Modeling NFL quarterback success with college data

Abstract

Sports analysts often say that the quarterback is the most important and impactful position in American professional sports. Because of this popular opinion, each season a disproportionately large number of college quarterbacks are drafted into the National Football League (NFL), making at a minimum $435,000, but most making substantially more. However, of the 21 quarterbacks drafted in the first 2 rounds in the past 5 NFL drafts, only 12 threw 100 or more passes in the 2015 NFL season, suggesting that a large number of these players were drafted earlier than their talent warranted. Although finding a great quarterback can arguably help a team more than any other position, other positions can be safer bets in the draft and drafting a quarterback too early and overpaying said quarterback can set an NFL franchise back for years. In this thesis we will present a series of models, each modeling a different element of information relevant to quarterback success in the NFL in an attempt to explain what NFL teams are currently looking for in quarterback prospects and what may be a better way of judging a quarterback prospect.