Breakdown Of Landry Jones’ Career Pass Attempts

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Landry Jones will make his third career start Sunday at Heinz Field against the New England Patriots and with that event forthcoming, it’s time to look back at his passing attempts so far over the course of his playing time.

Including the playoffs, Jones has attempted 61 total passes and has completed 34 of them for 524 yards. He has 3 touchdowns in addition to 5 interceptions.

I have a full list of all the passing plays of Jones’ career so far for you below in addition to his career passing chart and next up are a few breakdowns for you.

As far as targets go, you can see that wide receivers Antonio Brown and Martavis Bryant have been Jones’ favorites so far during his limited playing time. While all 3 of his touchdown passes have gone to Bryant, he was also intercepted twice when throwing his way.

While it is a very small sample size, Jones has completed 68.4% of the passes that he’s thrown to Brown so far.

Next is Jones’ directional passing table and as you can see, he’s 9 of 18 with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions on passes that he’s thrown more than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage. Not to excuse a few of his interceptions, but the one deep one to Brown went in and out of the wide receivers’ hands in last year’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Additionally, one happened on a fake punt in the game against Seattle Seahawks. You remember that one, right? One other deep one also happened very late in the game against the Seahawks on a long 41-yard pass to Bryant.

Now for Jones’ passing distance stats. The most concerning thing when you look at these numbers is the fact that Jones is just 5 of 10 on passes 6 to 10 yards past the line of scrimmage and just 1 of 5 on passes that have flown 11 to 15 yards past the line. He’ll have to complete a higher percentage of passes at these two distances against the Patriots if the Steelers want to have a shot at winning the game. It might be worth pointing out that Jones is 2 of 3 passing when targeting Brown from 6 to 15 yards past the line of scrimmage. If Jones can complete 50% of his throws 16 yards or longer Sunday against the Patriots and not throw an interception on any of them, that might bode well for the Steelers offense.

The other cornering thing when it comes to Jones and how he’s performed so far during his career when throwing the football is his 3rd down numbers. So far he is 8 of 17 for 131 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Additionally, only 5 of those 8 completed passes were successful plays and I don’t need to tell you that a 29.4% completion rate isn’t going to cut it Sunday against the Patriots.

Additionally, inside the red zone, Jones has also been very mediocre so far during his career as he’s 4 of 9 passing in that area of the field with just two touchdowns. It is worth noting, however, that one of those incompleted throws was a result of a drop by running back DeAngelo Williams in the game against the Chiefs last year.

Sunday will be a big day for Jones when it comes to his NFL future and specially being as it might very well wind up being his only real meaningful playing time for the rest of the season. At least we all hope that’s the case. Win or lose, a solid showing Sunday against the Patriots will increase his market value and that’s important being as he’s scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent after the season is over.

Expect a lot of quick, short throws by Jones on Sunday against the Patriots with at least 5 or 6 of them going to running back Le’Veon Bell out of the backfield. Additionally, I would also look for a few quick screen passes to Brown in this game as well. If wide receiver Sammie Coates is near 100 percent on Sunday, you can expect Jones to throw deep to him at least two or three times down the right during the game. If the two can connect on two of those deep throws, it will certainly loosen up the Patriots defense a little. I won’t be surprised if Jones’ first pass of the game is a deep shot.

As usual, the most important things when it comes to Jones playing Sunday is that he doesn’t turn the football over and that he moves the chains at least 40% of the time when asked to throw on third downs. That’s a lot to ask out him against the Patriots.

Landry Jones’ Career Passing Play By Play Table

Landry Jones’ Career Passing Chart
Blue = Complete
Red = Incomplete
Yellow = Interception
All Passing Distances Calculated from 30-yard-line