With many debating on what the future holds for new free agent-quarterback Matt Flynn, everyone is trying to figure out how safe of an investment is the 26-year-old quarterback to be a competitor in the NFL and whether he will be able to compete for a starting gig.
With this in mind, it is prominent to bring up how Flynn’s path to success that’s got him to this opportunity in NFL is one that is surprisingly similar to a quarterback who's been increasingly successful each of the past five years; Houston Texans’ quarterback Matt Schaub.
Here is where I strongly emphasize it is the developmental path and progression of these two quarterbacks that I am acknowledging as similar, and it is the efficiency in what each of them does that shows Flynn will be able to be as successful of a quarterback in the league as Schaub. Schaub had developed/proven enough with Atlanta in his three years there to be given a shot to lead a team in the NFL, and he was able to get to the point where he was able to keep progressing and take his team to an elite level. I believe Matt Flynn was fortunate enough to have been able to progress faster than Schaub was within the fine tuned machine that is the Green Bay Packers’ offense, and that Flynn is at the point where he has progressed enough to be capable of taking a team and get them to compete in this league every Sunday right from the start.
While both Schaub and Flynn are definitely very different in their preferred styles of play, they both have strengthened the weaknesses in their games coming out of college, and honed their skills in order to become better players and get an opportunity to start in the NFL. They have each taken the right steps into getting ready to compete competitively at the NFL-level in a strikingly similar progression:
A) Matt Schaub was a late round commodity (although selected late third round) drafted the by the Atlanta Falcon’s in 2004, his first show of promise came in his second year when he got his second career start against the New England Patriots. He lost that game in a close one that ended 28-31, but he encouragingly threw for 298 yards, 3 TD’s and finished with a 100.2 passer rating. He stayed with the team for the next season as a backup and then in the offseason goes to the Texans via a trade cause of the potential he showed going into the following season at the young age of 26 (25 at the time of the trade) and coming off a season with a passer rating of 87.2. He had thrown for 1,033 yards at this point in his career with 6 TD’s and 6 INT’s.
B) Matt Flynn was a 7th round draft pick by the Packers in 2008, his first real opportunity to show himself comes in his first career start he gets in 2010 against the undefeated New England Patriots, and he loses in a close game 27-31, but he threw for 251 yards and 3 TD’s with a passer rating of exactly 100.2 for the game. He stays with the team the following season and at the youthful age of 26 he lands with another team who sees his potential, coming off a season with a passer rating of 124.8 (92.8 for his career). He has thrown for 1,015 yards in his career with 9 TD’s and 5 INT’s.
Coincidentally those two scenarios look a little similar: while both were unproven projects at the time, they proved they could go rally and lead their teams to go toe to toe with the likes of Tom Brady and compete for a full 60 minutes. The leadership and composure showed by each guy reiterated their grit and determination, in which both were able to get their own opportunity from. These two different kinds of quarterbacks oddly enough seemed to find similar ways to shine. Schaub came out of college known as a short precision passer that could control a game, while Flynn was the one with the impressively accurate deep ball that could get him shooting into hot streaks. Although, due to the weaknesses in their games, they were both considered “late round picks” that were “competitive signal callers”, and unless serious strides were made in their games they were going to be lower-tier backups in the league.
In college, Schaub was the more efficient QB of the two with a 69.7% completion percentage and averaged 7.3 passing yards gained per attempt his senior year, while Flynn had a 56% completion percentage and averaged 6.7 yards per attempt. Schaub, however, was able to become the starter at the University of Virginia halfway through his sophomore year, which certainly helped quicken his development as passer. Flynn did not become the starter until his senior year as he spent the previous seasons backing up Jamarcus Russell in LSU’s horribly un-pro like offensive system. The detriment of the offensive system and the lack of playing time certainly slowed his development as a quarterback compared to Schaub. This is even more apparent when one stresses the near 14% disparity of Flynn’s completion percentage to Schaub’s.
Once in the NFL, serious strides were made for both players that have helped give them competitive opportunities to start in the NFL. That progress was made possible due to both of the systems in which the two learned from in the NFL. Schaub’s first stint was with Michael Vick’s sporadically explosive Atlanta Falcon’s, in which Schaub saw his numbers descent into the system with an abysmal 52.2% completion percentage in his tenure there, which fell right in line with Vick’s 53% percentage he had in his career with the team. It wasn’t until he was traded to the Houston Texans did Schaub find a place to prosper within the west coast brand offense of new head coach Gary Kubiak. Kubiak’s system of having the run game and short passing game let the offense get going fell right into Schaub’s initial strengths. While under this system he has been able to develop the rest of his game in order to keep defenses honest and to be able to compensate and adjust to adversity in the course of the game. Schaub has developed himself into a quarterback that can make all the throws if you chose to leave them too open: his deep ball can make defenses pay if they test him too far, which keeps them honest and allows the rest of the offense to keep rolling.
Flynn was able to have this same progression, but got it with his original team in Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodger’s Green Bay Packers. Their offensive system is one based on the quarterback being the focal point of the offensive that is highly efficient and quickly completes short, crisp passes to go down the field, which from there the rest of the offensive flows from. This style didn’t necessarily fall into the strengths of Flynn, however, the development that ensued over the next four years molded him into a more complete quarterback that is athletic and versatile enough to give the team a fighting shot every Sunday.
Schaub’s success has been shown in his turning around the Texans franchise into a winning team, as well as his banner 2009 campaign when he led the league in passing.
Flynn is following the path Schaub took right now: he has proven himself to have serious potential, most recently by beating a fully-loaded Lions team with his arm by throwing for 480 yards and 6 TD’s in a shootout victory in the last game of the regular season this year.
Schaub was chosen to be the leader of the Texans franchise because he had proven he had what it takes to find ways to win in the NFL. Now Flynn is being seen as that same proven commodity and is now contemplating which team he’d rather be leading in 2012.
Statistics validate how both quarterbacks steadily increase in efficiency was what sent them both into the discussion of the starting caliber quarterbacks in the NFL. The cannon-armed Flynn is going down the progression the sharp shooting Schaub has had in his career. While both play the position to their strengths and with a totally different style, they’re effectiveness is very comparable. One of the stats that best compares efficiency of two different styled QB’s is their average yards gained per pass attempt; this helps take into consideration how efficiently each of them is moving the offense with their style and system. Both quarterbacks came out of college with a low average yards per attempt, and since joining their respective NFL teams their average yards per attempt has gotten better with each year: Schaub finished his senior year at Virginia averaging 7.3 yards per pass attempt, at his first stop in the NFL there wasn’t any real opportunity to improve his consistently with Atlanta’s sporadic offense, but now after going though the last five years under the guidance of Kubiak he has averaged 8 yards per attempt since joining the Texans and helped them win their first Division Title this past season.
Flynn has been able to progressively increase his efficiency in his career, but this is where Flynn deviates from Schaub’s track slightly: as he was fortunate enough to land with the right team to develop with from the very start of his NFL career, and was able to have the improvement earlier in his career than Schaub was able to: Flynn dismantled his poor 6.7 average from college with an average of 8.3 yards a pass attempt over the past two years.
So Flynn has been able to progress and develop into a contending quarterback earlier in his career than Schaub. For this reason I see Flynn being able to jump ahead on the learning curve than Schaub and be able to go somewhere and immediately be able to make that team compete. When healthy it still took Schaub a few years to grow up with the team and make winning a consistent theme in that locker room, but I believe Flynn is polished, versatile, and athletic enough that he could be able to make a system work for him and, once he gets comfortable with the new team, immediately have that team contending each week from the start.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/2008/draft/players/5727.html
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/2004/draft/players/47945.html
