Is the traditional pocket passer dead? : An in-depth analysis

By: Brandon Lim, Ethan Chan, Nathan Yee, Devon Yu

Credit: NFL.com

Introduction

The “pocket passer” refers to a quarterback who excels from throwing behind the offensive line, relying on their accuracy and strong decision-making abilities rather than mobility. Historically, the traditional quarterback has been modeled around the pocket passer archetype, and many all-time greats including 7-time Super Bowl Winner Tom Brady and First Ballot Hall of Famer Peyton Manning were traditional pocket passers. Then came the emergence of the scrambling quarterback, often capable passers who further excelled due to their greater mobility. Players such as 4-time Pro Bowler Michael Vick and 3-time Super Bowl Winner Steve Young challenged the idea of a traditional pocket passer, paving the way for modern greats such as 2-time MVP Lamar Jackson and 2024-25 MVP Josh Allen. Teams have now shaped their offenses around the efficiency of their quarterback’s legs, with the creation of the read-option and spread offenses, predicated on maximizing the potential of their offense by stressing the defenses with the quarterback’s ability to run. With the rise of both archetypes, the hybrid arose as a happy medium between both. Although hybrid quarterbacks maintain the ability to scramble, they often lack the same designed run concepts that scramblers do, and primarily scramble to find passing options rather than to run for yardage. Many modern examples of hybrid quarterbacks include 3-time Super Bowl Winner Patrick Mahomes and 2023-24 Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud. 

Analysis

As mentioned previously, teams have shaped their offenses around the scrambling quarterback, and we wanted to investigate whether the pocket passer has reduced efficiency in the modern game of football due to their inability to scramble to create plays, and how this could affect how NFL teams draft their future franchise quarterbacks based on their archetypes. 

Methodology

To categorize quarterbacks, we used rushing yards and rushing attempts per game of all quarterbacks in the 2024-25 NFL season according to . Here is the classification below:

Archetype	Rushing Yards Per Game	Rushing Attempts Per game
Scrambler	30+	4+
Hybrid	10-30	2.5-4
Pocket Passer	0-10	0-2.5

Note: Each quarterback's name is labeled, and different colors indicate their playing style.

Comparison 1: Rush Yards vs Passer Rating

Graph Description:

The scatterplot shows the relationship between QB season rushing yards and quarterback passer rating, split into the three QB archetypes.

Each quarterback’s name is labeled, and different colors indicate their playing style.

The Metrics:

Quarterback passer rating is a metric evaluating a quarterback’s performance based on their passing efficiency. It calculates a quarterback’s completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt, and interceptions per attempt into a scale from 0 to 158.3, with higher ratings indicating better performance. 

Rush yards refers to a quarterback’s total rushing yards throughout the 2024-25 NFL season. 

Observations:

On average, Scramblers tend to have slightly higher passer ratings than both Hybrids and pure Pocket Passers, indicating a possible relationship. However, after accounting for outliers (mainly Lamar Jackson’s data), the Scramblers archetype group presents a much more similar dataset to the other two, sporting an average passer rating of 95.4143, which is extremely close to that of the Hybrids (95.0900) and the Pocket Passers (94.1300). As shown in the graph, most of the data, regardless of QB type, clusters around the 90-110 Passer Rating range. The graph suggests that rushing production, depicted by the trio of archetypes, likely doesn’t inherently affect overall QB performance, represented by their season passer ratings. 

Comparison 2: TD/INT Ratio vs Completion Percentage

Graph description:

The scatter plot illustrates the relationship between TD/INT Ratio and Completion Percentage for quarterbacks categorized into three archetypes.

Each quarterback’s name is labeled, and the different colors indicate their playing styles. 

The Metrics:

TD/INT Ratio represents the number of touchdowns a quarterback throws relative to the number of interceptions. Higher ratios typically indicate better decision-making and efficiency.

Completion Percentage measures the percentage of passes completed out of total passing attempts, serving as an indicator of passing accuracy. 

Observations:

Scramblers and Hybrid quarterbacks tend to have slightly higher completion percentages than Pocket Passers. This might be due to the fact that pure Pocket Passers tend to rack up more pass attempts per game than Hybrid and Scrambler quarterbacks, as they stray away from rushing the ball themselves. However, despite the slight variation in completion percentage, all three archetypes produce about the same touchdown to interception ratio throughout the course of a season. While there are exceptions to this, notably Justin Herbert (Hybrid), and Lamar Jackson (Scrambler), most of the quarterbacks fall within the 62%-68% completion percentage and 1.3-3.8 TD/INT ratio ranges regardless of their archetype. Players such as Jalen Hurts, Joe Burrow, and Jared Goff all produce strong completion percentages and TD/INT ratios even though they come from varying quarterback archetypes.

Comparison 3: QBR vs Total TDs

Graph Description: 

The scatter plot illustrates the relationship between QBR and Total Touchdowns for quarterbacks, categorized by their three archetypes and averages.

The Metrics:

Third Down QBR is an ESPN metric used to grade the overall performance of a quarterback on their third down performance, mostly occurring in the red zone on 3rd & goal or 3rd and short yardage instances. It is considered a highly holistic measure of the performance of a quarterback. Total Touchdowns measure the total passing and rushing touchdowns. 

Observations:

Scramblers and Hybrid Quarterbacks tend to score 5 more touchdowns on average than Pocket Passers, as mobility may contribute to higher touchdown production from additional rushing scores. This may be because many pocket passers often hand off touchdowns on short yardage in the red zone instead of running it in themselves. However, there is no significant difference in quarterback efficiency (defined by Third Down QBR) between the three archetypes. Although pocket passers tend to have lower total touchdowns, their QBR remains relatively similar to their scrambler and hybrid counterparts, displaying no drop-off in overall efficiency based on their archetypes. Notable players such as Jared Goff, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson, all have high QBR and total touchdowns, despite being completely different archetypes. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, being a successful quarterback in the modern NFL starts with being an efficient passer, as the game has evolved to emphasize precision, quick decision-making, and the ability to exploit defenses through the air. With rule changes favoring the passing game and offenses relying heavily on spread formations and quick reads, a quarterback’s ability to deliver accurate throws under pressure is key. While athleticism and mobility can enhance a quarterback’s effectiveness, consistent accuracy, and strong decision-making remain the foundation of sustained success in today’s NFL.  In every comparison, there is a clustering of all 3 archetypes regarding their overall passing performance. Although there are statistical anomalies such as Lamar Jackson who put intense pressure on defenses as displayed by his incredible numbers in the touchdown-interception ratio, this cannot be generalized to all scrambling quarterbacks. Ultimately, there is no statistically significant difference between the overall performance of scrambling and pocket-passing quarterbacks as measured by QBR and little to no difference in overall passing ability as measured by passer rating and TD/INT ratios.