Giants QB Daniel Jones and Vikings QB Sam Darnold are under pressure

Figuratively and literally

Sunday’s season-opening game between the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings has a variety of interesting subplots. None, though, is as fascinating as the matchup of two quarterbacks highly drafted by New York teams who will be fighting for their NFL lives as starters this season.

Both Daniel Jones and Sam Darnold began as the second quarterback off the board in their draft years. Both have been under the microscope as starters on mostly unsuccessful teams right from the start of their careers (though not until Game 3 for Jones). Both have had more failure than success up to this point. The biggest difference between the two is that Jones has to this point lasted with the team that drafted him, curtailed only by a series of injuries. Darnold has been healthier but lost his starting job and has been itinerant, traveling to four different teams in his career and becoming a career backup until an injury this summer thrust him into a starting role again.

To say that the pressure is on both quarterbacks to perform this season is an understatement. This Sunday, though, the pressure will be on literally as well. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores blitzes more than anyone in the NFL and has good edge defenders in Andrew Van Ginkel, Jonathan Greenard, and rookie Dallas Turner to put the heat on even when they play defense straight up. New Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen doesn’t blitz much but his defense is predicated on pressure from his front four winning their battles with offensive linemen or finding openings with stunts.

It’s not unreasonable to guess that whichever team’s pass rush gets to or at least near the quarterback the most will emerge victorious. Here’s how the two QBs fared last season in a clean pocket vs. under pressure, courtesy of Pro Football Focus:

Data from Pro Football Focus

The sample size for Jones is limited because of his two injuries (the first one at least the direct result of being hit by pass rusher Andrew Van Ginkel, with whom he will renew acquaintances on Sunday). Clearly, though, pressure was a big part of Jones’ poor play in 2023. That makes sense because there is pressure, and then there is relentless pressure, and the Giants’ all-time worst (in Pro Football Focus history) 2023 offensive line led to Jones being pressured on 45.5% of his dropbacks. As bad as fans think Jones was last season, he was actually an above average passer when kept clean.

Darnold was also pressured on 45.5% of dropbacks last season, but his sample size is even smaller because he was a backup who only started one meaningless Week 18 game and only saw significant action in one other game last season. For what it’s worth, Darnold was above average in a clean pocket as well but was only slightly below average under pressure. Both Jones and Darnold threw their only TD passes when getting good protection.

We can get a little better idea if we look at both quarterbacks’ entire careers:

Data from Pro Football Focus

For both quarterbacks, on average their PFF passing grade has been about 40% worse when pressured than when operating in a clean pocket. Jones has been an above average passer every year of his career when kept clean, and has had two outstanding seasons throwing with good pass protection. Perhaps not coincidentally, the first of those was almost a playoff season (albeit in the year of the “NFC Least”) and the second was actually a playoff season.

We can gain more perspective by asking how other quarterbacks fare under pressure vs. with a clean pocket. Below is a list in rough ranked order of the quarterbacks generally considered the best in the NFL at the moment. (The exact order is just off the top of my head.)

Data from Pro Football Focus

Every quarterback who dropped back at least 100 times in 2023 performed worse under pressure than in a clean pocket. The best, perhaps not surprisingly, was Joe Burrow (only 17.3% lower passing grade when under pressure than when not). Burrow has the reputation of standing in and not flinching under pressure. Of course, he has also had two season-ending injuries. Other than Burrow, the least affected by pressure last season were Dak Prescott, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, and Jalen Hurts.

As the career stats of Jones and Darnold show, however, the effect of pressure is not a stable statistic from year to year. That may reflect changes in the health and composition of teams’ offensive lines, but that’s just a speculation. On average, though, the best quarterbacks in the NFL do about 30% worse under pressure than when kept clean, vs. the ~40% decline seen in the career stats of Jones and Darnold.

That said, even Josh Allen and surprising rookie C.J. Stroud fared 40%+ lower under pressure than when in a clean pocket. The amazing Mahomes threw 22 of his 27 TD passes from a clean pocket and had 8 of his 14 INTs when under pressure. Stroud threw 20 of his 23 TDs from a clean pocket. Tua Tagovailoa, 27 of his 29 TDs from a clean pocket. Dak Prescott, 27 of his 36 TDs. Jared Goff, 24 of his 30 TDs.

All of these QBs saw pressure 35% or less of the time. Say what you want about PFF grades, but the hard evidence is that most quarterbacks put points on the board a lot more when they have time to throw. It may be even more than that, though. The expectation of pressure by QBs whose offensive lines pass protect poorly may affect their decision making even when they get a clean pocket, though that is not an easy hypothesis to test.

The bottom line for Sunday: Watch which QB is running for his life more often, and there’s a decent chance you’ll know which team is not going to win the game.