The average starting QB took 2.81 seconds to throw the ball last season according to NFL Next Gen Stats. That was the exact value obtained by both Patrick Mahomes and Kyler Murray. Bo Nix took 2.91 seconds on average to throw the ball last season. The QB who got the ball out the fastest last season was Tua Tagovailoa at 2.42 seconds. Lamar Jackson took the longest to throw the ball at 3.14 seconds but Jalen Hurts was pretty close at 3.13.
SISdatahub.com has what they call “pocket time” which is the average
time in the pocket before a QB gets pressure. So the QBs with the biggest difference between the two numbers is the one that does the best at moving in the pocket to create time. Notice that Lamar Jackson got pressure at 2.50 seconds on average, but didn’t throw until 3.14 seconds so on average he “created” 0.64 seconds in the pocket. Bo Nix had a difference of 0.41 which was almost exactly average (0.42 seconds). The QB who did the worst job of creating time was Mason Rudolph and it wasn’t close. He only created 0.20s on average. The next worst was Cooper Rush at 0.25s.
Other QBs who were good at creating time were Anthony Richardson, Justin Fields, Caleb Williams and (a surprise) Aidan O’Connell. O’Connell only scrambled three times on 256 dropbacks – 1.2%. That was one of the lowest scramble rates among starting QBs. The other guys all had high scramble rates. Only Matthew Stafford, Kirk Cousins and Joe Flacco scrambled less often. The two QBs who scrambled the most often last season were both rookies, Jayden Daniels (12.2%) and Drake Maye (10.8%). They were the only two who scrambled more than 9% of the time on dropbacks.
Tua’s OL did him absolutely no favors as he was pressured on average 2.10 seconds after the snap. The fastest sack of the season in 2024 was 2.18s by former Bronco Cody Barton, meaning that when Tua got pressure it was almost aways immediate. That being said, Tua was only pressured on 13.6% of his dropbacks which was the best value among starting Qbs. Andy Dalton, Baker Mayfield, Gardner Minshew and Joe Burrow all only got 2.20s last season before they were pressured. On the other side of the spectrum, Jalen Hurts got 2.70s of clean pocket which lead the league. Rudolph, DeShaun Watson and Sam Darnold were all tied for second at 2.60s. Bo Nix was tied for third with a whole host of other QBs at 2.50s.
One of the things that made both Peyton Manning and Tom “deflated balls” Brady great was their ability to move slightly in the pocket to create time enough for their intended receiver to get to the spot needed for them to make the throw. While athletic ability is needed to avoid pressure in the pocket, neither guy was a “running” QB, but they both were masters at “feeling the pocket” and knowing when to step left, right, up or back in the pocket.
Patrick Mahomes is also very good at this. While he is a much better “athlete” than Manning or Brady, he knows how to use his legs to create time in the pocket to get a better throw or bigger play. Looking at the guys with 0.50s of created time or better, most of the names are not surprising, besides Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell.
If we add pressure rates into the discussion we find some interesting things (see below).
Some QBs had to throw quickly because of how quickly and often they were pressured while others others threw early because the offense was designed for that as a response to a terrible OL. The really interesting data is from the QBs who are green in the far right column (like Nix) but orange or red in the left pocket time (like Mayfield and Mac Jones). If you look at my article from last week you can also see how often various QBs caused their own pressure – or you could just look at the table below – also note that PFF has different time to throw data.
PFF shows some QBs with almost the same time to throw as NGS, while others it shows having a large difference. You can see in the table below.
Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, Andy Dalton and Russell Wilson had almost exactly the same time to throw at NGS and PFF. While a few guys (green in the table above in the far right column) had significantly smaller times to throw on PFF. Only Jayden Daniels had a significantly higher number at PFF than at NGS.
