re: SBNation Article - Is Joe Burrow Good?

quote:

---

There is nothing that suggest this is the case right now except blind optimism.

---

Absolutely not. As someone else said, if you can't see the difference between Etling and Burrow, you're not paying attention to the game being played and only looking at stat lines.

quote:

---

I can only give Burrow the benefit of the doubt considering his limited time with the team, but so far give me Etling.

---

I will preface this by saying I respect the hell out of Etling. I've said before that he's the kind of guy you hope comes back and coaches for LSU. He's a natural leader and scrappy competitor.

But in terms of pure QB ability, Burrow clearly has better tools, mentally and physically.

In fact, we have a pretty good control game to compare them by. Auburn in 2017 vs. Auburn in 2018. Auburn had a good defense last year. They lost some guys, but also kept a lot of defensive talent on board, so for the sake of argument, let's call the quality of Auburn's defense a wash.

When you dissect these games side-by-side, differences start to stand out. For one, with the exception of a couple of deep balls to Chark and a couple of shovel passes, almost all of Etling's completions were to the left side of the field. Burrow OTOH attacked the entire field of play consistently.

Then - as others have suggested - you note that Burrow threw about a dozen passes 20+ yards (from the LOS). Etling threw about 6 or 7.

Then let's look at their best plays.

For Etling, his first big throw was a deep completion to Chark. Looks good on paper and will go down as a 40+ yard pass, but it was thrown too late and/or underthrown. As a result, instead of what could've been a TD to a wide-open Chark, Chark was forced to slow down to catch it which allowed the DB to catch up and eventually cause Chark to fumble.

Then Etling had a 6-yard out route which Chark turned into a 35-yard gain because the Auburn DB went for the pick and lost the gamble. Great, whatever. Obviously not a knock on Etling, but that play wasn't really his doing either.

Then he had his TD pass to Gage. Great throw, but also a great catch as well.

Then he had a nice back-shoulder throw to Chark down the left sideline.

His last big play was a deep ball to Chark. Honestly not sure what to say about this one. Depending on your perspective, you could say it was a great back-shoulder throw, or it was a 50-50 ball that Etling tossed up which Chark happened to come down with.

Etling finished 13-24 for 206 yards and a TD. But when you get down to the nitty-gritty, two of those "completions" were shovel passes. He also had a very poor throw prior to his Gage TD that was very close to being an INT. The vast majority of his passing yardage came on a few deep shots that LSU came down with. Virtually no passing threat the entire game to the middle of the field.

Now let's look at Burrow. Here's the thing...with the exception of his TD to Dillon, Burrow didn't really have any "big plays." But that's kind of my point. He attacked the entire field with lots of slants and intermediate routes (in fact, Dillon's TD was about in that range). Yet he still threw for more yards against Auburn than Etling (249 to 206) with roughly the same amount of completions. As was already mentioned, Burrow thew about twice the number of low-percentage deep balls than Etling did,which partly accounts for the difference in completion %. Burrow was sacked twice. Etling was sacked 3 times (probably should've been 4, but he managed an improbable throw to Moreau whilst mid-sack).

Then add in the intangibles. Etling had Guice and had the benefit of a 4.0 ypc average as a team. Burrow's Tigers averaged 2.9 ypc. Burrow was playing in Jordan-Hare vs. at home. And Burrow was unflappable with 5 mins remaining and needing 45 yards to get in FG range.

Give me Burrow any day.