Matthew Stafford’s MVP Case and Caleb Williams’s Time to Throw: The Week 10 QB Notebook

Welcome to the Ringer's quarterback notebook, where I’ll cover the past week in NFL quarterbacking—from the most interesting passers, plays, and story lines, to some other stuff that caught my eye watching film. In this week’s notebook, we’ll be looking at Caleb Williams’s time to throw, Matthew Stafford’s eye-catching old-man game, Josh Allen’s recent rut, Bryce Young’s historically bad numbers, and more. Let’s talk quarterbacks.

Why you shouldn’t care about Caleb Williams’s average time to throw

Maybe now that the Bears are winning games and Caleb Williams is putting up near top-10 numbers in Ben Johnson’s offense, we can stop with the statistical comparisons between Williams and Jared Goff. I know better, though. We’re always just one bad game away from another round of Does Caleb fit Johnson’s scheme? debates.

The most useless version of those centers around the notion that Williams is some untrained quarterback who can’t function in structure and is always looking to play backyard football. Just look at how much higher Williams’s average time to throw is than Goff’s was in the same system! That proves it!

No it doesn’t—because of course Williams’s average time to throw is higher. One of these quarterbacks can extend plays, and the other melts into a puddle if a receiver doesn’t get open after three seconds. You’re not flagging a flaw in Caleb’s game by pointing out his high time to throw; you’re simply describing his play style. He’s willing, and able, to create when a play breaks down. It’s a big reason why he went first in the loaded 2024 QB class; and the importance of that ability is a big reason why quarterbacks like Goff are no longer being taken at the top of the draft.

Williams’s league-leading time to throw would be a more concerning data point if he was still taking a ton of sacks. But he isn’t! He’s sporting the fifth-lowest sack rate in the NFL this season, and ranks ninth-lowest in pressure-to-sack rate. On extended dropbacks (over 4 seconds), his sack rate is 10.9 percent—nearly half the league average of 20 percent. Find a new slant!

Here’s a play from Sunday’s 24-20 win over the Giants that illustrates why you should ignore any concern trolling about this. It’s third-and-4 in the third quarter, and Williams scrambles for a first down after escaping the clutches of Kayvon Thibodeaux.

Per TruMedia, the pressure arrived 2.4 seconds after the snap. If Williams had just taken a sack then, it would have brought down his average time to throw. But by getting out of it and extending the play, his official time ended up at 7.4 seconds. That’s obviously going to inflate his season-long average. So if you’re just using a simple “low is good” and “high is bad” grading scale here, you’d come away thinking Williams made a worse play by escaping the sack.

Williams is awesome at extending plays, and the numbers would do a better job of reflecting that if Bears receivers would catch the damn ball. Six of Williams’s passes on extended plays have been dropped this season, and he’s lost 7.7 EPA as a result, per TruMedia. Those are both the highest marks of any quarterback in the league. Baker Mayfield ranks second in both categories, but trails by a wide margin with three drops and 2.2 EPA lost. Chicago receivers dropped three of Williams’s passes on extended plays on Sunday alone.

When Williams’s teammates start turning those opportunities into big plays, it will be easier to embrace his otherworldly ability to make throws out of structure. For now, though, doubters will continue to question it.

Matthew Stafford is my MVP pick through 10 weeks

There’s probably a more substantial argument to be made on Stafford’s behalf, but mine is simple: This guy is hooping, and it’s been thoroughly entertaining to watch this weathered, bad-backed quarterback school defenses with no-look throws and trick shots. It’s like watching Adam Sandler play pickup

Stafford was back at it on Sunday against the 49ers. I giggled like a little kid watching his film back this week. Look how early he rips this throw to Davante Adams, who’s running a deep in-breaker.

This is a man who sees this window:

And thinks, Yeah, I can fit one in there.

This dad of four cannot be contained.

Here’s a no-look pass to the flat for absolutely no reason at all.

Stafford isn’t the NFL’s best quarterback, but he’s been the best show this season. That’s enough to earn my (non-existent) vote for MVP in a year that otherwise has no clear favorite.

Is Josh Allen OK?

The Bills lost to the Dolphins 30-13 on Sunday and Josh Allen turned the ball over twice. He’s had a multi-turnover game in each of Buffalo’s three losses, and each time that’s sent the fanbase into a doom spiral. This seems to happen for the fanbase a couple times per season and usually lasts no more than a week or two. But with games against top-10 defenses in Tampa Bay and Houston up next on the schedule, this spell could last a little longer.

When Allen hasn’t turned the ball over this season, he’s been really good. And honestly, even some of his multi-turnover games have been solid. Here are his percentile ranks for a few key passing metrics by game, via TruMedia. The Atlanta game was Allen’s only real stinker.

The Bills’ passing game has been consistently efficient, so why, when you watch Buffalo’s offense, does it feel like Allen is struggling? He’s holding onto the ball a long time as he waits for a receiver to pop open downfield, and that’s happening less and less often. Allen is on pace to record his highest time-to-throw since 2020 and his lowest-ever average depth of target. He also appears to be working through a case of the zoomies. This seems to happen a lot with him when the big passing plays dry up: he starts forcing things. That means looking past open receivers underneath to hunt for big plays that have little chance of succeeding. Against the Dolphins, he appeared bored with Joe Brady’s play-calling—and I guess I can’t blame him. I like Brady as a play-caller, but his dropback passing game isn’t very expansive or ambitious. It’s built around a few core concepts that mostly attack the short areas of the field.

Here’s the first pass call of the day. The Dolphins are all over it, so Allen escapes the pocket and tries to connect with Keon Coleman on a scramble drill throw.

Brady comes back to the same play later in the first half, and Allen has several options open underneath, but he turns them down to scramble out of the pocket and eventually throw the ball away.

Big, downfield throws aren’t coming in rhythm as often as they used to for Allen, and it’s clearly weighing on his decision-making process. He’s gone through these fits of scattered decision-making before and has managed to self-regulate and get his mind focused again. But he’ll need to do it quickly this time with loseable games coming over the next two weeks and the Patriots starting to pull away in the AFC East.

Jalen Carter got in Jordan Love’s head

Jalen Carter brought out Jordan Love’s inner bozo on Monday night. Carter got no credit for Love’s slapstick fumble that cost the Packers a chance at a field goal before halftime of a game they lost by three points, but he deserves some.

Here’s the play from the end zone angle:

You can see that Carter’s presence in the passing lane causes Love to pull out of a throw to an open Luke Musgrave before he runs into the hit that caused the fumble. Carter had already batted two of Love’s passes out of the air before that play, which likely caused the QB’s hesitation.

Love panicked his way into a sack, and upgraded it to a sack-fumble by trying to flip the ball while both of his arms were pinned to his body. That decision, in that spot, is why I haven’t been able to rank Love higher than eighth in my quarterback rankings at any point this season despite him putting up efficiency stats that would place him in the top five. He doesn’t have the sense for when to go into hero mode and when to dial it back—and that’s something all the other top quarterbacks possess.

When is it time to give up on a first-round quarterback?

When they’re keeping company like this midway through their third season:

The 10 worst first-round QBs since 2000, by career dropback EPA (via TruMedia):

Bryce Young may not be on the Mount Rushmore of worst first-round quarterbacks but he’s on the waitlist behind some of the league’s most infamous busts. If you narrow the scope to just first-overall picks, Young could be the worst of the century. He ranks dead last in career EPA behind even JaMarcus Russell.

Sunday’s 17-7 loss to New Orleans was the rock-bottom moment many Panthers fans needed to give up on the idea of Young being The Guy. If I could pick out one play that illustrates why Young won’t be developing into a solid starter, it wouldn’t be his lone interception. It would be this short completion to Rico Dowdle that went for 1 yard but could have gone for so much more. The play design had Tetairoa McMillan running a crossing route, Jalen Coker running an in-breaking route behind it, and Dowdle running to the flat as a checkdown option.

McMillan’s crossing route is picked up, but the middle of the field opens up with Coker running into the void.

Make the throw, Bryce! Instead, he makes an awkward, flatfooted throw to Dowdle that forces the running back to pluck the ball off the ground. Young was up on his toes trying to get a good look downfield, which threw off his footwork on the check down. He didn’t have the arm strength to make up for it.

I know we’re not allowed to give up on first-round busts in the age of the Reclamation Project quarterback, but it never looked this bad for guys like Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, and Mayfield in comparably bad situations.

The Next Gen Stats passing map that made me laugh out loud this week

The sad part is, that’s probably the ideal passing map for an offense that’s being quarterbacked by Justin Fields. It was enough to get the Jets their second win of the season—a 27-20 victory over the Browns.

The best throw I saw this week

I know it fell incomplete, but I can’t get over this fourth-down throw by Williams in the first quarter against the Giants.

It sails 45 yards in the air, cutting through wind and flurries, on a direct line to D.J. Moore’s (outstretched) hands. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a ball travel that quickly for that long, and Williams made that throw on the run with a defender in close pursuit.

The worst throw I saw this week

There were worse decisions, for sure, but from a technical standpoint, there wasn’t a worse throw than this wayward one from Michael Penix Jr. to Darnell Mooney in overtime against the Colts.

Mooney couldn’t get two feet down even if the field extended to the outer edge of the sideline.

It’s still early in Penix’s career, so I can’t fault Falcons fans for holding out hope that he’ll eventually be their guy, but his lack of accuracy is something I just can’t get past.

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