Quarterback Rating
 

NFL Passer Rating rankings:
I added runs as pass attempts and completions with appropriate yardage, rushing TDs to the total, sacks as incomplete passes with appropriate negative yardage, and fumbles lost to INTs to come up with a total turnover number. The resulting "QB Rating" rankings:
Effect of the new stat compared to basic rating:
As you can see, running well isn't the only way to do well in the stat. It's certainly the biggest factor, but Peyton Manning does well relative to his peers because he gets rid of the ball quickly, doesn't take sacks, and doesn't fumble. Obviously running well is the only way to get a good positive number, but being a pocket passer doesn't mean you have to take a huge hit. The guys at the bottom of the list have fumbled frequently and, of course, taken a lot of sacks. Of course, this effect stat is skewed by their passing skill. A player with a 90 passer rating will have a more negative effect number for the same running stats as a passer with a 70 passer rating. So here's the Running Rating:
At first it seems odd that Leftwich and Manning in particular are at the top of the list. But you have to consider that the NFL rating formula does not give negative values. If you're negative, it's a zero for that category. So this doesn't reflect the real impact of running on total value. So I removed the zero constraint (giving most of the QBs negative components for yardage and some of them negative for turnovers, i.e., fumbles lost). I also removed the 2.375 maximum constraint as they were being calculated simultaneously. The only thing this affected was Vince Young's "running completion percentage" value as his ratio of runs to sacks is the highest:
I just put this up for discussion after somebody on another board asked me to calculate this. Obviously they were a Vince Young fan and I, of course, am as well. But the one thing I noticed is that Andrew Walter has, to put it mildly, struggled this year. Sticking a young guy in behind that OL may not have been wise. I thought I remembered his being fairly mobile in college (a shade less than Plummer?) so I'd be interested in hearing thoughts from Raiders fans.

This is some seriously good analysis Huck. The problem is that QB rating is a horrible metric. Adjusting to add the QB's rushing yards helps but even then the system has some big flaws. The "running completion percentage" though is very interesting. I would love to see how a QB's numbers change as he ages. Do they gradually decline or do QBs tend to fall off a cliff as he gets older?

So you're saying Andrew Walter really is a bad QB?

Much like the standard QB rating formula, it's really more effective as a team measurement since the quality of one's offensive line plays a big part in your running effectiveness portion (especially the number of sacks taken).

Hasselbeck is a fairly mobile QB, but he's taking a lot more sacks this year due to a much weaker O-line in front of him.

I agree that the NFL formula is a horrible metric. I believe completion percentage is overemphasized and yards per attempt is underemphasized. I do, though, agree that the higher negative impact of interceptions as compared to the college rating is appropriate. Each possession is more valuable in the NFL. Whether or not the degree of emphasis is right I don't know.

I think the mobile QBs that age the best are the ones that are able to still get out of sacks by being quick enough to get out of the pocket and throw it away or else being able to quickly identify dumpoff receivers. The numbers indicate that Steve McNair does a great job of this.

I'd like to see the NFL formula modified. I don't like the 0-2.375 constraint although that usually only applies in games, not over seasons. But I also mentioned above my real beef with it. David Carr has the lowest yards per completion number in the league but it doesn't hurt so he's still in the Top 10 in passer rating. There's no way he's Top 10 in helping his team win.

It's funny but we were having a discussion at work this morning about QB ratings. They don't make any sense. College and pro formulas are different. You can't do them in your head. You can incomplete passes but still have a perfect rating?

I'm not sure how that differentiates it from any football statistic.

Would LaDainian Tomlinson have 29 touchdowns on the Raiders?

It doesn't. Football statistics are much harder to parse out as indicative of individual achievement than baseball statistics - that's just the nature of the sport.

I'm just pointing out that you have to be a little careful when looking at these stats in putting too much emphasis on what they suggest about an individual player.

I completely agree with everything you said except this part. Are there fewer possessions in the NFL per game? This seems unlikely especially with the new clock running rules college has put in (and no 2 minute warning). It is possible that you are right about this too but I hadn't thought about this and am curious now.

Pulling an individual's performance from the team's performance is very hard to do in football but I think people are getting closer. The team that can accurately do this first will get a huge boost.

Much fewer in the NFL...Clock runs on out of bounds plays, first downs unlike college.

Huckleberry,

Check out:

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/qb.php

If you haven't already. It's a comprehensive rating system for QBs that measures their value over a replacement level QB.

Yes. The clock does not stop as often as in college, plus the play clock for college is quicker.

I like their thought process but they don't include positive rushing yards and do include all fumbles. Bad passes that a defender drops aren't counted as interceptions, so I don't see why fumbles that are retained by the offense should count against you.

I redid the passer rating formula based on emphasizing yards per attempt at the expense of completion percentage and slightly magnifying the negative effect of INTs. A possession lost in the NFL is a big deal. Results:


Plugging in the running (sacks, runs, fumbles) data, the QB rating looks like this:

They have a second section for rushing.

Re: fumbles. There is a ton of statistical evidence for fumble recovery rates, etc, so it's reasonable to count fumbles as partially lost regardless of the actual outcome of the play. It's not as clear cut with interceptions and you can't separate near interceptions form incompletes without analyzing every passplay.

I just want to chime in to agree with this, and to bitch about how when I made fumbles and interceptions -6 points in my fantasy league, everyone cried to holy hell about it.

Pro rating is not horribly hard to guestimate in your head, once you know the ranges. It's just 4 values with a ceiling limit added together. At some point you go over the max for the rating, and that just means you get the max for that quarter.

Yeah, well, fantasy football doesn't remotely mirror NFL football anyway.

Course not, but you can't blame me for trying...unless you're in my league, I guess.