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Jayden Daniels had 16 rushes for 88 yards at 5.5 yards per carry in his NFL debut.
After the game, Dan Quinn came out with this quote:
“Not all of those are designed quarterback runs. We’d love to see him remain a passer first. I think it’s going to come with more experience, honestly. When I can go extend it to throw it, when, ‘Hey, this plays over, I’ll get rid of it and move on to the next play.’ So, I think you’ll see that trajectory continue as we go. Certainly, [16] carries is not the model that we’re looking for, certainly with Brian [Robinson] and Austin [Ekeler] and others here. But at the end of it, I do think we’ll continue to grow in that spot. But certainly not by design to have that many.”
What is he saying?
He’s saying that they have designed runs that they’re using Daniels for.
And they don’t really want him scrambling. They want him to try and hang in the pocket and throw the ball.
And lastly, if they wanted to run the ball, that’s what they have Robinson and Ekeler for.
I have PLENTY of thoughts here. First, let's look at the stats.
Of his 16 runs for 88 yards, 7 were scrambles.
Of those 88 yards, how many do you think came on scrambles?
How about 77!
77 yards came on just 7 scrambles. That’s 11 yards per run on scrambles.
The other 11 yards to get to 88?
On 9 designed runs that netted 11 yards.
Realistically, one was a kneel down and one was a backward pass ruled a fumble. If you eliminate those to be fair, you’re talking 7 designed runs that netted 13 yards.
Let’s compare.
On the 7 designed runs:
- 13 yards
- 1.9 YPC
- 43% success
- +0.08 EPA/play
On the 7 scrambles:
- 77 yards
- 11.0 YPC
- 86% success
- +1.15 EPA/play
Not even close. The designed runs were nowhere NEAR the effectiveness of the scrambles.
And you’ll see that at the bottom of this article when I rolled the tape.
But quickly, since Rivera said that the team has their RBs if they want to run the ball, let’s see how that worked out for them:
On 14 RB runs:
- 50 yards
- 3.6 YPC
- 29% success
- -0.08 EPA/play
All these marks were 20th or below in Week 1 with most in the bottom 10.
Their longest RB run was 7 yards. They had zero explosive runs.
Nearly 22% of RB runs were stuffed for no gain.
So the designed runs by Daniels were much more efficient than RB runs…but the scrambles were WAY more efficient than both of them.
The thing that gets me the most about a coach like Quinn saying this is he’s a defensive coach. He has to gameplan to stop offenses.
Think about if he went up against Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. What is one of the biggest things he’s drilling into his players? He's talking about how dangerous those QBs are with their legs. And about how the play is never over, even if it breaks down.
He knows how valuable a QB like that is because of how scared it makes him when he faces one.
As a defensive coach, what would he wish those other QBs did?
He would wish they didn’t run. He would wish that their head coaches instructed Jackson and Allen not to run the ball. That would make his job of defending them a hell of a lot easier.
So it makes NO SENSE that he’s trying to coach that out of his young QB after just one game.