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Revisiting Harrington’s 2003 and 2004 seasons

A recent entry of mine looked at what Joey Harrington’s statistics may have been if he hadn’t suffered from 40 dropped passes and 5 dropped TD passes this season. Looking back at 2003, he also suffered from 51 more dropped passes that season. That is a total of 91 drops, by no means even had those passes been caught, would Joey Harrington somehow have become an All-Pro, but yet, these dropped passes have had a lot of effect on the quality of his performance and how it has been perceived.

Here is his career stat line:

Year—ATT—CMP—PCT—YDS—TD/INT—YPA—PER—TD%—INT%—QB Rate
2002–429—215—-50.1—2294–12/16—–5.3—3.482–2.797-3.73——59.9
2003–554–309—–55.8—2880–17/22—–5.2–3.213—3.069-3.971—-63.9
2004–489–274—-56.0—3047—19/12—–6.2—5.004–3.885–2.454—77.5

career-1472-798–54.2—8221—48/50—–5.6—3.887—3.261–3.397—67.2

Using his 55.8% completion percentage in ‘03, his 56.0% comp. percentage in ‘04, his 5.2 YPA in ‘03, and his 6.2 YPA in ‘04, here’s what his career stats may have looked like:

Year—ATT—CMP—PCT—YDS—TD/INT—YPA—PER—TD%—INT%—QB Rate
2002–429—215—-50.1—2294–12/16—–5.3—3.482–2.797–3.73—-59.9
2003–554—337—60.8—-3026–19/22—-5.46–3.477—3.069-3.971—69.2
2004–489—296—60.5—-3183—22/12–6.51—5.28—-4.499–2.454–84.4

Career1472-848–57.6—–8503—53/50–5.78—4.08—-3.601–3.397—72.0

Using this projection, Harrington gets 50 more career completions, completes 3.4% more of his passes for 282 more total passing yards. He throws 5 more career TDS and his Yards per Attempt increases .18 yards per attempt. His QB rating improves by 4.8 more rating points.

Using his same completion percentages but adjusting his totals for his 9.32 yds/completion in ‘03 and 11.12 yds/completion this season, this is what his stats may have looked like:

Year—ATT—CMP—PCT—YDS—TD/INT—YPA—PER—TD%—INT%—QB Rate
2002–429—-215—50.1—-2294-12/16—-5.3—-3.482–2.797—3.73—59.9
2003–554—337—-60.8—3141—19/22–5.67—3.684—3.069—3.971–70.1
2004–489—296—-60.5—3292—22/12–5.51—5.51—-4.499—2.454—85.3

career1472–848—57.6—-8727—53/50–5.93–4.23—-3.261—3.397—-72.7

Again, his statistics improve. He throws for 506 more total passing yards and his yards per attempt increases .33 yards/ attempt. He makes a significant improvement in passer rating gaining 5.5 more points over the course of his short career.

I am not sure what the long term will bear out for Joey Harrington as an NFL player. He has been thrown into a difficult situation and has struggled. Still, I think if you look at what just a moderate view of the effects those 91 dropped balls may have had on his career thus far, it becomes clearer that he may be better than what we have given him credit for.

Here is another analysis of Joey’s development:

The Big Question:Is Harrington Developing?