POV: the first day of Freshman year of High School. Your favorite fantasy football analyst stands at a towering 4 feet 10 inches tall, Jansport school bag (with the straps choking my armpits, of course), “powder blue” rubber bands around my braces to match my school colors, and eager to embark on the adventure that is High School. My entire life in front of me, a ball of limitless potential.
POV – one year later: Your favorite fantasy football analyst stands at a meager 4 feet 11 inches (I was a late bloomer), bleach stains on my uniform shirt collar, armed with a single pencil, a single pen, and encased in a seemingly never ending purgatory. This is called a “Sophomore Slump”.
What happens to language over time is, we forget the origin and sometimes even the meaning of the very phrase, or saying, that we’re speaking. We commonly apply the term “Sophomore Slump” to the sports world. We compare the high expectations of a promising rookie to an average 2nd year performance and attribute a “sophomore slump” label to the season. We do this so much that it’s almost factored into our projections and expectations. I recently responded to a Justin Herbert tweet stating that I would feel more comfortable with a viable backup to Herbert, even though I have him ranked in my top 5-6 QBs, due to the potential “sophomore slump”.
Here you’ll see Elvin Ryan (@ElvinRyan_FF), who you should definitely follow if you’re not already, coming with the heat on Justin Herbert, and me responding with what I thought was a pretty nice argument to my followers to just, have a backup plan. This sparked a some counter points from the twitter-sphere that got me thinking, “Is the slump even a real thing?”. Sure, some guys struggle but some guys make huge leaps. What do the numbers say about these guys that we attach huge expectations?
I dug into some of the top rookie seasons (based on per game) and then took a look at their follow up years to see if there were any trends. What I can say pretty confidently is, “There is no such thing as a ‘Sophomore Slump’ for QBs in the NFL”, not statistically anyway. I’ll break it down in a table below, but based on the averages of the qualifying QBs, just about every meaningful stat is better in the 2nd year averages as opposed to the rookie QBs:
| CMP | ATT | PCT | YDS | YDS/G | TD | TD% | INT | INT% | SCK | SCKY | RATE |
| 283.3 | 461.5 | 61.6 | 3285.3 | 247.5 | 19.9 | 4.5 | 11.8 | 2.5 | 29.8 | 197.8 | 88.0 |
| CMP | ATT | PCT | YDS | YDS/G | TD | TD% | INT | INT% | SCK | SCKY | RATE |
| 290.7 | 468.2 | 61.9 | 3439.6 | 239.2 | 22.4 | 4.8 | 11.5 | 2.4 | 32.8 | 216.5 | 90.5 |
Now you may be asking, “Well can’t 1 or 2 good/bad seasons throw off the entire average?” Yes, these numbers are compiled using 15 different QBs, so 1 or 2 really won’t move the meter too much. For the most part, the QB’s that had stellar seasons followed it up with something similar. Jameis Winstons for example had 2 consecutive 4,000+ yard passing seasons. Kyler Murray had 2 consecutive seasons with exactly 12 interceptions.
Given what I know now, the Justin Herbert’s and Joe Burrow’s of the world should be every bit of what they were last season, just maybe with the addition of a few sacks. I wouldn’t worry about either of these second year QBs living up to the hype and producing for your fantasy rosters. Okay, maybe worry about Burrow, because of his OL not his talent…but Herbert is a top 5 dynasty QB in my eyes.
AverageFantasyFootballGuy.com 
One thought on “QB Sophomore Slump: Should You Be Worried About Justin Herbert?”