Jarrett Stidham vs. Russell Wilson: How do the numbers stack up?

Sean Payton made it clear Monday: The change to Jarrett Stidham from Russell Wilson was about more than just the Dec. 24 loss to the New England Patriots and Wilson’s performance in it.

Rather, it was about the sum total.

“The comments last week were really a sum total of, what, 15 games?” Payton said Monday on a media conference call.

“… hat was a stretch. That was a long stretch of 15 weeks where we’d seen a very similar pattern. I think that’ll change. I made the decision with the hopes that that’s going to help bring change. There’s no guarantee that that does, but in the meantime, it’s something that I felt was necessary.”

And in some ways, Sunday’s game reflected that pattern. The Broncos finished with yardage totals roughly analogous to their performance over the course of the season to date. And red-zone inefficiency — which peaked with back-to-back false starts in a goal-to-go situation early in the fourth quarter — and a missed 48-yard Wil Lutz field-goal attempt meant the team finished with 16 points instead of a 23-point output that would have been quite in line with their form of recent weeks.

“Certainly, if you’re going to measure it week by week, you’d say, ‘Man, we scored under 20 points; that wasn’t enough. We missed out on opportunities in the red zone,'” Payton said. “But we were safe with the football.”

And while Jarrett Stidham nearly had a pair of passes intercepted, the Broncos indeed avoided giveaways.

0

As in turnovers on Sunday. It marked the first time since Week 11 that the Broncos did not turn over the football. Not coincidentally, Denver is 4-1 this season when it doesn’t turn over the football, and 4-7 when it does.

.140

That was the EPA — expected points added — per play for Jarrett Stidham on Sunday, per numbers compiled through rbsdm.com. This was the highest total for a Broncos starting quarterback since Russell Wilson had a 0.194 EPA/play figure in the Nov. 26 win over the Cleveland Browns.

To be fair, this is the most flattering metric for Stidham. It is higher than the EPA/play for Wilson in nine of his 15 starts this season.

And perhaps most damaging for Wilson, the 12-year veteran quarterback’s EPA/play was negative in seven of his last 11 starts — and four of his most-recent six starts.

7.3

That is Jarrett Stidham’s air-yards per attempt. This is in line with Wilson’s recent figures — 7.9 against the Patriots on Christmas Eve and 7.3 yards in Detroit on Dec. 16.

But in the broader sample size, Stidham’s 7.3-yard figure is better than Wilson’s average for 10 of his 15 starts, while matching the Week 15 figure. This reflects Stidham’s ability to go down the middle for intermediate-range connections, something that proved to be a bugaboo for Wilson this season.

.@markschlereth, to @MikeEvans1043 re: Stidham’s first Broncos start: “I will guarantee you one thing: If Russ would have played in that game, he would have taken 7 sacks … Dude’s started, what, three, games? Versus 12 years of starting? And he was better operationally? …" pic.twitter.com/Nl20rQAcyg

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) January 2, 2024