Looking at the idea of a sophomore slump for QB’s

When talking about what to expect from the Texans next year a big talking point for a lot of people seems to be the mythical QB sophomore slump. The idea is that defenses get a year of film on the young QB and that a target gets placed on that QB's back making it harder to perform at a high level.

This has always been strange to me. The Colts and Browns had plenty of film on CJ at the end of the season and they still got torn up. Yes there's more time for DC's to sit down over the offseason and come up with a plan but the reverse is also true. The QB's OC has time to sit down in the offseason and make changes and fixes.

The other issue is that this just goes against what we intuitively know about football and sports in general which is that players on average improve as they get more experience. Sophomore slumps do happen but they are rare in comparison to sophomore leaps. So I wanted to take a look at some numbers. To keep things quick I just took a few stats, but I think overall these matchup with the rest of the statistics.

There's almost certainly a better way to present this data but Reddit's tables are annoying so their stats from the rookie season are on the left 2nd season on the right

Brock Purdy

YPA: 8.1///9.6

Passer Rating: 107.3///113.0

TD/game: 1.85///1.93

INT/game: .57///.69

Noticeable improvement from rookie year

Kenny Pickett

YPA: 6.2///6.4

Passer Rating: 76.7///81.4

TD/Game: .53///.5

INT/Game: .69///.33

Would call this a slight improvement

Mac Jones

YPA: 7.3///6.8

Passer Rating: 92.5///84.8

TD/Game: 1.29///1

INT/Game: .76///.78

Probably the clearest example of a sophomore slump. However an important note is that his OC became Matt Patricia, a very flawed coach who also is primarily a defensive mind.

Justin Fields

YPA: 6.9///7.1

Passer Rating: 73.2///85.2

TD/Game: .58///1.13

INT/Game: .83///.73

Looks like a decent improvement to me

Trevor Lawrence

YPA: 6///7

Passer Rating: 71.9///95.2

TD/Game: .71///1.47

INT/Game: 1///.47

Huge improvement over rookie year

Davis Mills

YPA: 6.8///6.5

Passer Rating: 88.8///78.8

TD/Game: 1.23///1.13

INT/Game: .77///1

Definitely a regression

Justin Herbert

YPA: 7.3///7.5

Passer Rating: 98.3///97.7

TD/Game: 2.06///2.24

INT/Game: .67///.88

Kind of a wash here statistically but should be noted that he passed for 5k yards this year and PFF graded him significantly better. Would call this a slight improvement over an already fantastic rookie year.

Joe Burrow

YPA: 6.7///8.9

Passer Rating: 89.8///108.3

TD/Game: 1.3///2.13

INT/Game: .5///.88

Huge improvement

Tua Tagovailoa

YPA: 6.3///6.8

Passer Rating: 87.1///90.1

TD/Game: 1.1///1.23

INT/Game: .5///.77

Slight improvement

Looking at young QB's over the last 4 years it's fairly obvious that sophomore slumps are overhyped in the QB discussion. 7 improvements compared to 2 regressions. Clearly it's not impossible for Stroud to go through a sophomore slump but history tells us it is fairly unlikely, especially given the improvement in his situation (adding Diggs and hopefully a more healthy line and better run game).