Last year, Vince Verhei of Football Outsiders created a stir when he compared Mark Sanchez to JaMarcus Russell just prior to the conference championship game. Our site’s fearless leader disagreed. My opinion was that I would not have compared a true rookie to a player with a year of experience in the league, and when I do comparisons, I try to keep rookies separate from second-year players.

I’m going to jump in and do some comparisons based on past seasons of the young quarterbacks who threw at least 150 passes and were in their first two seasons in the league: second year quarterbacks Josh Freeman and Mark Sanchez, and rookies Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy, and Jimmy Clausen. I’m not telling you that my methodology is perfect. Whatever inputs and weights you put into the formula determines what you get out. I will tell you that I did not design this to achieve any particular result in regard to a specific player. I wanted to look at not only the overall result for other quarterbacks, but also the style. Last year, I wrote about passer personality types, where I compared the statistical performance in the passer categories, to see if a player tended to do better at completing passes than throwing for lots of yards, or avoid sacks at the expense of risking interceptions and completion percentage.

Feel free to skip down a few paragraphs to where I start talking about the particular players if you don’t want to see the nuts and bolts of how I got there; it’s okay. For the rest that want to see behind the curtain, here you go. To come up with my similar players, I used the YPA+, COMP+, TD+, INT+, and SACK+ rating available for each player at pro-football-reference.com, which is explained here, and is based on the same principal as OPS+ or ERA+ in baseball. Basically, the player’s raw rate stats are converted to a number to compare to league average, with a score of “100″ in a category representing league average.  The overall similarity score was determined by subtracting:

  1. the difference in number of pass attempts between the subject player and other seasons;
  2. the difference in those five rate categories (YPA+, COMP+, TD+, INT+, and SACK+), by dividing the difference by 2, then squaring that number. My purpose in squaring a number was to destroy similarity when players were vastly dissimilar in a particular category;
  3. the difference in the four personality category types (Bomber/Completer, Fun/Safe, Yard Eater/Vulture, Gambler/Holder), by dividing the difference by 2, then squaring that number;
  4. the difference in overall Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt (ANYA+), divided by 2, then squared. I then multiplied this number by 10 so that the overall quality was weighted far heavily than any other specific category. I didn’t want a highly efficient checkdown guy who was well above league average to be compared to Charlie Frye;
  5. the age difference in years, multiplied by 100.

I list the similarity score for you for the ten most similar players, as well as the advanced score in each basic category, so you can see where there were similarities and differences. I only compared true rookies like Bradford to other rookies, and Freeman and Sanchez to second year players.

JOSH FREEMAN, AGE 22, 2nd year in league

Sim ScorePlayerYearAgePassesANYA+COMP+YPA+TD+INT+SACK+
1000 Josh Freeman201022474114102105112122104
574Michael Vick200222421110851069812294
465Jay Cutler200724467110110112103100104
436Brett Favre199223471106121101102111102
427Kerry Collins1996243641099510199111112
423Joe Flacco20092449910510710510110895
289Boomer Esiason198524431124109120125117107
270Peyton Manning199923533120118116109107126
263Byron Leftwich2004244411041049792116109
249Bernie Kosar19862353111511210689130106
146John Elway19842438010410194106103113

The only players to be above average in every passing component in their second year in league, age 23 or younger: Dan Marino, Steve McNair, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre . . . and Josh Freeman. Freeman is the only one that was 22.

What’s there to say? Well, he’s younger than Sam Bradford, and has already put up a well above average season. The comparables aren’t all that comparable because they were all older. The fact that he is similar but better than Collins, Flacco, Leftwich and Elway while being two years younger is a positive. Bucs fans may have thought I was negative about their team this year, because they were winning close games against bad teams, but that doesn’t mean I’m not excited about the future. All aboard the Freeman train.

MARK SANCHEZ, AGE 24, 2nd year in league

Sim ScorePlayerYearAgePassesANYA+COMP+YPA+TD+INT+SACK+
1000 Mark Sanchez20102450796809190106108
794Tony Banks1997244879781998810893
699Tyler Thigpen200824420947986102102101
698Brian Griese1999244521001019991103108
689John Friesz19912448790887983108107
680Eli Manning2005245571027797103102112
633David Woodley198123366101889489111106
617Jim Everett1987243029796979195112
607Gus Frerotte199524396100741059298104
585Chad Henne2009244519099898298104
577Billy Joe Tolliver1990244109386849996116

These numbers don’t include the playoffs, where Sanchez has seen his yards per attempt and completion percentage rise relative to his regular season numbers. I don’t want to discount that, as he has shown flashes of playing well. The issue for Sanchez and his long term prognosis is completion percentage. He is prone to streakiness where he misses plays that need to be made. The top comp, Banks, was very similar statistically except for one key category-sack avoidance. That’s a positive for Sanchez. The two best players on this list, Eli Manning and Jim Everett, were also good at avoiding sacks at a young age.

SAM BRADFORD, AGE 23, rookie

Sim ScorePlayerYearAgePassesANYA+COMP+YPA+TD+INT+SACK+
1000 Sam Bradford20102359089978186106105
651Rick Mirer199323486839582839887
398Joe Flacco20082342896971009110393
395Jim Zorn1976234399187888791118
390Trent Edwards20072426989848384101112
383Kelly Stouffer198824173891058780106101
325Mike Pagel19822222187827578115104
258Steve Walsh1989232198882847995115
250Matt Leinart2006233779788988899107
205Bruce Gradkowski2006233287879658610696
108Chris Chandler19882323390101999283100

Only 2 guys threw 500 passes as a rookie, Peyton Manning and Bradford. Manning did it differently, though, with a much better yards per attempt, touchdown rate, and sack rate, and significantly worse interception rate (which is why he doesn’t show anywhere on this list). Mirer is third in attempts for a rookie, and shows up most similar to Bradford, in fact, as the only one with a score over 500.

I know that the national dialogue has been universally in praise of Bradford. I also know that his supporting cast at receiver stunk (in fact, I’m adding to my to do list examining how his group may compare to other rookie starters). I wouldn’t look at this list and say he is going to be a bust, because we truly have very few really similar seasons. His sack rate was much better than Mirer (and improved as the season progressed), and I’m the guy who says you have to look at sack rate in evaluating quarterbacks. I think it shows ability to process information quickly and recognize what the defense is bringing at you.

No, instead, I would look at this list and say let’s not get ahead of ourselves, build this guy up, only to break him down if he is decent, but doesn’t meet our most lofty of expectations. Let’s see what he does when the receivers do improve before we anoint him.

COLT MCCOY, Age 23, rookie

Sim ScorePlayerYearAgePassesANYA+COMP+YPA+TD+INT+SACK+
1000 Colt McCoy20102322289100102828675
756Rodney Peete1989231959291112828966
708John Reaves19722222489901018910167
580Dennis Shaw19702332197112118879281
543Chris Chandler19882323390101999283100
418Joe Flacco20082342896971009110393
388Ken O’Brien19842420396103968611091
320Tony Banks19962336888801051028569
319Charlie Frye20052416482100868110267
302Tim Couch1999223998694899710069
297Tom Hodson1990231568193828410673

Remember how I talked about sack rate? Well, Colt McCoy’s sack rate is a concern despite his impressive performance in yards per attempt for a rookie. The three guys who also had a good YPA and a bad sack rate as rookies aren’t exactly a riveting bunch, with Peete being the best of the group. I think the Browns should start McCoy over the other QB’s currently on the roster, but I wouldn’t hesitate to create additional competition at the position.

JIMMY CLAUSEN, Age 23, rookie

Sim ScorePlayerYearAgePassesANYA+COMP+YPA+TD+INT+SACK+
1000 Jimmy Clausen2010232997073686210070
551Akili Smith199924153728175729177
373David Carr200223444697681729744
367Steve Fuller197922270699870769569
286Neil Lomax1981222367982936910270
200Andrew Walter200624276687685677550
179Kyle Orton200523368747369819395
159Tom Hodson1990231568193828410673
140Richard Todd197623162686680797964
94Bruce Gradkowski2006233287879658610696
43Jeff Komlo197923368738483858284

Not much went well for Clausen as a rookie, as the only thing he did reasonably well was avoid interceptions, which is not the most predictive thing for future success. He held the ball and took sacks at a very high rate, didn’t make plays downfield, and had difficulty even handling snaps at times. I know the conventional wisdom is that rookies get a pass, but I don’t think that’s actually always true. Lomax is a notable name, but he was much, much better at yards per attempt as a rookie. Orton was much better at avoiding sacks. Richard Todd, he was bad across the board, and became a solid starter in the middle of his career.

Clausen’s case isn’t hopeless, but I also wouldn’t rely on him without creating competition next season if I were in charge in Carolina. You would have to convince me that the offensive unit around him was historically bad, for me to believe that he is the solution rather than part of the problem as to why they are selecting first overall in the upcoming draft.

[photo via Getty]