ckparrothead
Premium Member
Could he be the next Tony Romo?
I have a lot of misgivings with asking that question, to be honest.
But, I also have to say that I honestly can't see anything different about Tony Romo, before he became starter for the Dallas Cowboys, compared with Cleo Lemon, right now.
Huff and puff and call it ridiculous as you will, but the buzz factors, the preseason performances, and the spot performances during the regular season for the two of them are very similar when compared with what Romo had put together before he was named starter for the Cowboys over Bledsoe.
Both came from small schools where they didn't perform as well as they could have, had they been coached better and played for better teams.
Romo came out of Eastern Illinois and while he was a 60% passer, something I like, he was also a consistent 4.0% interception guy which is really not good.
If you stacked the top 32 passers in the NFL you'd find a 4.0% interception rate to be among the worst passers in the standing (Charlie Frye, Ben Roethlisberger, Jake Plummer, Joey Harrington, Jon Kitna, etc.). Funny enough, Romo still has a 3.9% interception rate this year...and if people in Dallas don't watch out, that could be the kind of persistent characteristic that comes back to bite them in the butt. Imagine when the offense is less effective on a whole and the touchdowns dwindle, yet he's still throwing an interception once every 25 throws. Any given year, he could go from a 32 TD/16 INT guy to a 15 TD/16 INT guy.
Cleo Lemon has similar size to Romo (both 6'2", about 230 lbs). Similar athleticism (seriously, if you stack their combine numbers next to each other you just about can't tell the difference). They have similar arms. There's a similar buzz among media that have tracked the two of them through their trials and tribulations...with various media in San Diego saying Cleo Lemon is a better QB than Phil Rivers at some point, Dr. Z mentioning Cleo Lemon specifically a few weeks ago and giving us one of those cryptic "stay tuned" remarks...various media have been talking about Tony Romo a few years as well. They had similar preseason performances. Now, they even have similar regular season statistics (90.9 QB Rating for Lemon, 93.4 QB Rating for Romo).
Cleo Lemon came out of Arkansas State where he basically re-wrote the record books. He was a 50% passer, which I do not like. However, he improved every year he was there in most important passing categories, including becoming a 56.5% passer by his senior year. He threw twice as many TDs as INTs, with a low 2.9% college INT% (2.3% by his senior year), which is very good.
The problems early in his career were clear. He was going for too much at one time. Every connected throw doesn't need to be a 20+ yard bomb. In his 4 years of college combined with his 4 years of preseason and regular season play, there is an extremely high and significant correlative relationship between his completion percentage and his yards per completion.
Early in his career, freshman year at Arkansas State, he had an extremely high 16.1 yards per completion average. He followed that up with 14.9 and another 14.9 yards per completion average. In all three years, he was a sub-50% passer (43.9%, 47.3%, 45.7%).
In his senior year, he shortened up his focus. As a result, his yards per completion dwindled down to an 11.4 yard average, but his completion percentage jumped up to 56.5%.
During that time, his interception percentage went from 3.2% his first three years with the high YPC, to 2.3% his final year with the lower YPC.
His time in the NFL has run some parallels. He started off with a low 51.2% completion in his first preseason action with the Chargers, and with a higher 13.4 yards per completion average. His interception percentage jumped back up to 5.1% as well.
He shortened his focus up a bit more, and his completion average dropped down to 10.5 yards per completion in 2004, which is about where that number has stayed in subsequent years (10.9 ypc in 2005, 10.5 ypc in 2006). Accordingly, his completion percentages have improved dramatically to 62.9%, 69.4%, and now 67.4% in 2006 (70% in preseason, 62.5% regular season).
He also has only thrown 1 interception in his last 168 pass attempts while his yards-per-completion focus has been between 10 and 11 yards on average. That's a 0.6% interception percentage in his last 3 years of football, 168 throws.
Clearly this is a quarterback that has improved since the day he took the reins at Arkansas State, and has found his pace.
Is it sustainable as a franchise starter? I'm really not sure. There's nothing simple about football. It is a constant interaction between coaches and players. It seems to me that his viability as a pro quarterback will depend on whether he is in an offense that suits his sweet spot in terms of the throw range where he enjoys his best results.
His YPC and CP% were so perfectly correlated from 1997 to 2004 that it is kind of ridiculous. If you plotted out his completion percentage next to his yards per completion, you'd have a trendline of 6 data points from 1997 to 2004 with an amazing 97% correlation. Do the same thing with his YPA and YPC numbers from 1997 to 2004, and you have a 79% R-Squared.
But, he sort of bucked the trend just a tad bit in 2005 and preseason 2006 by having completion percentages (and therefore yards per attempt averages) that outpaced his yards per completion average.
If you include his 8 years of performance in college and in the pros as 8 data points you still have quite an amazing 89% correlation between the two variables (completion percentage, and yards per completion) but the trendline relating YPA and YPC just explodes into insignificance. Clearly either 2005 & 2006 are statistically anomalous, or they represent a wholesale skill level change.
Considering some subtle, but significant, disparities between his regular season performances thus far, and his preseason performances from 2005 & 2006, I'm able to err on the side of anomaly. Therefore, I think the stats that he is putting together during his 32 regular season throws so far, are pretty indicative of what would be a long term trend for him because they are tracked on the same lock-step as his four years of college data and his 2003 & 2004 preseason data.
At between a 10.0 and 11.0 yards per completion range (his "sweet spot"), he will most likely have a completion percentage of between 62 and 64%, he will most likely have an interception percentage around the 1.5% to 2.5% area, he will most likely have a YPA that is between 6.4 and 7.0 ypa, and his touchdown percentage will probably be pretty dependent on how well the offense is functioning as a whole. Conservatively, if you map out a TD% of 5.4% (which is his college and pro career average) then you have a passer that on a long term basis will have QB ratings that range between 87.4 and 96.5.
College Stats
1997: 90/205, 1452, 6, 8
1998: 183/387, 2721, 15, 10
1999: 105/230, 1569, 15, 8
2000: 173/306, 1964, 13, 7
Total: 551/1128, 7706, 64, 33 (78.0 QB R)
Professional Preseason Stats
PS 2003: 20/39, 267, 1, 2
PS 2004: 17/27, 178, 0, 1
PS 2005: 34/49, 369, 4, 0
PS 2006: 42/60, 450, 2, 0
Professional Regular Season Stats
RS 2006: 20/32, 202, 1, 0 (90.9 QB R)
Year-to-Year Progressions
CP%: 43.9%, 47.3%, 45.7%, 56.5%, 51.2%, 62.9%, 69.4%, 67.4%
YPA: 7.1, 7.0, 6.8, 6.4, 6.8, 6.6, 7.5, 7.1
YPC: 16.1, 14.9, 14.9, 11.4, 13.4, 10.5, 10.9, 10.5
TD%: 2.9%, 3.9%, 6.5%, 4.3%, 2.6%, 0.0%, 8.2%, 3.3%
INT%: 3.9%, 2.6%, 3.5%, 2.3%, 5.1%, 3.7%, 0.0%, 0.0%
QBR: 61.7, 72.9, 75.8, 80.6, 60.5, 66.6, 118.5, 98.6
Overall, I'm pretty comfortable with next year's prospects at the quarterback position. I think that if we're being completely honest with ourselves, we have to have some concern that Daunte Culpepper can return to full health and be the player we want him to be. He doesn't have to be the 2004 version of himself to be a good QB for us, but he does have to PASS the ball like the 2000-2004 & 2006 versions of himself (putting behind him the anomalous 2005 season where his interception percentage went through the roof), and he has to be able to run around and buy time against the blitz like he did prior to the knee injury.
However, if he doesn't assume the position, as it were, then I am pretty confident that we have ourselves a little version of Tony Romo sitting behind Culpepper ready to take over and win us some ball games.
But there are a number of keys:
1. Contrary to popular opinion, Mularkey doesn't need to be fired. His focus plays well into Cleo Lemon's strengths, and just a few touches to the focus could make it a Culpepper-friendly offense as well because, also contrary to popular belief, Daunte Culpepper is a very gifted short passer.
2. Nick Saban needs to get his head out his colon and stop giving the veterans 15 chances to hang themselves before he goes with a younger guy. That probably means getting rid of Joey Harrington altogether, as in off the roster, and having a pretty sensitive choke chain on Daunte Culpepper when he does come back. If you see something in Culpepper's passing and running that lets you know that it just isn't working, pull the trigger. Yesterday I was happy that he did not hesitate to put Lemon in at halftime with the way the offense was performing...however, I have to consider it questionable at best that he stuck with Harrington after the Bills game, and I consider it flat out dumb that he says that he will play "both quarterbacks" in the Colts game. If Saban mishandles the situation next year, we could lose a whole lot of games despite having the correct pieces on the roster.
I have a lot of misgivings with asking that question, to be honest.
But, I also have to say that I honestly can't see anything different about Tony Romo, before he became starter for the Dallas Cowboys, compared with Cleo Lemon, right now.
Huff and puff and call it ridiculous as you will, but the buzz factors, the preseason performances, and the spot performances during the regular season for the two of them are very similar when compared with what Romo had put together before he was named starter for the Cowboys over Bledsoe.
Both came from small schools where they didn't perform as well as they could have, had they been coached better and played for better teams.
Romo came out of Eastern Illinois and while he was a 60% passer, something I like, he was also a consistent 4.0% interception guy which is really not good.
If you stacked the top 32 passers in the NFL you'd find a 4.0% interception rate to be among the worst passers in the standing (Charlie Frye, Ben Roethlisberger, Jake Plummer, Joey Harrington, Jon Kitna, etc.). Funny enough, Romo still has a 3.9% interception rate this year...and if people in Dallas don't watch out, that could be the kind of persistent characteristic that comes back to bite them in the butt. Imagine when the offense is less effective on a whole and the touchdowns dwindle, yet he's still throwing an interception once every 25 throws. Any given year, he could go from a 32 TD/16 INT guy to a 15 TD/16 INT guy.
Cleo Lemon has similar size to Romo (both 6'2", about 230 lbs). Similar athleticism (seriously, if you stack their combine numbers next to each other you just about can't tell the difference). They have similar arms. There's a similar buzz among media that have tracked the two of them through their trials and tribulations...with various media in San Diego saying Cleo Lemon is a better QB than Phil Rivers at some point, Dr. Z mentioning Cleo Lemon specifically a few weeks ago and giving us one of those cryptic "stay tuned" remarks...various media have been talking about Tony Romo a few years as well. They had similar preseason performances. Now, they even have similar regular season statistics (90.9 QB Rating for Lemon, 93.4 QB Rating for Romo).
Cleo Lemon came out of Arkansas State where he basically re-wrote the record books. He was a 50% passer, which I do not like. However, he improved every year he was there in most important passing categories, including becoming a 56.5% passer by his senior year. He threw twice as many TDs as INTs, with a low 2.9% college INT% (2.3% by his senior year), which is very good.
The problems early in his career were clear. He was going for too much at one time. Every connected throw doesn't need to be a 20+ yard bomb. In his 4 years of college combined with his 4 years of preseason and regular season play, there is an extremely high and significant correlative relationship between his completion percentage and his yards per completion.
Early in his career, freshman year at Arkansas State, he had an extremely high 16.1 yards per completion average. He followed that up with 14.9 and another 14.9 yards per completion average. In all three years, he was a sub-50% passer (43.9%, 47.3%, 45.7%).
In his senior year, he shortened up his focus. As a result, his yards per completion dwindled down to an 11.4 yard average, but his completion percentage jumped up to 56.5%.
During that time, his interception percentage went from 3.2% his first three years with the high YPC, to 2.3% his final year with the lower YPC.
His time in the NFL has run some parallels. He started off with a low 51.2% completion in his first preseason action with the Chargers, and with a higher 13.4 yards per completion average. His interception percentage jumped back up to 5.1% as well.
He shortened his focus up a bit more, and his completion average dropped down to 10.5 yards per completion in 2004, which is about where that number has stayed in subsequent years (10.9 ypc in 2005, 10.5 ypc in 2006). Accordingly, his completion percentages have improved dramatically to 62.9%, 69.4%, and now 67.4% in 2006 (70% in preseason, 62.5% regular season).
He also has only thrown 1 interception in his last 168 pass attempts while his yards-per-completion focus has been between 10 and 11 yards on average. That's a 0.6% interception percentage in his last 3 years of football, 168 throws.
Clearly this is a quarterback that has improved since the day he took the reins at Arkansas State, and has found his pace.
Is it sustainable as a franchise starter? I'm really not sure. There's nothing simple about football. It is a constant interaction between coaches and players. It seems to me that his viability as a pro quarterback will depend on whether he is in an offense that suits his sweet spot in terms of the throw range where he enjoys his best results.
His YPC and CP% were so perfectly correlated from 1997 to 2004 that it is kind of ridiculous. If you plotted out his completion percentage next to his yards per completion, you'd have a trendline of 6 data points from 1997 to 2004 with an amazing 97% correlation. Do the same thing with his YPA and YPC numbers from 1997 to 2004, and you have a 79% R-Squared.
But, he sort of bucked the trend just a tad bit in 2005 and preseason 2006 by having completion percentages (and therefore yards per attempt averages) that outpaced his yards per completion average.
If you include his 8 years of performance in college and in the pros as 8 data points you still have quite an amazing 89% correlation between the two variables (completion percentage, and yards per completion) but the trendline relating YPA and YPC just explodes into insignificance. Clearly either 2005 & 2006 are statistically anomalous, or they represent a wholesale skill level change.
Considering some subtle, but significant, disparities between his regular season performances thus far, and his preseason performances from 2005 & 2006, I'm able to err on the side of anomaly. Therefore, I think the stats that he is putting together during his 32 regular season throws so far, are pretty indicative of what would be a long term trend for him because they are tracked on the same lock-step as his four years of college data and his 2003 & 2004 preseason data.
At between a 10.0 and 11.0 yards per completion range (his "sweet spot"), he will most likely have a completion percentage of between 62 and 64%, he will most likely have an interception percentage around the 1.5% to 2.5% area, he will most likely have a YPA that is between 6.4 and 7.0 ypa, and his touchdown percentage will probably be pretty dependent on how well the offense is functioning as a whole. Conservatively, if you map out a TD% of 5.4% (which is his college and pro career average) then you have a passer that on a long term basis will have QB ratings that range between 87.4 and 96.5.
College Stats
1997: 90/205, 1452, 6, 8
1998: 183/387, 2721, 15, 10
1999: 105/230, 1569, 15, 8
2000: 173/306, 1964, 13, 7
Total: 551/1128, 7706, 64, 33 (78.0 QB R)
Professional Preseason Stats
PS 2003: 20/39, 267, 1, 2
PS 2004: 17/27, 178, 0, 1
PS 2005: 34/49, 369, 4, 0
PS 2006: 42/60, 450, 2, 0
Professional Regular Season Stats
RS 2006: 20/32, 202, 1, 0 (90.9 QB R)
Year-to-Year Progressions
CP%: 43.9%, 47.3%, 45.7%, 56.5%, 51.2%, 62.9%, 69.4%, 67.4%
YPA: 7.1, 7.0, 6.8, 6.4, 6.8, 6.6, 7.5, 7.1
YPC: 16.1, 14.9, 14.9, 11.4, 13.4, 10.5, 10.9, 10.5
TD%: 2.9%, 3.9%, 6.5%, 4.3%, 2.6%, 0.0%, 8.2%, 3.3%
INT%: 3.9%, 2.6%, 3.5%, 2.3%, 5.1%, 3.7%, 0.0%, 0.0%
QBR: 61.7, 72.9, 75.8, 80.6, 60.5, 66.6, 118.5, 98.6
Overall, I'm pretty comfortable with next year's prospects at the quarterback position. I think that if we're being completely honest with ourselves, we have to have some concern that Daunte Culpepper can return to full health and be the player we want him to be. He doesn't have to be the 2004 version of himself to be a good QB for us, but he does have to PASS the ball like the 2000-2004 & 2006 versions of himself (putting behind him the anomalous 2005 season where his interception percentage went through the roof), and he has to be able to run around and buy time against the blitz like he did prior to the knee injury.
However, if he doesn't assume the position, as it were, then I am pretty confident that we have ourselves a little version of Tony Romo sitting behind Culpepper ready to take over and win us some ball games.
But there are a number of keys:
1. Contrary to popular opinion, Mularkey doesn't need to be fired. His focus plays well into Cleo Lemon's strengths, and just a few touches to the focus could make it a Culpepper-friendly offense as well because, also contrary to popular belief, Daunte Culpepper is a very gifted short passer.
2. Nick Saban needs to get his head out his colon and stop giving the veterans 15 chances to hang themselves before he goes with a younger guy. That probably means getting rid of Joey Harrington altogether, as in off the roster, and having a pretty sensitive choke chain on Daunte Culpepper when he does come back. If you see something in Culpepper's passing and running that lets you know that it just isn't working, pull the trigger. Yesterday I was happy that he did not hesitate to put Lemon in at halftime with the way the offense was performing...however, I have to consider it questionable at best that he stuck with Harrington after the Bills game, and I consider it flat out dumb that he says that he will play "both quarterbacks" in the Colts game. If Saban mishandles the situation next year, we could lose a whole lot of games despite having the correct pieces on the roster.
