Player Profile: Josh Rosen, A Closer Look
Josh Rosen was taken tenth overall in the 2018 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals who valued him enough to trade a third and a fifth round pick to move up five spots to nab him. Today on The NFL Network’s “Up to the Minute” Charley Casserly stated that he has spoken to one team that told him the Cardinals are shopping Josh Rosen. Betonline.ag has given the Washington Redskins the best odds to land Rosen if he is traded, at three to one. The Skins are followed by the Dolphins at five to one and the Patriots at six to one. The Redskins fan base is, of course, split on the idea of trading for Rosen. The question is, what might the Redskins get in the second year player and is what he has to offer better than what they already have? Additionally, they will need to consider what they will have to give up for him.
The decision by the Cardinals to trade Rosen may have less to do with the quarterback and more to do with their current situation. The Cardinals have a chance to upgrade at the quarterback position and, in today’s NFL, when you get that chance you don’t pass it up. They have a new coaching staff that naturally wants to get “their guy” on the field, and it seems that Kyler Murray may be “their guy.” Rosen’s rookie season has been compared to that of Jared Goff and Mitchell Trubisky in that they were surrounded by little talent, poor coaching, and even worse play calling. When looking at Rosen’s overall grade as determined by Pro Football Focus (PFF) his rookie year actually stacks up favorably to Goff’s rookie season. Rosen was graded at 49.1 last year while Goff was graded at 42.9 during his first campaign. In fact, Rosen even outperformed Matt Stafford’s rookie year grade of 45.3. Other notable rookie quarterbacks with at least 350 snaps that scored under a 60 are Lamar Jackson, Nick Foles, and Derek Carr. Most of the players on the list of rookie signal callers scoring under 60, however, have ended up being poor quarterbacks (see below.)
Rosen’s offensive coordinator was switched mid-way through the season, which is tough for any quarterback, particularly a rookie. Couple that with his poor supporting cast, and we really need to take a look at some deeper stats that can help us paint a more clear picture of Rosen’s rookie year. The Cardinal’s Offensive line was rated as the worst line in the NFL and allowed Rosen to be sacked 45 times in only 13 games. With that being said, among rookies passing out of a clean pocket, according to PFF, Rosen finished with a passer rating 20 points below Baker Mayfield’s 100.2 and 13 below Sam Darnald’s 93, suggesting that the porous Arizona offensive line wasn’t his only issue. A deeper look, however, suggest that part of the reason behind Rosen’s numbers could be attributed to other factors. Over his 13 starts, the Cardinals played against five top ten pass defenses and eight top fifteen pass defenses. The Cardinals played the seventh toughest schedule in the NFL against pass rush defenses.
When it came to throwing into a tight window in 2018, no one did so with more frequency than Rosen. Over 21 percent of his passes were thrown into coverage in which there was a defender within one yard of the receiver. Rosen’s completion percentage last year was 55.2%, however, this may not be all his fault. Next Gen Stats has a statistic called “expected completion percentage” that takes into account receiver separation, pressure on the quarterback and receiver drops. Rosen’s expected completion percentage was 59.4, which was the lowest in the league, meaning his degree of difficulty was higher than any other quarterback.
In 2019, NFL coaches and fans are starting to realize that most quarterbacks are a product of their surroundings, talent, scheme, and coaching. Very few saw Jared Goff going from projected bust to Pro-Bowler with a simple coaching change. One year certainly isn’t enough time to label Rosen as a bust. Redskins Head Coach Jay Gruden may look at Rosen and see potential and feel that he can do for him what he did for Andy Dalton and Kirk Cousins. Ultimately, it will come down to price and compensation. With several teams reportedly being interested in Arizona’s young signal caller, that price could very well be headed upwards.
