Jason Ford: I'm an avid Browns fan (woe is me) and I've been listening to the critics about Charlie Frye for the better part of the season. In Ned Macey's Every Given Sunday article this week, he bashes Frye and says the Browns should look into a trade for someone like Leftwich next season. The guy has less than a full season worth of starts... Can you run some similarity scores for Frye?

Aaron Schatz: This is a bit of a follow-up to Ned Macey's post last week about Frye and the history of quarterbacks who played below replacement level in their first two seasons. I took Frye's numbers through 10 games, pro-rated them for a whole season, and then compared his first two years to those of other quarterbacks since 1978.

1. Quincy Carter, 2003 Cowboys
2. Brett Favre, 1993 Packers
3. Drew Brees, 2002 Chargers
4. Tim Couch, 2001 Browns
5. Jim Zorn, 1978 Seahawks
6. Jake Plummer, 1998 Cardinals
7. Brett Favre, 1992 Packers
8. Rick Mirer, 1993 Seahawks
9. David Carr, 2004 Texans
10. Joey Harrington, 2004 Lions

Yes, Brett Favre appears twice on this list, but as you'll see in a second, he's not really that comparable to Frye. Frye is having a weird season, with a good completion percentage (62.5%) but lousy average yards per attempt (6.2). The Browns are throwing a ton of short passes. Out of these 10 quarterbacks, the only one with a higher completion percentage is Favre (1992), and the only one with fewer yards per attempt is Mirer. I also don't know if people realize how much Frye runs. He's on pace for 275 yards and five touchdowns on the ground.

Here's the top ten after we consider two seasons:

1. Quincy Carter, 2002-3 Cowboys
2. Tim Couch, 2000-1 Browns
3. Shaun King, 1999-2000 Bucs
4. Drew Brees, 2001-2 Chargers
5. Jim Everett, 1986-7 Rams
6. Jon Kitna, 1998-9 Seahawks
7. Randy Wright, 1985-6 Packers
8. Josh McCown, 2003-4 Cardinals
9. Aaron Brooks, 2000-1 Saints
10. David Carr, 2003-4 Texans

That list isn't quite so good, although Everett had a useful career and of course Drew Brees is still Drew Brees. Why isn't Frye comparable to Favre anymore? Because Favre's 1992 was nothing like Frye's 2005 -- actually, even though it shows up as similar to Frye's current season, Favre was much, much better in 1992:

• Favre 1992: 64.1 Comp. Pct., 6.9 ypa, 18 TD, 13 INT
• Favre 1993: 60.9 Comp. Pct., 6.3 ypa, 19 TD, 24 INT
• Frye 2006: 62.5 Comp. Pct., 6.2 ypa, 14 TD, 19 INT (pro-rated)

Frye is a quarterback who was below average in his first two seasons as a starter. Favre is a quarterback who was good in his first season as a starter, despite throwing a lot of shorter passes, and then slumped a bit in his second season.

I think the similarity scores say the same thing as Ned's analysis from last week -- Frye isn't hopeless, but he certainly doesn't look as promising as he did three months ago.

Post by Aaron Schatz

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.

• 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.

Post by Ned Macey