Grading New York Jets QB Joe Flacco: Week 6 at Miami Dolphins

Michael Nania grades every throw from Joe Flacco's performance against the Miami Dolphins. How well did he really play? Each week this season, I will be grading every Sam Darnold play from the Jets' most recent game to get a 0-to-100 grade on the quality of his performance. Of course, Darnold did not take the field in the Jets' Week 6 game against Miami, so we will again be looking at Joe Flacco's performance. Sam Darnold Grades Week 1 at Buffalo Bills Week 2 vs. San Francisco 49ers Week 3 at Indianapolis Colts Week 4 vs. Denver Broncos Joe Flacco - Week 5 vs. Arizona Cardinals Nania's Darnold Grades home page (links to all 2019-20 games) Grades Explained Digging through the All-22 film, I went back and graded every play (pass attempt, sack, rushing attempt) Flacco logged in the game, scoring each on a scale of 0-to-10 (5 representing an average play). Anything and everything is taken into account. Ball placement. Accuracy. Should-be turnovers. Unlucky turnovers. Protection. Play-calling effectiveness. Impact of the route-running and ball tracking quality by the intended receiver. Down and distance. Field position. Game situation. Every layer of decision-making is considered. Did Flacco choose the best available option? Did he scan the field to check all possible options? Did he take an over-aggressive shot when a first down was available underneath? Did he check down too early and leave a potential big play on the field? Should he have run? Did he take a sack he should not have? Should he have thrown the ball away? Simple statistics do not account for any of those factors. Using a manual, play-by-play grading system, many crucial variables that usually go overlooked are being properly valued. Sprinkle in this essential context, and we get a grade that is much more representative of the quarterback's true performance level than standard box score numbers. Flacco's final scores are scaled from 0-to-100, with 50 representing the approximate league average (based on the analysis of other quarterbacks). Let's hop right into it. Here is my comprehensive 0-to-100 grade on Flacco's performance against the Dolphins. Overall Grade I scored Flacco with a grade of 38.9. That is a notch below his first game against the Cardinals (54.3) but still much better than Darnold's 2020 games against the Bills (15.2), Colts (3.0), and Broncos (21.5). The best performance by a Jets quarterback this season remains Darnold's game against the 49ers (61.9). Of Darnold's 17 games from 2019-20, the closest one in quality to Flacco's performance against Miami is, ironically enough, Darnold's game against the Dolphins in Miami last year (40.8). This was a somewhat shocking result. Upon first viewing, I thought Flacco was atrocious, and the advanced numbers from ESPN and Pro Football Focus backed that up. However, after rewatching the film, Flacco did not play quite as poorly as I thought. He was bad, but not horrible, in my opinion. Flacco took what the defense gave him, generally targeting the most favorable option and throwing with solid accuracy in the short-to-intermediate range. He was consistent in the first half, capitalizing on what was available at a high frequency. However, after a solid first half, Flacco's second half featured a pair of horrendous blunders and a lot of hasty decision-making as the pressure continued to mount. Flacco was far more affected by the pressure than you would like a veteran of his experience level to be. He often threw with poor mechanics under the heat, leading to poor downfield accuracy as he went 0-for-7 (with zero drops) on throws that traveled at least 20 yards downfield. It was surely a bad game from Flacco, but personally, I do not think it was as horrifyingly gruesome as I and many others initially thought. With Flacco's run as the starter coming to an end this week, let's skip the nitty-gritty of the numbers and dive straight into the film. Best plays These highlights are not going to make you uncontrollably jump out of your seat with excitement. Flacco did not make any super flashy plays, but he accumulated some positive value through his consistency with making the right play, which these reps showcase. Breshad Perriman runs a go route against press coverage on the left side and creates plenty of separation. Flacco puts the ball in a good spot but Perriman fails to track it, turning his body instead of continuing to run the route. The patch of sunlight also may have contributed to Perriman struggling to locate the ball. Flacco is forced to make a decision as soon as he comes out of the play fake due to pressure allowed by Josh Andrews. He shows some surprising mobility as he shakes the defender and finds Frank Gore for six yards on first down. On 3rd & 4, Flacco needs to get the ball out fast as two defenders come in unblocked from his right side. He floats the ball to La'Mical Perine and drops it in a spot where Perine can catch it and continue upfield in stride - maybe a bit too much air on it from Flacco, but good enough. Perine does not make the play, but Flacco does about the best he can to give his offense a chance to convert a third down after facing immediate pressure. Nothing special here, just an example of what Flacco was doing throughout most of the game. Flacco reads left, turns his head to the middle, and finds the only good option, putting the ball on Ryan Griffin for a first down on 2nd & 9. The Dolphins bring the house and Flacco again faces an unblocked defender in a hurry. There is only one good option, dumping the ball off to Gore, and Flacco wastes no time finding it. Flacco gets six yards out of a play that has disastrous potential if he is not so quick to know where the ball should go. Solid veteran play. No groundbreaking stuff here, but a glimpse into some of the simple things Flacco was doing right throughout the game. Worst plays Flacco had two mistakes in this game that popped out as extremely bad, both within a two-minute span in the fourth quarter. On 2nd & 4 with 10:50 to go in the game, Flacco tries to hit Braxton Berrios on a slant, but fails to see Byron Jones drop off the line into the passing lane. This should be an easy pick-six, but Jones drops it. The play that sums up the game and the Jets' season - Flacco's 28-yard sack, on 3rd & 4 with 9:28 left in the fourth. Perine comes from right-to-left to block the defensive back blitzing through the C-gap to Flacco's left. Perine picks it up decently, angling the blitzer upfield and to the outside to create space for Flacco to step up. For whatever reason, Flacco drifts backward into the blitzer's path rather than stepping up into the pocket. Flacco avoids him and turns back towards the middle where another defender is waiting. Incredibly ugly play. Poor vision from Flacco on this 3rd & 6 play. Griffin breaks wide open on a drag route over the middle for a first down, but Flacco does not see it and takes a sack. On this 1st & 10 play, Flacco not only misfires on an easy throw to Ty Johnson into the flat, but he fails to find Perine in the flat on the other side with no defender within 15 yards of him. Summary Flacco was poor in Miami, for sure, but I want to clarify why his grades over the past two games have checked in well above three of Darnold's four games this season. For the second straight game, Flacco distanced himself from Darnold's low-point performances by accumulating a much, much smaller amount of plays in which he failed to capitalize on favorable chances. In Darnold's games against the Bills, Colts, and Broncos, he left numerous easy opportunities on the field, missing open receivers through both inaccuracy and poor field vision/decision-making on a constant basis. Flacco has made far fewer mistakes that could be classified as "egregious," as he has been choosing the best option at a more consistent level. None of that is to say Flacco has been good or that he is a better player than Darnold. Neither of those things are true. It goes without saying that Flacco was ineffective over his two starts and Darnold is a vastly more talented player than him. However, Flacco quite simply has been making head-scratching plays far less frequently than Darnold, and thus has played slightly less detrimental football so far this season over the small sample size we have seen. There is obviously plenty of time for Darnold to change that. Overall, Flacco's performance over his two-game stint as the starter was about what you would expect from a 35-year-old backup - not average, not awful, but mediocre. He did not do nearly enough to convince a team he can be counted on as a QB1, but I do think he showed enough to prove he still belongs as a decent QB2. I would argue he remains one of the top-48 quarterbacks in the league - in other words, a top-half backup. Despite the poor first quarter of the season for Darnold, there is plenty of season left for him to right the ship. Darnold returns to the lineup this Sunday with a chance to log 10 more starts if he can stay healthy. He has over two months ahead of him to his wrongs and make a claim to return as the Jets' starting quarterback in 2021. Let's flip the calendar back to 2004 for a moment. In his third season as a starter (fourth in the NFL), Drew Brees stumbled out of the gates. Through three games, Brees had three touchdown passes, two interceptions, and four fumbles while averaging only 5.5 net yards per attempt (league average that season was 6.1). After posting below average numbers in each of his first two seasons at the helm, Brees was on his way to a third consecutive season of disappointing production. He appeared to be a dead man walking, especially with Philip Rivers waiting in the wings. Out of nowhere, Brees exploded. From Weeks 4-17 of the 2004 season, Brees had the second-best passer rating in the NFL (110.7) behind only Peyton Manning. Brees is just one very rare example of a quarterback in Darnold's shoes turning his career around - there are far more negative examples of quarterbacks to follow the same path as Darnold - but Brees does provide a glimmer of hope that there just might still be a chance for Darnold to become the Jets' franchise quarterback, however small that chance may be. Can Darnold return to his 2018-19 peaks and maintain them consistently enough to grow into the elite quarterback he has the potential to become? Forget about elite - can he just eliminate the elementary mistakes and at least play at an average, competent level? Or, will his woes from the first quarter of the season prove to be the new normal for him? The most important stretch of Darnold's entire NFL career begins tomorrow. Sam Darnold Grades Week 1 at Buffalo Bills Week 2 vs. San Francisco 49ers Week 3 at Indianapolis Colts Week 4 vs. Denver Broncos Joe Flacco - Week 5 vs. Arizona Cardinals Nania's Darnold Grades home page (links to all 2019-20 games)