July 21, 2017

Who is the CFL’s top downfield passer?

The Canadian Press

Downfield passing is a staple of the Canadian Football League and we commonly label quarterbacks with wide ranging descriptions for their ability to push the ball down the field.

We will say that Mike Reilly has a ‘big arm’ even though the actual size of his arm is the same as everyone elses. We will call Jonathon Jennings a deep shot play maker because we believe from watching games that he can put the ball downfield better than most, but what do the numbers show on downfield passing?

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I admit I originally began tracking these statistics in an attempt to figure out where the heck my Hamilton Tiger-Cats vertical passing had gone from the memories of 2015 when Zach Collaros led the CFL in yards per attempt with an average of 9.4 while throwing 25 touchdowns and just eight interceptions all before the mid-fall ACL injury that ended his outstanding campaign.

Funny enough, since I started looking into these numbers last week, the Ticats pass yards in the air per attempt has jumped from 9.55 to 11.03 including as many targets over twenty yards in their last game against BC (nine) as they had in their first two games combined (nine).

Once I saw the Ticats numbers I had to know how they compared to the rest of the CFL. Let’s begin with the number of times a quarterback gets aggressive looking down the field.

In just one week of true action, Travis Lulay set the standard for downfield aggression with nine attempts of 20 or more yards.

If you prefer to look at a passer with a full season of throws to compare than Ricky Ray is your club house leader. Largely due to his incredible Week 1 performance against the Tiger-Cats when he completed nine of 12 passes thrown more than 20 yards, his standard has yet to be beat by any quarterback in 2017 for a single game.

The chart above just shows the number of downfield attacks per game, but doesn’t tell you how often a quarterback takes a shot compared to how often they play it safe as the chart below does.

Matt Nichols takes downfield shots on passing plays more than any other quarterback in the CFL.

It’s a stat that caught me a bit off guard and is sure to make Blue Bombers offensive coordinator Paul LaPolice happy, or so you would think. More on that in a moment.

Darian Durant attempts vertical passing less than anyone else in the CFL thanks to Collaros and the Ticats recent passing aggression revival. Hamilton is out of the basement in percentage of attempts reaching 20 yards or more in the air.

While Durant might not stretch the field as much as anyone else is the CFL, when he decides to air it out he is amongst the most accurate deep ball passers in the Canadian Football League alongside BC’s Jonathon Jennings and Edmonton’s Mike Reilly.

I have also been tracking offensive line play from a quarterbacks’ perspective this season. As with anything I assign a grade to I simply give each offensive play a value from 1-5 based on my definition of what is bad (1) or great (5) and then multiply by 20 to get a grade out of 100.

For example, in offensive line play I assign the following values for each play.

1 – Sack allowed.

2 – Hit while throwing or just after releasing.

3 – Hurried or forced to leave pocket before wanting to do so.

4 – Minimal pressure but throw is close to being affected.

5 – No pressure, a clean pocket to operate from.

Using this same method for each offensive play of every game, I put together a protection grade for each CFL team on passes where their quarterback puts the ball 20 or more yards in the air.

While Durant might not take to the deep skies as much as other CFL quarterbacks, when he does he is very accurate and is afforded the best protection of any passer in the game. This made me wonder just how closely tied together the offensive line protection grade and quarterback accuracy is to each other.

The above chart shows a fairly equal relationship between protection afforded and accuracy attained on passes twenty yards or more down the field. There are two exceptions though.

First take a look at both Travis Lulay and Jonathon Jennings of the BC Lions. They seem to be outperforming their offensive line and completing passes accurately downfield despite facing more adversity than other CFL quarterbacks through the first four weeks.

Next, look at Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Matt Nichols. Remember when I said above that Nichols’ downfield aggression would make offensive coordinator Paul LaPolice happy? The fact is Nichols is getting the 4th cleanest pocket for downfield pass attempts but is the least accurate quarterback on passes of twenty or more yards right now in the CFL.

We’ve talked about accuracy, tendency as well as protection, but all that really matters is completion percentage on downfield passes. They can be ugly wobbling ducks or plays with little to no protection but if the pass is completed who cares?

Darian Durant’s accuracy and offensive line protection is allowing him to lead the CFL in completion percentage on deep shots. Most impressive about this high completion percentage is that it has resulted in five of his six touchdown passes in 2017.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Zach Collaros and the Tiger-Cats offence. Despite upping their likelihood to attack down the field in the last two weeks, the Black and Gold’s offence still sits comfortably below the rest of the CFL in downfield completion percentage.

The remainder of Week 5 in the CFL has a couple of matchups worthy of a downfield aerial attack. That Winnipeg offence with the suddenly gun slinging Matt Nichols takes on Travis Lulay and his nine downfield attempts from Week 4 on Friday night while Kevin Glenn who sits second in vertical pass attempts per game (8.00) will compete against one of the CFL’s best at creating big plays in or outside the pocket in Calgary’s Bo Levi Mitchell.

I can’t wait to see how these trends and many more evolve throughout the remainder of the season. You just never know who might surprise you with the ability to do something many label them of incapable of achieving.