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Behind the Numbers: Aaron Rodgers' Revival
Before we dive into Aaron Rodgers, let me preface this post with a little rant. There are few things more over-rated in sports than a comeback. I’m not talking about the inspirational comeback a player has from injury. I’m referring to a team coming back from a large deficit in a game to win at the last moment. I mean, what’s fun to watch about an overly lopsided first half, then an inversely lopsided second half? Or maybe I am just permanently scarred as a Falcons fan… either way there is a bit of truth in the inconsistent way people perceive comebacks.
People tend to overrate a team or player’s performance in large comebacks. For example, in a certain Super Bowl that shall not be named, mid-way through the 3rd quarter, Tom Brady gave more points to a bad Falcons defense with a pick six than to his team (a field goal). Then everyone know what happened next… More recently, the same Falcons team held Brady to 0 points in the first half during a week 16 game in 2020, the first time the team had done that in years. 31 second-half points laters and its deja vu all over again. In both cases, Tom Brady was praised for an unbelievable performance when he played poorly for half the game and were far from dominant performances. What I am trying to say is that people are biased to remember the good, but easily overlook the totality of performance, specifically the poor performance that put them in the situation to begin with.
Now back to Aaron Rodgers.
One of the Best MVP Seasons in Recent Memory
Aaron Rodgers has been phenomenal so far in the 2020 season and has all but locked up the MVP race (still unofficial at the time of writing this). He has lead his team to the #1 seed in the NFC and is first or near the top in just about every significant QB metric. In fact, his performance ranks among the best of recent year’s MVPs.
Rodgers’ 2020 season ranks only below his 2011 season in terms of best MVP seasons over the last 10 years. All of this after a chaotic and uncertain offseason is nothing short of impressive. But those two season are almost a decade apart. Even his 2014 MVP season is 6 years ago, so what do those years in between look like? Let’s see how 2020 compares to the years prior.
The Not-So-Rodgers Rodgers Years
After his 2014 MVP campaign, Rodgers started slowing down in terms of on-field production. In fact, his 2015 season was one of the largest drop-offs for quarterbacks in terms of EPA since 2008. The subsequent years were more or less the same less than stellar seasons.
From 2015 to 2019, Rodgers was far from the elite QB he has shown to be. This is evident with a significant decline in his EPA, CPOE and QBR. Players have down years all the time, even the greatest players, but it is unusual to see one of the best all-time have 5 straight years of average to above average play. Granted he did have one injury plagued year, but to say he was not a top QB over the course of half a decade is not an overstatement.
The graph above illustrates the contrast in on-field performance of Rodgers 2020 season to the previous 5 years. Similar to his 2015 drop-off, his 2020 season is the 10th biggest improvement of EPA year-over-year for a QB since 2008.
So how did Rodgers revitalize his career this year? There are a few key indicators of his play that took a real transformation this year.
Breaking Down the 2020 Campaign
Investigating Rodgers’ latest MVP season, it is immediately obvious that he excelled at at just about every type of play. When compared to the previous 5-year average, his EPA significantly improved on short, medium and long passes in 2020, as well as taking less meaningful sacks
What is interesting is the volume and distance of Rodgers’ plays in 2020. He threw the ball shorter and less often in 2020 than any of the previous 5 full seasons. Less throws is not necessarily unexpected with the efficiency of the running game and offense as a whole, but Rodgers averaged almost one air yard less per attempt and relied on more yards after catch than in previous years. While he was effective at deep throws, Rodgers was only 20th in the NFL in air yards per attempt in 2020. He also targeted the middle of the field more often in 2020 than the previous 3 seasons that likely helped his receivers run in space. The below heat map shows the concentration of Rodgers throws from 2017-2019 (in red) and 2020 (in blue).
Data from RBSDM.com
A further breakdown of Rodgers’ production across downs highlights how his 2020 season differs from prior ones. Rodgers improved his EPA for every down, but it was most drastic on 3rd down. Already effective on early downs, Rodgers struggled on 3rd down until this year where he was extremely efficient.
This post is not meant to criticize Aaron Rodgers or predict his future success, but merely highlight a misconception about his career. Aaron Rodgers is a no-doubt future Hall of Famer, but his up and down career should be acknowledged. Many people give him the benefit of the doubt and look past the years of not-top plays. Whether they are blinded by his past success or limited to only his highlight reel or evaluate him using minimally predictive metrics (i.e. TD:INT), Rodgers’ scrutiny has never seemed to align to his production like his praise does. Like evaluating a comeback, if we want to look at the totality of Aaron Rodgers’ performance, we need to take into consideration the entire body of work. The highs and the lows. Will he continue his dominant performance next year? Possibly. Does one great year change five uninspiring ones? Nope.