball better too. For 6 games the Jets seemed to get away from wanting to use Geno as a running threat and our competitiveness seemed to suffer.

We have no way of truly knowing how good Geno can be as our QB but if we can use his run ability to our advantage I think Geno could be a better QB and more valuable than we think.

Thanks for Reading.

This is a FanPost written by a registered member of this site. The views expressed here are those of the author alone and not those of anybody affiliated with Gang Green Nation or SB Nation.