Maintaining a rational perspective this time of year is an invaluable trait, but it seems that perspective is being lost when it comes to measuring the relative draft day merits of Oklahoma State Cowboys quarterback Brandon Weeden and Texas A&M Aggies passer Ryan Tannehill.
Tannehill's huge edge in age (he will be 24 years old at the end of the 2012 NFL season, while Weeden will be 29) is a primary reason he has been vaulted over Weeden on many draft boards, but a variety of metrics reveal that Weeden is the better QB prospect and more than makes up for the calendar difference.
Overall metrics
Let's start by reviewing their 2011 route depth metrics in contests against BCS conference-caliber foes (sans the Kansas game for Weeden).
Here are Tannehill's numbers.
Ryan Tannehill's 2011 stats
Route Depth Comp Att Yds TD Int Pen Pen Yds YPA
Short (1-10 yards) 203 266 1545 13 1 2 -12 5.7
Medium (11-19 yards) 61 104 1016 5 6 0 0 9.8
Deep (20-29 yards) 11 35 332 4 3 1 15 9.6
Bomb (30+ yards) 5 23 267 3 1 1 15 11.8
Other (throwaways, etc.) 1 41 3 0 3 0 0 0.1
Total 281 469 3163 25 14 4 18 6.7
Vertical (11+ yards) 77 162 1615 12 10 2 30 10.0
Stretch Vertical (20+ yards) 16 58 599 7 4 2 30 10.5
And here are Weeden's.
Brandon Weeden's 2011 stats (sans Kansas game)
Route Depth Comp Att Yds TD Int Pen Pen Yds YPA
Short (1-10 yards) 250 299 1887 10 1 3 11 6.3
Medium (11-19 yards) 63 100 1147 13 4 2 13 11.4
Deep (20-29 yards) 16 28 539 2 0 1 15 19.1
Bomb (30+ yards) 3 16 103 1 1 1 15 6.9
Other (throwaways, etc.) 0 17 0 0 2 0 0 0.0
Total 332 460 3676 26 8 7 54 8.0
Vertical (11+ yards) 82 144 1789 16 5 4 43 12.4
Stretch Vertical (20+ yards) 19 44 642 3 1 2 30 14.6
Weeden beat Tannehill in yards per attempt (YPA) at every route depth level except for the bomb pass category, and his 4 YPA lead in stretch vertical passes shows that he was still more productive on aerials deep downfield.
Consistency
Weeden was also much more consistent than Tannehill.
Tannehill completed 70 percent of his passes in two of his 2011 contests against BCS conference teams. Weeden topped that mark six times.
Tannehill posted a YPA total of 8 yards or higher in three games. Weeden did that five times.
Tannehill notched a passer rating mark of 140 or higher three times (if the Northwestern game in which he came up just short of this level is counted in his favor). Weeden reached that mark nine times and actually only had two games in which he did not achieve this goal.
Career growth
Tannehill started on a high note in his first three starts of the 2010 season (switching over from WR), but when the competition level increased dramatically over the last three games of the season (versus Nebraska, at Texas, versus LSU in the Cotton Bowl), he went 55-for-94 for 504 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions. That equates to an abysmal 5.4 YPA and an equally bad 107.7 passer rating.The late-season swoon for Tannehill recurred in 2011 during the last seven BCS-caliber games of that season, as he posted a YPA mark of 6.1 or less five times. Take the contest against the abysmal Kansas Jayhawks' defense (ranked No. 118 in passer rating allowed) out of his totals during that time frame and Tannehill had a 5.9 YPA and a 113.8 passer rating, both of which are quite comparable to the aforementioned poor statistical marks he had in 2010.
To get an idea of how much Weeden's passing performance grew from 2010 to 2011, note that he topped the 140-passer rating mark in only five BCS games in the 2010 campaign; in 2011 he did it nine times.
Ability to raise the level of play of those around him
This factor is huge for Weeden, because contrary to popular belief, Justin Blackmon did not have a dominant 2011 campaign. This was a primary reason Blackmon ended up ranking sixth in my recent review of the top 10 wide receiver prospects in this year's NFL draft class.
Blackmon's overall YPA numbers were more than three yards off of his dominant junior season totals yet Weeden was able to keep the Cowboys' offense scoring points at an even higher rate.
Tannehill did face something of the same issue with one of his star wideouts, as Jeff Fuller regressed from a 9.1 YPA against BCS teams in 2010 to a 6.5 YPA mark in that category in 2011, but a lot of that credit has to go to Ryan Swope. Swope set Aggies single-season totals in receiving and receiving yards last year and established himself as the team's true No. 1 wideout. Weeden did not have the luxury of an alternate No.1 wide receiver (Josh Cooper, the Cowboys' second-best wideout, is merely a possession receiver), and thus his achievement here still ends up being superior.
Big game performance
The most disturbing part of this analysis is that Tannehill fell apart when the Aggies needed him the most. The most egregious example is when he posted a career-low 80.45 passer rating in Texas A&M's farewell Big 12 contest against the archrival Texas Longhorns. That passer rating was not a statistical anomaly, either, as Tannehill made a slew of passing errors and looked rattled by the Longhorns' defense.Weeden did not have a dominant statistical performance in the Cowboys' biggest game of the year, a blowout victory over the archrival Oklahoma Sooners in a Bedlam game that decided the winner of the Big 12 conference, but he had zero interceptions and zero bad decisions in that contest (a bad decision being a mental error, such as a dropped interception, that leads either to a turnover or a near turnover). That stands in stark contrast to the three interceptions he posted against the Sooners in 2010 and again shows how Weeden was able to grow with experience.
Age isn't a big issue
Trent Dilfer made a terrific point when he noted in a recent Insider article that NFL teams rarely think of their quarterbacks along the lines of a 10-year plan.
History affords many cases of elite quarterback play over the age of 29. According to the seasonal NFL YPA leaders chart on pro-football-reference.com, 47 out of the 95 quarterbacks who have led or tied for the lead in that category since 1936 have been 29 years or older.
Biography
In some ways this may be the most important factor of all.
Tannehill wasn't able to win the Aggies' starting job in 2008 and was only moved back into that role two a half years later when Jerrod Johnson's injuries and erratic play left the Texas A&M coaches with little choice.
By contrast, Weeden came into a program that had a record-setting starter in Zac Robinson, so he had to wait until Robinson graduated to get a shot at the job. Once he received that opportunity, Weeden won the gig and dominated from day one, breaking Robinson's marks and winning all-conference honors.
This leads to an obvious question. If Tannehill had trouble winning over his collegiate coaches less than two years ago and his play since that time has been inconsistent at best and Weeden's path has been pretty much the exact opposite, why are people banking on Tannehill as the better prospect?
A five-year age edge is certainly significant, but when the entirety of the evidence is taken into account, Weeden is by far the better quarterback prospect.
