Is Mitchell Trubisky really all that elite at taking sacks when put into perspective

HeHateMe

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Is Mitchell Trubisky really all that elite at taking sacks when put into perspective of our last "franchise" quarterback?

By Vick Ashley, Chicitysports posting contributer

In all the talk about Mitchell Trubisky and what he has shown thus far especially from what is being literally "coached" into him at this early stage of his career, the one primary focus that is probably most easily measured is how he has the ability to take sacks well when there is not anything there to throw at. So I took the trouble of actually looking up the numbers and while it may not be a fair comparison to compare Trubisky to our former veteran franchise QB, JAY CUTLER, the numbers literally will make you shake your head in concern or astonishment.

While many on here continue to post about how Trubisky is "at least not throwing interceptions and he gives up a sack like a true veteran-good-decisioning-quarterback" I have to point out this as it pertains to ball security while being sacked. Mitchell Trubisky has played 8 games and taken TWENTY ONE sacks so far this season which is a lot of sacks, but what is troubling about these sacks is that he has literally coughed up the pigskin EIGHT TIMES in EIGHT GAMES for an average fumble/game of ONE, and a Fumble to total sack ratio of 8/21 or 38%

Contrasted with JAY CUTLER, who has played 10 games and has only 15 sacks, his fumbles/game is only 10% and his fumbles/sack ratio is 1/15 or 6% which is likely the best of his career but even in bad years like 2015 he was taking almost 2 sacks per game but had a much smaller fumble/sack ratio of 20.6% over 15 games, literally almost half of our rookies fumble/sack ratio this year.

So before people start literally "crowning" Trubisky for certain aspects of his game I think it is prudent to make sure you go take a hard look at the numbers which never, ever lie because statistics can make you look like an ignoramus when you are dead wrong.
 

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Its a valid point. I was/am a huge Trubs supporter, even early on in the draft.

He is certainly struggling right now. He doesn't trust his protection or his receivers, and for good reason.

I wanted Trubs to sit the bench this season and learn.

Let's hope he can get coached out of these bad habits.
 

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Must clarify something brought up by BEAR PRIDES in another thread because he is too "chicken-****" to come into this thread, but he is right that Trubiksy turned the ball over on only 3 of the 8 fumbles so far this season meaning that someone on the bears even Mitchell himself got on top of the ball for the recovery, however I must also point out that the total number of yards lost on his sacks is 128 for the season which is 128% of an entire football field of play, and has him at 16 yards lost/games started on sacks which is not too bad until you look at Rex Grossman who was notorious for losing yards due to sacks who had a career average of just under 13 sack yards/game.
 

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Must clarify something brought up by BEAR PRIDES in another thread because he is too "chicken-****" to come into this thread, but he is right that Trubiksy turned the ball over on only 3 of the 8 fumbles so far this season meaning that someone on the bears even Mitchell himself got on top of the ball for the recovery, however I must also point out that the total number of yards lost on his sacks is 128 for the season which is 128% of an entire football field of play, and has him at 16 yards lost/games started on sacks which is not too bad until you look at Rex Grossman who was notorious for losing yards due to sacks who had a career average of just under 13 sack yards/game.

this is the best stat ever. thank you for putting these sacks into context for me
 

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this is the best stat ever. thank you for putting these sacks into context for me

Its even more than the whole field, plus the end zones. Which is still, literally, "less than" the number of yards he's lost.
 

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His 9.5 inch hands are considered medium sized. Below Watson and Kizer. Ahead of Mahommes. Going back, I would draft Kizer due to having the largest hands at 9.875". For reference, Rex Grossman had 9.25" hands, the same as Mahommes, so expect him to be a big bust.
 

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Must clarify something brought up by BEAR PRIDES in another thread because he is too "chicken-****" to come into this thread, but he is right that Trubiksy turned the ball over on only 3 of the 8 fumbles so far this season meaning that someone on the bears even Mitchell himself got on top of the ball for the recovery, however I must also point out that the total number of yards lost on his sacks is 128 for the season which is 128% of an entire football field of play, and has him at 16 yards lost/games started on sacks which is not too bad until you look at Rex Grossman who was notorious for losing yards due to sacks who had a career average of just under 13 sack yards/game.

Jesus Vash, I tried to give you a chance to be a decent poster only to find this thread, where you're calling me a "chicken-****" and calling me out in a thread I didn't even know existed.?!? WTF is that? I guess you are going to prefer to be the punkass that starts dumb threads instead.
 

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His 9.5 inch hands are considered medium sized. Below Watson and Kizer. Ahead of Mahommes. Going back, I would draft Kizer due to having the largest hands at 9.875". For reference, Rex Grossman had 9.25" hands, the same as Mahommes, so expect him to be a big bust.
Hand size determining how good a QB is instead of actual talent? You're a meathead.
 

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Jesus Vash, I tried to give you a chance to be a decent poster only to find this thread, where you're calling me a "chicken-****" and calling me out in a thread I didn't even know existed.?!? WTF is that? I guess you are going to prefer to be the punkass that starts dumb threads instead.

How can you claim that you had no idea it existed when I literally linked it in a posting I made in the other thread that you literally responded to, 12 minutes later, almost two hours ago? Nice try but you and your friend TEDDY KFC continue to prove my points about your credibility, time and time again and here is the proof right into your own face, Mr. PRIDE:

http://www.chicitysports.com/forum/...lo-Right-Now?p=2911945&viewfull=1#post2911945
 
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Hand size determining how good a QB is instead of actual talent? You're a meathead.

Quarterbacks need to be tall. They need to be tall to see over the offensive and defensive lines. If you aren’t tall, you’re not going to have much of an opportunity to be a championship-caliber quarterback.

That’s the popular opinion around the NFL, and I don’t buy it. Sure, extra height might help a quarterback in certain situations, up to a point. Given the choice between a 6’5” quarterback and a 6’0” quarterback with all other things being equal or unknown, I’ll take the taller one.

But I don’t think height matters all that much, and certainly not to the extent that people believe, even though I’ve done studies showing taller quarterbacks have more NFL productivity and efficiency than shorter ones.

How can that be? Well, I believe height is very strongly correlated with a trait that matters quite a bit for NFL quarterbacks—hand size. Tall quarterbacks typically have larger hands than shorter ones; if hand size were really important for passers, we’d expect the tallest ones to perform the best even if height doesn’t matter at all.

To test this idea, I charted as many quarterback hand sizes and career NFL stats as I could. I found hand measurements for every quarterback who was drafted since 2008, but before that, it’s a crapshoot. Hand sizes weren’t recorded well before that time and there’s really no reliable source to find that data. Some pre-2008 quarterback hand sizes have been made public in various places, however, so I collected as much information as possible.


To start, I considered only quarterbacks who were drafted from 2008 to 2012 and had their hands measured at the combine to be sure everything was standardized. Then, I charted both their approximate value (AV) per season (a good measure of their overall productivity) and their completion percentage.

The latter stat is important because I believe larger hands allow quarterbacks to control the football and throw it accurately. If my hypothesis is correct, we should see passers with larger hands have a higher completion percentage.

Comparing hand size with height, here’s the difference in the r-value (correlation coefficient—the strength of the relationship between x and y) for hand size/height and both AV/season and completion percentage. Basically, I just subtracted the r-value for the hand size correlation from that for the height correlation. If hand size is more strongly correlated with NFL quarterback success and accuracy than height, we’d expect the values to be positive.

ZkQnwVS.jpg



Both values are positive, and it’s not even that close. There’s a much stronger correlation between hand size and both approximate value and completion rate than there is between height and those stats.


Short Quarterbacks Who Thrive

If hand size really matters more than height for quarterbacks, we’d expect two things to be true: over the long run, 1) tall quarterbacks with abnormally small hands will struggle and 2) short quarterbacks with abnormally large hands will thrive.

Again, that’s going to be difficult to prove conclusively because there’s not a huge sample of hand measurements pre-2008, but there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is the case. Looking back on the short quarterbacks who have excelled in the NFL, many of them have really big hands for their height.

Consider that the NFL average for quarterback hand size is currently 9.6 inches. Well, some of the top “short” quarterbacks (6’2” or shorter) of the past decade have ridiculously large hands—Drew Brees (10.25 inches), Russell Wilson (10.25 inches), Brett Favre (10.38 inches). There are also countless tall quarterbacks with small hands who were drafted highly and failed to live up to expectations.


Small-Handed Quarterbacks Who Excel

There are some quarterbacks with small hands who have bucked the trend to play well in the NFL, too. But as I studied those quarterbacks, it became clear that the majority have one thing in common—mobility. Some of the top small-handed quarterbacks to play in the past decade include Michael Vick (historically small 8.5-inch hands), Colin Kaepernick (9.13 inches), Robert Griffin III (9.5 inches), Daunte Culpepper (9.5 inches), Aaron Rodgers (9.38 inches), and Tony Romo (8.86 inches).

All of those passers are either runners or have well above-average mobility in the pocket. Romo is the least athletic by far, but even he has been able to work wizardry in the pocket at times to buy time for receivers.

Thus, I think what we’re seeing here is that quarterbacks either need to have above-average hand size or above-average mobility to ultimately do what passers need to do to win—deliver the football with accuracy. If you aren’t going to be able to stand in the pocket and consistently throw the ball accurately like Peyton Manning, you better be able to move around, buying time to make those throws easier.

When quarterbacks have both traits—like Russell Wilson, for example—it’s perhaps a really strong sign that they’re going to perform above expectations in the NFL.


Acquiring Value in the Draft

If you talk to NFL quarterbacks, I think most would tell you that they throw through lanes, not over the top of the line. Tall quarterbacks have played well not because they can see over players who are often taller than them, but because height is obviously strongly correlated with hand size. Big height, big hands, big accuracy.

You ever throw a small football and notice how much more accuracy and power you can generate? If I could throw with one of those tiny NERF footballs with the tail at the end, I’m pretty sure I’d be an NFL Hall-of-Fame quarterback. Just ridiculously deadly. Quarterbacks with huge hands like Brees and Wilson are playing with the equivalent of a NERF ball.

Both of those quarterbacks are really interesting cases because they fell in the NFL draft—Brees to the second round and Wilson incredibly to the third—because they’re short. Brees is 6’0” and Wilson is 5’11”.

Somewhat ironically, I think NFL teams (and us fantasy owners) can acquire value by actually targeting quarterbacks who are short but have large hands. They fall too far because teams are emphasizing the wrong trait.

So why not just draft a tall quarterback with large hands? Aren’t all 10.25-inch hands the same?

No. Remember, NFL teams are “paying” for height in quarterbacks, so tall quarterbacks with big hands are going to get drafted highly anyway. It’s for the wrong reason, but the big hands will still be priced into their draft slot, meaning there’s no discount available.

Meanwhile, short quarterbacks with large hands typically offer value because they’re being downgraded for a characteristic (height) that probably isn’t nearly as important as teams think.

And you know the fantasy owners in your league are drafting rookies based on how they were drafted in the NFL draft, so you too can acquire that same value on short quarterbacks with big hands. If you don’t believe me, just compare Wilson’s rookie fantasy draft position with Andrew Luck’s (or even Ryan Tannehill’s).

I actually created a really simple formula to determine how much value a quarterback will likely offer in the draft: HS/H*100 (hand size divided by height multiplied by 100). The higher the result, the more likely the quarterback will be to offer value.

In the 2012 NFL Draft, for example, Tannehill checked in at 76 inches tall with nine-inch hands. His “Jonathan Bales Hand Size and Height Comparison for Quarterbacks Who Can’t Pass Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other QB Stuff Good Too” value was 9 divided by 76 (0.1184) * 100, or 11.84.

Compare that to Wilson, who was only 71 inches tall with 10.25-inch hands (10.25/71*100 = 14.44). That’s just an unbelievable difference, suggesting Wilson was bound to offer far, far more value than Tannehill.

There are more things that go into being a quarterback than hand size, obviously, but when two prospects get drafted near one another, use the formula to see which one was more likely to drop too far, and thus offer value.

Typically, we want quarterbacks who have hands of at least 9.5 inches, but preferably closer to 10 inches. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but the majority of those passers can also beat defenses with their legs. The more mobility a quarterback possesses, the more you can forgive a lack of elite hand size. If a quarterback is a statue in the pocket, he better have some big hands and a history of production in college.
 

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For the record. I'm just messing with you. I didn't envision anyone taking that post seriously, but it was just in jest.
 

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Tarik Cohen has the biggest hands on the team, as evident by his 100% touchdown rate, something Trubisky obviously isn't good enough to achieve. Put him at QB...

OT: How shitty is it that you throw 15 passes in a game and the coach calls a wildcat play... I mean that's a fucking confidence back breaker right there.
 

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Tarik Cohen has the biggest hands on the team, as evident by his 100% touchdown rate, something Trubisky obviously isn't good enough to achieve. Put him at QB...

OT: How shitty is it that you throw 15 passes in a game and the coach calls a wildcat play... I mean that's a fucking confidence back breaker right there.
Like they didn't know the run was coming :lmao:
 

JordanHoward24

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Quarterbacks need to be tall. They need to be tall to see over the offensive and defensive lines. If you aren’t tall, you’re not going to have much of an opportunity to be a championship-caliber quarterback.

That’s the popular opinion around the NFL, and I don’t buy it. Sure, extra height might help a quarterback in certain situations, up to a point. Given the choice between a 6’5” quarterback and a 6’0” quarterback with all other things being equal or unknown, I’ll take the taller one.

But I don’t think height matters all that much, and certainly not to the extent that people believe, even though I’ve done studies showing taller quarterbacks have more NFL productivity and efficiency than shorter ones.

How can that be? Well, I believe height is very strongly correlated with a trait that matters quite a bit for NFL quarterbacks—hand size. Tall quarterbacks typically have larger hands than shorter ones; if hand size were really important for passers, we’d expect the tallest ones to perform the best even if height doesn’t matter at all.

To test this idea, I charted as many quarterback hand sizes and career NFL stats as I could. I found hand measurements for every quarterback who was drafted since 2008, but before that, it’s a crapshoot. Hand sizes weren’t recorded well before that time and there’s really no reliable source to find that data. Some pre-2008 quarterback hand sizes have been made public in various places, however, so I collected as much information as possible.


To start, I considered only quarterbacks who were drafted from 2008 to 2012 and had their hands measured at the combine to be sure everything was standardized. Then, I charted both their approximate value (AV) per season (a good measure of their overall productivity) and their completion percentage.

The latter stat is important because I believe larger hands allow quarterbacks to control the football and throw it accurately. If my hypothesis is correct, we should see passers with larger hands have a higher completion percentage.

Comparing hand size with height, here’s the difference in the r-value (correlation coefficient—the strength of the relationship between x and y) for hand size/height and both AV/season and completion percentage. Basically, I just subtracted the r-value for the hand size correlation from that for the height correlation. If hand size is more strongly correlated with NFL quarterback success and accuracy than height, we’d expect the values to be positive.

ZkQnwVS.jpg



Both values are positive, and it’s not even that close. There’s a much stronger correlation between hand size and both approximate value and completion rate than there is between height and those stats.


Short Quarterbacks Who Thrive

If hand size really matters more than height for quarterbacks, we’d expect two things to be true: over the long run, 1) tall quarterbacks with abnormally small hands will struggle and 2) short quarterbacks with abnormally large hands will thrive.

Again, that’s going to be difficult to prove conclusively because there’s not a huge sample of hand measurements pre-2008, but there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is the case. Looking back on the short quarterbacks who have excelled in the NFL, many of them have really big hands for their height.

Consider that the NFL average for quarterback hand size is currently 9.6 inches. Well, some of the top “short” quarterbacks (6’2” or shorter) of the past decade have ridiculously large hands—Drew Brees (10.25 inches), Russell Wilson (10.25 inches), Brett Favre (10.38 inches). There are also countless tall quarterbacks with small hands who were drafted highly and failed to live up to expectations.


Small-Handed Quarterbacks Who Excel

There are some quarterbacks with small hands who have bucked the trend to play well in the NFL, too. But as I studied those quarterbacks, it became clear that the majority have one thing in common—mobility. Some of the top small-handed quarterbacks to play in the past decade include Michael Vick (historically small 8.5-inch hands), Colin Kaepernick (9.13 inches), Robert Griffin III (9.5 inches), Daunte Culpepper (9.5 inches), Aaron Rodgers (9.38 inches), and Tony Romo (8.86 inches).

All of those passers are either runners or have well above-average mobility in the pocket. Romo is the least athletic by far, but even he has been able to work wizardry in the pocket at times to buy time for receivers.

Thus, I think what we’re seeing here is that quarterbacks either need to have above-average hand size or above-average mobility to ultimately do what passers need to do to win—deliver the football with accuracy. If you aren’t going to be able to stand in the pocket and consistently throw the ball accurately like Peyton Manning, you better be able to move around, buying time to make those throws easier.

When quarterbacks have both traits—like Russell Wilson, for example—it’s perhaps a really strong sign that they’re going to perform above expectations in the NFL.


Acquiring Value in the Draft

If you talk to NFL quarterbacks, I think most would tell you that they throw through lanes, not over the top of the line. Tall quarterbacks have played well not because they can see over players who are often taller than them, but because height is obviously strongly correlated with hand size. Big height, big hands, big accuracy.

You ever throw a small football and notice how much more accuracy and power you can generate? If I could throw with one of those tiny NERF footballs with the tail at the end, I’m pretty sure I’d be an NFL Hall-of-Fame quarterback. Just ridiculously deadly. Quarterbacks with huge hands like Brees and Wilson are playing with the equivalent of a NERF ball.

Both of those quarterbacks are really interesting cases because they fell in the NFL draft—Brees to the second round and Wilson incredibly to the third—because they’re short. Brees is 6’0” and Wilson is 5’11”.

Somewhat ironically, I think NFL teams (and us fantasy owners) can acquire value by actually targeting quarterbacks who are short but have large hands. They fall too far because teams are emphasizing the wrong trait.

So why not just draft a tall quarterback with large hands? Aren’t all 10.25-inch hands the same?

No. Remember, NFL teams are “paying” for height in quarterbacks, so tall quarterbacks with big hands are going to get drafted highly anyway. It’s for the wrong reason, but the big hands will still be priced into their draft slot, meaning there’s no discount available.

Meanwhile, short quarterbacks with large hands typically offer value because they’re being downgraded for a characteristic (height) that probably isn’t nearly as important as teams think.

And you know the fantasy owners in your league are drafting rookies based on how they were drafted in the NFL draft, so you too can acquire that same value on short quarterbacks with big hands. If you don’t believe me, just compare Wilson’s rookie fantasy draft position with Andrew Luck’s (or even Ryan Tannehill’s).

I actually created a really simple formula to determine how much value a quarterback will likely offer in the draft: HS/H*100 (hand size divided by height multiplied by 100). The higher the result, the more likely the quarterback will be to offer value.

In the 2012 NFL Draft, for example, Tannehill checked in at 76 inches tall with nine-inch hands. His “Jonathan Bales Hand Size and Height Comparison for Quarterbacks Who Can’t Pass Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other QB Stuff Good Too” value was 9 divided by 76 (0.1184) * 100, or 11.84.

Compare that to Wilson, who was only 71 inches tall with 10.25-inch hands (10.25/71*100 = 14.44). That’s just an unbelievable difference, suggesting Wilson was bound to offer far, far more value than Tannehill.

There are more things that go into being a quarterback than hand size, obviously, but when two prospects get drafted near one another, use the formula to see which one was more likely to drop too far, and thus offer value.

Typically, we want quarterbacks who have hands of at least 9.5 inches, but preferably closer to 10 inches. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but the majority of those passers can also beat defenses with their legs. The more mobility a quarterback possesses, the more you can forgive a lack of elite hand size. If a quarterback is a statue in the pocket, he better have some big hands and a history of production in college.
You know what big hands mean [emoji6][emoji533]

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