The top two picks in the 2015 NFL draft, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, each have their teams in the playoff hunt this season. While they have gotten their teams to this point in different ways, they have also shown a few similarities.
On the surface, Mariota's basic passing statistics are superior to Winston's. Mariota has a higher completion percentage, averages more yards per attempt and has a better touchdown-to-interception ratio than Winston. But that doesn't tell the full story. ESPN Stats & Info takes a look at the tale of the tape to see how both quarterbacks stack up statistically through Year 2 so far:
Under pressure
In his career, Winston has been pressured on 32.8 percent of his dropbacks, the sixth-highest rate in the league during that span. The league average is 27 percent. Mariota checks in just below that at 25.6 percent, which ranks him 24th out of 38 qualified quarterbacks.
Despite being pressured at a much higher rate, Winston has been sacked at a far lower rate than Mariota, 4.9 percent to 6.9 percent. When under pressure, Winston completes a higher percentage of passes than Mariota, and he has thrown an interception on 1.6 percent of his attempts, compared with 3.7 percent for Mariota. Winston's Total QBR when under pressure is 64.6 for his career, the highest among qualified quarterbacks in that span. Mariota is at 16.5, which ranks 28th.
Accuracy
One factor into completion percentage is that Winston's intended receivers have dropped 3.6 percent of his passes, while Mariota's have dropped just 2.6 percent, which is the second-lowest rate among qualified quarterbacks.
That's not to say Winston's lower completion percentage is all his receivers' fault. Winston has been judged to be off target (over or underthrown passes) on 23.2 percent of his attempts, the second-highest rate in the league. Mariota is at 17.5 percent, which is also the league average.
Their accuracy when throwing the ball downfield is similar. On passes traveling 15 or more yards beyond the line of scrimmage, Mariota has a completion percentage of 44 percent compared with Winston's 43 percent, though Winston attempts two more such passes per game.
Rushing
One area where Mariota has shown a distinct advantage over Winston is with his legs. Mariota has averaged 6.5 yards per carry in his career, the highest among QBs since the start of last season (minimum 25 carries). Winston has averaged 3.6 yards per carry.
Both QBs have averaged similar yards per carry on scrambles, but it's Mariota's designed rushes that set him apart. On designed rushing plays Mariota has averaged 5.35 yards per carry, the highest among QBs since the start of last season (minimum 10 designed rushes), while Winston has averaged 0.2 yards per carry on those plays.
It is worth noting that Winston has seven career rushing touchdowns (six last season), tied for third among QBs, while Mariota has four in his career.
Red zone
As mentioned by John Clayton when he polled executives about the two QBs, Mariota has excelled in the red zone throughout his career.
This can best be exemplified by the fact that Mariota has 31 passing touchdowns and no interceptions in the red zone in his career. He's completed 64.7 percent of his passes in the red zone and taken just two sacks on 90 red zone dropbacks. Mariota's red zone Total QBR is 88.5 for his career, including a league-leading 98.2 this season.
Winston has shown improvement in the red zone, completing 52.3 percent of his passes this season after completing 41.7 percent last year, which ranked second-worst in the league. Despite the lower completion percentage, Winston has still thrown 29 red zone touchdown passes compared with just one interception. And not surprisingly, all seven of his rushing touchdowns have come from inside the red zone.
Consistency
While it may seem obvious that both quarterbacks have performed better in wins than in losses, Mariota takes it to the extreme. In Mariota's eight wins as a starting QB, his Total QBR is 87.2, the highest among qualified QBs in that span. In his 15 losses, it's 40.1, which ranks fifth-worst. That is the highest variance in QBR over the past two seasons among QBs with at least 10 starts.
Winston's variance is not quite as extreme, posting a 72.5 Total QBR in wins and a 52.6 in losses.