What Kind Of NFL Draft Prospect Is Clemson QB Tajh Boyd?

Stay tuned all season as we examine the top quarterbacks of the 2013 college football season to find out if they are “system QBs” or special talents.  Other articles in the series include:

Is Oregon’s Marcus Mariota just another Chip Kelly System QB?

Comparing AJ McCarron to Alabama QBs of the Nick Saban era

Johnny Manziel, System QBs, and the ghost of Case Keenum

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According to NFLdraftscout.com Tajh Boyd is the #1 ranked QB in the 2014 senior class.  While I don’t think Boyd is a bad quarterback, I have him significantly lower in my rankings of the best quarterback prospects for the 2014 NFL Draft.  This discrepancy led me to wonder if I am off base, so I decided to put the Clemson QB under the microscope.

The first thing to know about Tajh Boyd is that he is playing the 2013 season at age 23.  This puts him at risk to be struck down by the curse of the old quarterback.  To put his play in context with guys who are currently in the NFL, I went in search of quarterbacks with similar metrics and who played their second-to-last college season at age 22, like Boyd.  Here is the cohort I came up with, which consists of Boyd and his four closest comparables–two “higher performing” and two “lower performing”.

Based on our current knowledge of these players, the range of outcomes for Boyd looks to be “serviceable starter” to “career backup”.  But we haven’t gotten into any of the metrics yet, so let’s see if those can help inform our outlook.

For this exercise we’ll be looking at performance in games played against bowl competition.  We don’t care about the gaudy stats that these guys post against FCS cupcakes; we want to see them competing against strong teams.  Again, we’re looking at how these guys looked in their age 22 seasons, which, in all five cases, was their second-to-last college season.  First we observe their frequency of multi-touchdown passing performances and their completion percentages.

In some ways, this chart explains the problem with staying in college for your age 23 season.  Colt McCoy was PHENOMENAL as a junior at age 22, but he stayed in college another year, regressed, and was never able to regain that developmental momentum.  On the flip side, a guy like Andy Dalton looks terrible in this cohort, but actually graded highest for me since he made significant improvements in his senior year, while the others back-peddled.  For Tajh Boyd, he looks to be in the middle of this cohort.  There are some positive signs but nothing to get overly excited about.

If there’s reason to get excited about Boyd, it’s because he had a cohort leading TD%.  Unfortunately, he also has a cohort leading INT%.  When you’re watching Tajh this year, keep an on his propensity to throw interceptions.  If he can’t be trusted to take care of the ball against ACC defenders, I would be scared to see him quarterback an NFL offense.  Further, I wonder if his turnover-prone ways might cost Clemson during their National Title chase.

If we roll this information into a simple-to-understand number that represents the value of these quarterbacks, we get the following results, based on their age 22 seasons.  This is their adjust yards per attempt–approximately how many yards their team gains every time they throw the ball.

Boyd’s age 22 season performance puts him in the middle of this unexciting cohort.  While his 2013 performance still remains to be seen, the best case scenario appears to be Andy Dalton, who is a serviceable starter, but probably has a limited upside.  However, to even be considered at that level–let alone the #1 QB in his class–Boyd would need to take a significant step forward to match Dalton’s 9.8 AYA.

Notice how everyone but Dalton took a big step back in their final college season, which illustrates why it’s important to enter the NFL when your stock is highest.  That lost year of NFL coaching and the decline in performance is killer when it comes to developing into a potential franchise QB.

If you want to make the argument that Tajh Boyd has “dual threat” capabilities, I would direct you to the following chart, which shows performance based on a per-touch basis (total yards from scrimmage divided by total run+pass attempts).  Boyd is about as efficient as Tyler Wilson and Kirk Cousins…not exactly dynamic play makers.

While there is still more evidence to collect on Tajh Boyd, my outlook is that he never amounts to more than a fringe starter in the NFL.  If he is to become more than that, significant strides need to be apparent during his senior year.

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