Earlier this week, in my column Any Given Sunday, I wrote that Cleveland's blind faith in Charlie Frye is troubling. I hinted that if he does not play well through the rest of the year, the Browns should go after another quarterback. Over in the discussion thread on Football Outsiders, multiple Cleveland fans posted that Frye exudes leadership, has little offensive help, and can still develop.
If
Frye does not improve the rest of this season, but nonetheless goes on to have a successful career, it
would make him absolutely unique among quarterbacks drafted over the
past decade.
Football Outsiders has a stat, DPAR, that measures performance compared to a replacement player. (You may know this stat from the Monday Quick Reads column.) A replacement player would contribute 0 points. Frye had a DPAR his rookie year of -9.3, and to date he is again below replacement level with -11.9 DPAR in 2006.
I
went back and looked at every quarterback drafted between 1995 and 2004
to find those who threw 100 passes in a season in either his rookie or
second season. 36 quarterbacks met that standard. Of those 36, 15 did not have a positive DPAR during one of those two seasons.
That list of 15 quarterbacks
is not a group you want to associate with:
Cade McNown
Brock Huard
Danny Kanell
Ryan Leaf (originally, this said Dorsey twice -- I'm not sure how I could forget the worst draft pick ever)
Akili Smith
Spergeon Wynn
J.P. Losman
Danny Wuerffel
Chris Weinke
Joey Harrington
Tim Couch
Ken Dorsey
Quincy Carter
Josh McCown
Mike McMahon
Not one of these players has had a successful career. When Joey Harrington and Quincy Carter are the best of the bunch, this is not a career path you really want. The important thing here is struggles in both the rookie and sophomore year. Struggles in your rookie year alone have no such predictive ability. Donovan McNabb had a DPAR of -41.6 his rookie season. Eli Manning had a DPAR of -13.3.
The converse of this phenomenon is definitely not true. One positive DPAR season does not guarantee success. Shaun King, Bobby Hoying, and A.J. Feeley did not exactly develop into elite quarterbacks. For those reasons, fans in San Francisco should not get too excited about Alex Smith.
What does this all mean for Frye? Just
because nobody in the last ten years has developed into a quality
quarterback after such a poor start does not make it impossible. After all, almost all the quarterbacks with horrible rookie DPARs were total busts, but Donovan McNabb developed into a star. Perhaps Frye is a similar exception.
Still, enthusiasm for Frye should be tempered. The upside appears to be Carter or maybe David Carr, who only had a DPAR of 2.3 in his second season. Cleveland
fans who like Frye should hope he puts it together down the stretch
because quarterbacks who cannot play at a replacement level in their
first two years are quarterbacks who will not be in the league for long.
Nice post. Just wanted to point out quickly that Ken Dorsey is in that list of 15 twice, which I think is a mistake unless I'm misreading this. Your overall point still stands.
He needs to get an OC, QB coach, and a running game. I am surprised at how great a season K2 is having while Edwards seems to be a ghost. Cleveland should have a better record.
Interesting stuff. I e-mailed Aaron asking for similarity scores for Frye vs other QBs making their first 14-15 starts over their first 2 seasons. This is close I guess.
Does this take into account that this is his first full season of starting? He only started 5 games last year. Dorsey for example, only started 8 games over his first 2 seasons, including 0 in his first season. Does that even make a difference?
I am a avid Cleveland fan. I've lived here all my life. I agree with you that Frye needs to improve. Although I do blame most of it on the offensive line. Tim Couch could have been a good player, if he had an offensive line to protect him. Without that line, he started to get into bad habits. He rushed things, stared people down, and had no time to do things right. I would be one of the first people to say that we ruined him, which made him bad... I can see the same thing happening to Frye. We have the cast, just no line. He was on rate to get sacked more than anyone. He gets beaten up and everything.
The one thing I would like to see him learn is to get rid of the ball when he is in trouble. There comes a time when you have to figure out that you can't make anything out of the play so get rid of it. I would be willing to give him one more year as the starter, if we don't it would be just throwing another QB into the sack race. At least Frye can move, and make something happen.
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