PFF Ranks Jaguars' Gardner Minshew as Third-Best Deep Passer in 2019

The Jaguars' young quarterback earned some particularly high praise from Pro Football Focus following his 2019 performance.

Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew II had a successful rookie season by essentially every standard when you consider he was a sixth-round pick and was the backup quarterback for all of training camp and preseason. But he also had a relatively noteworthy year in one respect in comparison to other top quarterbacks in the league, according to Pro Football Focus.

In a ranking of how quarterbacks performed in 2019 when asked to pass deep (at least 20 yards downfield), PFF placed Minshew near the very top of the list and ahead of several of the NFL's elites at No. 3 overall.

While Minshew's overall game may not have been quite to the same standard, PFF notes that in the area of testing defenses vertically, he was one of the NFL's best.

49.0% completion percentage, 16.7 yards per attempt, 129.0 Passer Rating   

"Gardner Minshew has one of the weaker arms in the league, so this is proof that exceptional deep passing is not about arm strength but rather accuracy, timing and anticipation. Minshew led the NFL in passer rating on deep targets a season ago and was one of the league’s best in terms of accuracy, too. He didn’t have a single turnover-worthy play on 49 deep shots as a rookie — that’s impressive," PFF

said

.

PFF ranked Minshew behind two of the NFL's top quarterbacks in Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson, but he was ahead of the following: Dak Prescott, Kyler Murray, Patrick Mahomes, Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers, and several more. 

Minshew is clearly not yet at the level of these passers when it comes to his complete game, but for him to be such an efficient and lethal deep ball passer despite having only one true deep threat on the roster in DJ Chark is wildly impressive. Minshew started 12 games for the Jaguars in 2019, going 6-6 as starter (leading rookie quarterbacks) and throwing for 3,271 yards, 21 touchdowns and six interceptions.

Minshew was one of the league's best deep passers - proving that passing deep has very little to do with arm strength.

Further proving that, Josh Allen was one of the worst.

It's about accuracy, timing, anticipation. Not having a cannon.

— Sam Monson (@SamMonsonNFL) May 19, 2020

Minshew and the Jaguars still have a long way to go to transform their offense into a consistent unit, but Minshew being able to exploit defenses down the field potentially opens up a lot for the Jaguars' offense. New offensive coordinator Jay Gruden will now be tasked with honing Minshew's ability to stretch the field and learning how to best utilize Chark and rookie wide receiver Laviska Shenault, while Leonard Fournette's job could also be made theoretically easier.

The Jaguars originally drafted Minshew to back up veteran quarterback Nick Foles, selecting the Washington State product in the sixth round with the No. 178 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. But after Foles went down with a clavicle injury early in Week 1, Minshew was thrust into the starting role and became the new leader of the Jaguars' offense. 

Minshew is set to be the Jaguars starter entering the 2020 season after the team traded Foles to the Chicago Bears in March. The only additions the Jaguars made at quarterback this offseason were Mike Glennon and sixth-round pick Jake Luton, neither of whom should be expected to compete with Minshew for the starting role.