Mike Glennon Monday: Ranking the Buccaneers’ First-Year QB Against Current and Former Players

Dec 22, 2013; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Rams defensive end Robert Quinn (94) sacks Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Mike Glennon (8) during the first half at the Edward Jones Dome. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Mike Glennon is a really popular guy in the national media at the moment.

Earlier today, The Pewter Plank pointed out a quote from Matt Miller of Bleacher Report which stated that the first-year quarterback for the Buccaneers is still being evaluated. So with the quarterback’s future in the balance, let’s take a look at two evaluations of Glennon done by members of the media.

NFL 1000

The first evaluation comes from the very same Matt Miller of Bleacher Report, who as a part of the NFL 1000 series, ranked Glennon as the 18th best quarterback in the league. He cites good ball placement on underneath throws, sound decision-making, and strong arm strength and mechanics as the reasons behind his ranking.

Here at the Pewter Plank, we see things a bit differently on Glennon, questioning his arm strength, decision-making, and especially his ball placement. But Miller and the NFL 1000 team determined that he ranks ahead of promising young starters like Robert Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill and Andy Dalton, so there’s certainly reason for optimism based on their evaluation.

Free agent quarterbacks Josh McCown, Kellen Clemens and Michael Vick ranked 22nd, 29th and 43rd, respectively.

Football Perspective

In direct contrast to the NFL 1000 scouting report on Glennon, we have Chase Stuart of Football Perspective, who provided a statistical look at Geno Smith and Mike Glennon using advanced metrics.

This section isn’t quite as favorable for Glennon as the one above.

Stuart points out that Glennon’s numbers were rather unconventional, as he finished with a very low Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt number due to poor per-completion and per-attempt averages.

But the most interesting part of this article are the comparisons that Stuart makes using a similarity score algorithm. Similarity scores scan through historical statistics to find the players most like a current player, to give an idea as to where the current player’s career may go.

For Glennon, the most similar player among successful, under-24 quarterbacks in recent history was Bruce Gradkowski in 2006 with the Buccaneers. If that wasn’t discouraging enough, the next players in line are Jeff George and Tim Couch with Blaine Gabbert not far behind.

So while Glennon’s 19:9 TD/INT ratio seems appealing, the underlying statistics don’t speak highly of the NC State product. Ken Anderson is the only quarterback with a remotely similar statistical profile to Glennon to achieve much success later in his career.

The jury is definitely still out on Mike Glennon, although there is reason for optimism. But as we’ve said all along, don’t be shocked if one or two new passers are added to the fold by the time training camp opens up.