@roach said:

Yikes!

So, I agree with Z that coaches don't look at the passer rating as the primary indicator of success. However, as Z stated, the things they do look at are heavily factored into the rating: decision making (INT's and completion %), first downs (completion %, total yards), TD's, etc.

Net net, if you finish a year with a below average passer rating, most coaches would look at that QB's body of work on film as subpar. They are closely related.

Zombo said:

Do you want your QB to have a good passer rating? Sure. It means he's accurate, he not throwing a lot of interceptions and the team is moving the ball and scoring.

Passer rating is a nice indicator of passing success ... over the course of the season.

I hate when it is used game-by-game.

Coaches are not that concerned with passer ratings, they look at production. First downs, touchdowns, moving the chains, not turning it over. A lot of that is built into passer ratings, but I guarantee you that coaches don't say "oh, Soandso had a 56.5 rating last week, I'm concerned" .. no, they look at the film, break down the turnovers, look at the production. An 80 yard drive that ends with a one-yard run is as productive as an 80 yard drive that ends with a 1-yard pass to a wide open tight-end ... but one pumps up the rating and one doesn't. And a three and out with two short completions and a punt is just as unproductive as a third down deep pass that goes off the receiver's hands and is intercepted ... but one is healthy for passer ratings and one is not.

It is a nice indicator of passing success over a large sample of games. That's all.

Zombo

Good point, here's a stat: the QB with the most passing yards has never won the super bowl that same year, I think.

@playgroundlegend said:

If your QB goes 2/17 with a pick and 22 yards, they did absolutely nothing to help you win the game.

Yes, the W was the outcome, but that player did nothing to warrant that outcome.

We could have won by MORE if we had a different QB in, a QB who wouldve done better than 2/17 with 1 int and 22yds

well, they didn't lose the game. They didn't throw 15 pick-6'es.

A win is a win, the margin of victory has no meaning, this isn't NCAA.

@playgroundlegend said:

If your QB goes 2/17 with a pick and 22 yards, they did absolutely nothing to help you win the game.

Yes, the W was the outcome, but that player did nothing to warrant that outcome.

We could have won by MORE if we had a different QB in, a QB who wouldve done better than 2/17 with 1 int and 22yds

It was 23 yards, dont dis DA man.

@insidenation said:

I disagree to an extent...

If your QB goes 2/17 with a pick and 22 yards, they did absolutely nothing to help you win the game.

Yes, the W was the outcome, but that player did nothing to warrant that outcome.

We could have won by MORE if we had a different QB in, a QB who wouldve done better than 2/17 with 1 int and 22yds

One thing to throw in here that's being overlooked in the mathematical sorcery and the attempts vs. completions debate:

It very well could be that the formula works so well because it takes into account the very things you are arguing about.

It rewards BOTH completions and attempts and though I can see Lum and Chip's point about it being skewed towards completions, I'm not sure that I can buy the argument that's a bad thing.

It is called passer rating, after all, as in, "one who throws the ball".

Is it unreasonable to reward passers whose passes ACTUALLY COUNT, i.e., are completed? We do want the passes to be caught, right?

Seems to me that high completion % for a QB is the same as a high first-pitch strike % for a pitcher: neither GUARANTEES success (lots of other variables impact the end result in both cases) but both are highly correlated with success and in both cases you'd much rather have a high degree of success in that area than take your chances with the alternative (low completion/low strike rate).

@shepwrite said:

It's real, guys, and part of the reason the cliche is so true: It's a quarterback league. When they line up all the playoff teams, the vast majority of those 12 quarterbacks will be at the top of the passer rating, year after year. Sometimes it's freakish, other times it's just really obvious. We've covered it here a lot.

Chicken or Egg.

Are the teams good because the QBs good, or are the QBs good because they're surrounded by a good team?

The reality is it's probably a little bit of both.... but realistically Shep, how good do you think the Browns would be this year, and how good would those 4 QBs be doing, if they were the Browns QB right now rather than BQ or DA?

Masters said:

P. Manning 36/44 309 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT 109QBR

E. Manning 8/10 173 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INT 158.3 QBR

Break this down.

First, you CANT TELL ANYTHING as to how completion percentage disproportionately skews the Passer Rating where both QB have the same completion percentage. Because both completed 80% of their passes, Peyton and Eli get the same score for "C" and it can totally be taken out of the equation. They both get the maximum 2.375 for that one of the four "equally weighted" factors

With that out of the equation, Eli's numbers all are better following the formula. He has 17 yards per attempt to Peyton's 7. Eli has a TD for every 5 throws as compared to Petyon's one TD for every 14 throws and Peyton's one pick means that, unlike Eli, he does not get the full 2.375 points that any QB gets under "I" when he does not throw a pick (regardless of passes thrown*).

[EDITED: The formula actually does have a quirk in it as you suggest that when completion percentage dips below a certain point you can actually improve by throwing incomplete passes. That's because you reach a point where you get no points for "C" and are not penalized for going lower. For instance, when Anderson was 2/12 he was completing 17% of his passes. Under the formula for "C" anything under 30% completion percentage earns you 0 points out of the possible 2.375. But the same throws are reducing the interceptions PER Attempt. When Anderson had 12 throws and 1 pick, he was getting only .292 points for the "I" portion of the formula. When he got up to 17 throws and the same 1 pick, he was now entitled to .9 points under the "I" portion of the formula. So he was increasing his passer rating with incomplete passes, but only because he couldn't go lower than 0 with respect to "C" and you hit 0 at 30% completion percentage.

I guess the theory is "at least it wasn't an interception". Another smaller flaw in the passer rating formula.]

* A QB that throws three passes for two yards without a pick gets the same number of points for the "I" portion of the passer rating formula as a guy who throws 50 passes for 500 yards without a pick? -- 2.375.

Just think through it.

Masters said:

Look, I'm not saying that completion percentage should count for nothing. But in my Campbell/Sanchez comparison you would have to bump up Sanchez's 12/24 yardage to 270 yards to equal out the 17/23 for 145 that Campbell put up. You'd need a 11 YPA to get "Y" to the same 1 point advantage that Campbell got for the "C" for having going 17/23 to Sanchez's 12/24.

Run it through a passer rating calculator. http://www.primecomputing.com/

Campbell's 17/23 for 145 and 1 TD/0 INT is a 104.4 passer rating.

With his 12/24 day, with 1 TD and 0 INT, Sanchez would have needed 270 yards passing and an astounding 11 YPA (Manning leads the NFL at 9 YPA) to register the same 104.4 passer rating.

17 for 23 for 145 or 12/24 for 270? I'll take the latter EVERY DAY. Any sensible football fan would. Too much weight is given to the completion percentage. Simple as that.

Zombo said:

Big Gay Ben #24

Eli Manning #25

Zombo

both of which relied HEAVILY on their defense for those wins

The reality is QBR factors in all 4 items pretty much evenly and as I have said, it's all about the ATT and what was done w/ them.

QB Rating is nice, but really?

Lets see if Shep starts another thread since not everybody is agreeing with this.

@shepwrite said:

There's a similar stat for RBs, and it was used to show how Emmitt Smith (fewer big runs but fewer loses and no gains) was better than Barry Sanders (more losses and no gains but bigger runs).

Of course there is a reason completion % factors in, just as there is a reason yards, YPA, TD, and INT factor in. They are all meaningful to the net results of a QBs play. I just don't see how anyone can think comp% is weighted heavier in the grand scheme of the formula, or an unfair item. Like I keep saying, if Comp % was so heavily weighted a guys QBR wouldn't go up by throwing an incomplete pass.

I am iffy about that RB formula. Because anyone who watched both of those guys carriers knows Sanders was the far better back in all areas. He was just saddled with a shitty team/franchise. You put Sanders on the Cowboys and Emmit on the Lions, Sanders would have obliterated every rushing record and we'd probably be saying Emmit who? Oh yeah, I kind of remember that guy for the Lions.

@chip-banks said:

It's the WEIGHT given to completion percentage that causes the problem.

And for the life of me I can't see how you miss the point in that. If weight is so heavily in favor of completion %, why in the Manning brother comparison is the guy with more yards, more TDs, and technically a slightly higher completion % rated 50 points lower than the QB w/ less yards, less TDs, and a slightly lower completion %.

Or why a QBs QBR actually went up from 4.9 to 15.1 (that 10 points+) by throwing an incomplete pass (which you have avoided now twice).

Both go agaisnt the notion that comp% is favored. It's the sum of all, not most of one and a little of the others.

You gave two QBs with nearly the same stats for yards, attempts, and TDs (all bascially canceling each other out against one another), who have the only significant difference between the two being the completions. 1 extra yard per attempt is not as meaningful as doing something more with your attempts. Cambell has 1 less attempt, yet 5 times did more w/ his attempt than Sanchez did (logically 5 completions more is likely going to net a teams O more than 1 extra yard per attempt).

When Y, T, and I are all almost the same, of course C is going to be a deciding factor. Again, it's all about the attempts and the results of those attempts.

If you complete 5/15 for 240 yards

you are not as good as the guy who completed 12/15 for 240

If you look at those 10 passes the first guy didn't complete, some of those were bound to be innacurate, overthrown, underthrown, or thrown too hard at a close distance*(DA). Completion percentage isnt perfect, but it is a fair judge of accuracy, generally a QB with better touch and situational throwing skills and ball placement is going to have a higher completion percentage, therefore he is the better QB than the guy who chucks it, gets the same yardage result, but is horribly innacurate

Another reaosn why QBR is great is because the really good QB's are both accurate AND have a high YPA with a high comp %. So I agree with shep in the statement that it is the most accurate depiction of a QB

Masters said:

How does a stat that supposedly favors completion percentage, as you stated, when by throwing an INC pass your rating goes up?

Yes, completions are a factor as is the percentage (obviously since comp factor in). But it is only one in 4 factors. Look at your stat lines, they are almost identical (20 yards is not that much in the scheme of the formula), except the # of completions. Thus Cambell gets the bump up on the QBR over Sanchez. It's only favoring completion percentage when you try to put identical numbers up with COMP being the only variable.

Look at this one from last week:

P. Manning 36/44 309 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT 109QBR

E. Manning 8/10 173 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INT 158.3 QBR

Both guys completed 80%, but Eli's QBR is almost 50 points higher. So how is that favoring completion %?

It remains about attempts and what is done with them. Hence why ATT factors into all 4 factors in QBR, and COMP is only in 1.

You are still missing it. Sanchez had one more attempt than Campbell and with that one attempt the difference was 27 yards. Over four times Campbell's average per attempt. Both had 1 TD and no Picks.

Go to the calculation you posted. The devil is in the details.

"C" is the factor for completion percentage. When you factor it out, Campbell gets a 2.1 for that one of four statistics for his 74% completion percentage. Sanchez gets a 1.0.

"Y" is the factor for yards per attempt. When you factor it out, Campbell gets a .82, while Sanchez gets a 1.04.

So for his superior completion percentage, Campbell gets 1.1 points more than Sanchez in one of the 4 "equal" categories for passer rating.

Despite enjoying almost an extra yard per attempt versus Campbell, Sanchez only picks up two tenths of a point over in the second of four "equal" categories.

So after these two categories are calculated, Campbell has three points and Sanchez has only two.

Campbell gets a .86 for the "T" factor for his 1 TD in 23 attempts, while Sanchez gets .83 for his 1 TD in 23 attempts.

They both get the whole 2.375 for the I factor because neither threw an interception.

That's all four factors that are added up, divided by 6 and then multiplied by 100.

Again, Campbell gained a whole point over Sanchez for his markedly better completion percentage, while Sanchez gained only two tenths of a point over Campbell for his markedly better yards per attempt. This shows the bias in the formula for completion percentage.

For the life of me I can't fathom what point you are trying to make with two QBs who have the SAME or nearly the same completion percentage. In that case, the "C" factor is completely cancelled out. We all know that the formula measures other things.

It's the WEIGHT given to completion percentage that causes the problem.

@shepwrite said:

God, it's laborious making points around here. So much fukcing hand holding.

*thanks*

People love to put spins on posts that were never their. I guess w/ this economy, some people can't afford common sense.

@jadbf said:

Because Big Gay Ben isn't gonna get anywhere near the playoffs this year. and his penchant for the pick 6 is going to be one of the reasons.

LOL... Ben is completing over 70% of his passes Almost 280 yrs a game... 8 TDs 5 picks (2 pick 6) One Pick six Bad route , one other INT on a Hail Mary. Dont sound like Ben will be our demise as much as perhaps a Struggling Defense. But its not over yet, we will see. (just read today that if the nine drops were completions his Comp % would be 79.1%) knock him if you want. But Ben is a Gamer.

@shepwrite said:

Combined losses: 0

The four bottom rated passers: Delhomme, Johnson, Russell, DA.

Combined wins: 2

(Meanwhile, the Titans and Rams have the 3rd and 4th leading rushers in the NFL, both very close to #1.)

Shep.. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP:

3 of those 4 top qb's have rushing games in the top 10 in the league.. it's called BALANCE..

ALSO 3 of those 4 unbeaten teams are in the top 6 in defense..

Give us a break.. we are not stupid enough to believe that the qb is doing this all on their own.