Drew Lock’s Lock Status vs Gardner Minshew’s Mania

Over the last two seasons, we’ve seen sophomore quarterbacks take the fantasy world by storm. First, it was Patrick Mahomes. Then it was Lamar Jackson. In both cases, these players vaulted towards the top of dynasty quarterback rankings.

If you listen to enough podcasts or spend enough time on Twitter, you’ll see that Drew Lock is getting some hype to be another sophomore riser. On one hand, his weapons for this year are interesting. On the other hand, he was not great in his limited starts. I find it interesting that some are claiming Lock belongs in the teens in their dynasty quarterback rankings, and yet believe that Gardner Minshew deserves to lose his job.

To be clear, I don’t think either of them will be the second-year breakout (if there is one). I’m looking at you, Daniel Jones. That said, I do think the fact that Lock is going in the sixth round of superflex ADP while Minshew is going over two full rounds later is worth exploring.

I’m going to start with Lock. Let’s take a deeper look at what he did in his rookie season. From weeks 12 to 17, he attempted 156 passes for 1,020 yards, seven touchdowns, three interceptions, and had an adjusted yards per attempt average (A/YA)  of 6.57.

Among rookie quarterbacks in their first five starts over the last decades, here is how Lock ranks in passing yards:

You’ll notice that Jones is close to Lock on this list. Fortunately for Jones, he performed much better over a larger sample. Maybe there is the same hope for Lock. However, the other quarterbacks around the Broncos QB haven’t had all that much fantasy success. The list does look a bit more favorable if you sort it by passing touchdowns.

Lock is tied for 11th among rookie quarterbacks in their first five games, but if you look at who is directly ahead of him this isn’t exactly indicative of success either. Only Deshaun Watson has had sustained fantasy success of the quarterbacks ahead of him on this list. Though there is some more hope to be had if you look at the quarterbacks who were tied with him, such as Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Carson Wentz, Jameis Winston, and Gardner Minshew.

Statistics from sports-reference.com.

Similarly, if you look at Lock’s AY/A during his five-game stretch, he ranks 17th among rookie quarterbacks in their first five starts over the last decade. Being behind Cody Kessler, Matt McGloin, Mason Rudolph, Geno Smith, and TJ Yates certainly isn’t inspiring anyone. At this point, I think we have well established that from a statistical point of view, Lock’s limited showing wasn’t exactly wowing anyone.

If we look at it from a fantasy perspective last year, Lock was the QB32 in fantasy PPG. However, if you narrow that down to the four games he started during the fantasy season, he was QB26 in fantasy PPG which is a bit more tolerable. Still though, if you started Mitchell Trubisky, you’d have gotten 51.5 more points during Lock’s starts. If you started Derek Carr, you would have gotten 19 more points during Lock’s starts. Both are going over three full rounds later than Lock in current superflex ADP.

In fairness to Lock, he was a rookie and it was a very small sample. He could still be better than the two players I just mentioned, but I’m not seeing much to get excited about here besides the fact that Lock ‘game managed’ his way to winning four of the five games he started. Wins don’t matter a ton for fantasy, but they do matter for job security.

So, what about Minshew? Was it all just hype over his admittedly enchanting mustache and swagger? Unlike Lock, Minshew has a larger sample size for us to examine since he started 12 games. In those 12 games, he attempted 470 passes for 3271 yards, 21 touchdowns, six interceptions, and an A/YA of 7.3.

Among rookie quarterbacks in the last decade with at least 14 games played, and over 300 passes attempted, here is how Minshew ranks in passing touchdowns:

When you’re one of four on a list of Baker Mayfield, Russell Wilson, and even Daniel Jones, that’s a great list to find yourself a part of. What about the passing yards?

Once again, all the QBs who finished ahead of him except for Brandon Weeden have been sought after and useful fantasy assets. Even the majority of the players behind him, minus Sam Bradford have had measures of fantasy success.

Finally, what about his A/YA?

So, we can see that by these statistical measures Minshew’s rookie season can widely be considered a success. However, we do need to keep in mind that he lost six of the 12 games he started, and he fumbled the ball 13 times. He definitely needs to work on both of those things but based on these numbers I’m optimistic about him remaining the starter. Especially when you factor in how cheap his sixth-round rookie contract is for team-building purposes.

In regard to fantasy, Minshew was QB20 in points per game on the season. In fact, he scored slightly more than 2.68 PPG more than Lock did. Some of this can be attributed to the Jaguars often playing from behind, but it’s not an insignificant number of points.

At this point though, I think the fairest thing to do would be to show you what Lock and Minshew look like in direct comparison on a per-game basis.

Minshew was slightly better in most categories but on a per-game basis, they were incredibly close. This isn’t accounting for the respective offenses they’ll play with in 2020. I know a lot of the attention Lock is getting from the fact that he’ll have Courtland Sutton, Noah Fant, and Melvin Gordon.

On the flip side, I’m honestly not sure the Jaguars main group of DJ Chark, Leonard Fournette, Dede Westbrook, and Chris Conley is far behind. Both teams have over six draft picks in the first two days of the draft. It’s a loaded receiver class and I’d expect both groups to look a little different at the end of April.

The data doesn’t show anything that really justifies two rounds of difference in ADP to me. My best guess is that it’s because one was a second-round pick in the NFL draft, and the other was a sixth-round pick in the NFL Draft. Or it could be because despite fantasy people claiming not to fall in love with quarterbacks because of QB wins, they still do anyway.  Neither of these two are likely to be the next sophomore quarterback to jump in the top tier, but if given an option between the two, I’m riding the Minshew Mania wave all day.