New Numbers Show Ryan Pace Was Smart to Nab Trubisky Last Year

Ryan Pace caught flak from all sides when he traded up to draft Mitch Trubisky. There were two primary criticisms. The first was the Chicago Bears had just signed Mike Glennon in free agency. They paid him a ton of money. What purpose did drafting a QB serve at that point? Then there was the criticism of Trubisky himself. While many liked his talent, they were wary of the fact he only started 13 games in college. There was one other point made by more than a few people. The Bears should've waited. The 2017 quarterback class was good but the 2018 class? That was going to be phenomenal. All they had to do was wait one more year, build up the roster and cash in this April. Except Pace doesn't just know about a draft class for one year. Men like him are paid big bucks to see what's coming down the road too. If the 2018 class was going to be so good, one would think he would've taken a pass on a quarterback right? He didn't. Trubisky was his guy and they made sure to get him. Now information continues to surface about this once-in-a-generation class. Information that hints it might not be all that after all.

Numbers show that Ryan Pace had cause to get Trubisky

Bill Connelly of SB Nation is what one might call a "stat guru." He loves to crunch numbers to see if he can find patterns towards predicting the future success or failure of college players in the NFL. Few have driven his intrigue of late more than the quarterbacks. He decided to take his latest stab at it this year and came away with some fascinating results. It came down to using four distinct stat systems, and they are as follows.

"Success rate is a common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not (the terms: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down). IsoPPP, meanwhile, looks at the magnitude of the successful plays in terms of expected points...

...Marginal Efficiency: the difference between a player’s success rate (passing, rushing, or receiving) or success rate allowed (for an individual defender) and the expected success rate of each play based on down, distance, and yard line.

Marginal Explosiveness: the difference between a player’s IsoPPP (passing, rushing, or receiving) or IsoPPP allowed (for an individual defender) and the expected IsoPPP value of each play based on down, distance, and yard line.

For offensive players, the larger the positive value, the better. For defensive players, it’s the opposite — the more negative, the better."

It's a lot to absorb, so here's the jist.

Using these numbers, he determined that the 2018 quarterback class might be a bit less inspiring than some hoped. In fact only two of their number project as future successful starters. The rest? Primarily long-term backups or busts.   Basically, what Connelly is saying is that based on his numbers is that the 2018 class is overrated. Baker Mayfield looks like the only member of the top four names who line up as being a future stud. Meanwhile, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, and Josh Rosen aren't looking so hot. What adds further intrigue to this is Connelly did a piece last year on college quarterbacks before the draft. In it, he compiled a list of the top 30 names based on percentiles for likely future NFL success. The only projected first round pick in the 2018 class to rank ahead of Trubisky (8th) was Mayfield (4th). Darnold (15th) came up short while Allen and Rosen didn't even qualify. There is still plenty of proving for Trubisky to do. Still, if nothing else this is another sign that the Bears did not make a poor decision drafting him when they did.