Offense Must Get Better in Obvious Passing Situations
We know the Redskins took the play-action passing game to a new level last year with Griffin’s advanced play-fakes freezing defenses to create wide-open receivers downfield. There was a fear he could keep the ball and run out of the option.
According to Football Outsiders, the Redskins used play action 42 percent of the time, which is the highest for any team since they started charting it in 2005. They were extremely successful on it, producing a 66.7 percent DVOA.
However, the alarming stat is just a 5.0 percent DVOA on regular passes without play action. Pro Football Focus’ (subscription required) play-action data also supports these findings. No quarterback saw a bigger decline in yards per attempt than Robert Griffin III when using play action (11.8 YPA) versus not using it (5.8 YPA).
This gets down to the core of the problem with this offense.
If you can control the game so that the Redskins cannot use so much play action, you have a very good chance of shutting down the offense, which was putrid on third down. In fact, the Redskins were dead last at converting on third down early in the season when their record was so poor.
By season’s end, the Redskins converted 35.8 percent of their third-down plays, which ranked 24th in the league.
Griffin in particular was not impressive, especially compared to the standards of past rookie quarterbacks and his 2012 peers. These stats include everything for the regular season except for spikes and kneel downs:
Griffin only had 47 conversions on third down (35 passing, 12 rushing). His 32.64 conversion rate is not up to par at all. Andrew Luck was great on third down last year while Wilson came on strong in the second half.
The “%Cmp1D” is the percentage of completions on third down that resulted in a first down. Griffin’s 56.5 percent is the worst I have seen in over 100 different seasons from some of today’s best quarterbacks.
Griffin had 27 completions on third down that did not pick up a first down. That’s considered a failed completion, and it’s a high total for someone with just 62 completions on third down.
This is why Griffin’s 93.9 passer rating on third down is irrelevant. He padded his numbers with insignificant gains and did not move the chains enough. The conversion rate is what matters.
What Griffin’s passing stats on each down do show is something rather remarkable. On first, second and fourth down, Griffin averaged an incredible 8.98 yards per attempt on passes. Though, on third down, that number shriveled up to just 5.84. That’s the statistical proof of Washington’s reliance on play action.
I looked at the passing stats by down for 23 rookie quarterbacks since 2004 with at least 224 pass attempts. You would expect yards per attempt to decline on third down since it’s an obvious passing situation.
Griffin’s decline of 3.14 yards per attempt is easily the worst of them all.
Each of the three groups is filled with good and bad players. Of the 23 quarterbacks, seven actually had a higher passing average on third down compared to the rest of downs, including Luck. Eight declined by more than half a yard with the sample’s average quarterback declining 0.33 yards on third down.
Part of Griffin’s big drop is because he was so good on the other downs. Only Ben Roethlisberger (2004) was better. But we see that Roethlisberger and Wilson still did very well on third down as well, both at converting and with yards per attempt.
It’s a problem for Griffin, so I looked at all 105 of his third-down passes from the regular season. I wanted to make note of when he used play action, since that’s rarely done on anything that’s not a third-and-short play. All runs and even sacks were excluded, as I just wanted to see what he did in what is often an obvious passing situation. Here are the findings (not all categories are additive):
Shanahan may want to dump the shovel pass and some of the screens as well. The screens are easy to complete but usually don’t pick up the first down. Santana Moss did however score a 26-yard touchdown against Philadelphia on one.
Without play action, Griffin is converting just 28.42 percent of his third-down passes. We can see they only used 10 play-action passes here, and it was very successful. It should often work on 3rd-and-short, though rarely does it work as well as this 29-yard touchdown to Niles Paul on 3rd-and-1 in Dallas on Thanksgiving:
Dallas might want to cover Niles Paul. The closest Cowboy was 12 yards away.
On the 10 play-action passes, the average distance to go was 3.3 yards. It was never used on anything longer than a 3rd-and-7 play against Philadelphia. It worked for a nine-yard completion.
For this offense to take the next step, it must grow out of relying on the play-action fake. For as dynamic as Griffin may be, he was just 9-of-69 (13.0 percent) at converting on third-and-long. Only five of those conversions were passes.
You have to be able to convert on third down when the fear of a run is just not there for the defense.
No one ever said the “3” in “RG3” stood for “third down,” but we need to see more in that situation from him and this offense in 2013.
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