There's a narrative going around that, John Elway aside, Mike Shanahan has a poor track record of coaching successful QBs. The argument centers around the fact that Shanahan has not won a Super Bowl without John Elway as his QB. But the argument is incorrect.
It's true that Shanahan has not won a Super Bowl post-Elway, but this is because Denver has had poor defensees (*this* would be a riper area for a critique of Shanahan -- his defenses in Denver were often terrible). An honest look at the data suggests Shanahan's QBs do very well.
As I've mentioned in earlier posts, when evaluating QBs I like the statistic Win Probability Added/Game (WPA/G) because it not only captures how well QBs play, but it takes the 'game manager' factor into account. For example, throwing for 8 yards is worth more on 3rd-and-7 than on 3rd-and-15, and throwing a TD pass in a close game is worth more than in garbage time.
Using WPA/G I took a look at each of Shanahan's post-Elway QBs in Denver, which covers the period of 2000-2009. During these 9 seasons Shanahan coached Brian Griese (3 full seasons), Jake Plummer (4 full seasons), and Jay Cutler (2 full seasons).
Brian Griese was the worst: his WPA/G was an impressive 5th best in the league in 2000, a lousy 24th best in 2001, and a mediocre 15th best in 2002. Overall, Brian Griese was average, hardly an indictment of Shanahan. But it only gets better from there.
From 2003-2006 Jake Plummer ranked 4th, 11th, 9th, and 22nd in WPA/G. In other words, Plummer had 2 excellent seasons, 1 very good season, and 1 bad season. In 2007 and 2008 Jay Cutler ranked 8th and then 4th in WPA/G, both excellent seasons.
Averaging across these 9 seasons, a typical post-Elway QB under Shanahan was 9th best in the league in WPA/G. I would say this is impressive.
And how about this for comparison. In the three seasons since Shanahan left Denver, Denver QBs have ranked 16th, 23rd, and 31st in the league in WPA/G. So not only were Denver QBs consistently good under Shanahan, but production at the QB production became markedly worse after Shanahan left.
In short, the data say Shanahan is one of the more QB-friendly coaches around.
Finally some real facts. Thank You.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the nice comment.
ReplyDeleteSomething else I should have included in the post is Jay Cutler's performance post-Shanahan. As noted, under Shanahan in 2007 and 2008, Cutler was ranked 8th and 4th in WPA/G, respectively. Since then, without Shanahan, Cutler's WPA/G rankings in 2009, 2010, and 2011 have been 23rd, 20th, and 19th, respectively.
In short, the disparity in Cutler's play with and without Shanahan is yet another sign that Mike Shanahan is a QB-friendly coach.