NFL MVP Ratings

[21C]

Some of you may remember the NFL MVP ratings I did a couple of times. Well I've incorporated them and some other things into a daily blog.

I have NFL power rankings, a ranking of the games of the week as well as MVP rankings - currently showing QB and RB. Will be adding ranks for receivers and defense soon.

This Week In Football

It's nothing fancy but I wrote some programs for my Deeproute leagues to parse the data and rank stuff and I just adapted this for the NFL. What used to take me ages for all of the data now takes me a couple of minutes.

Please check it out. You might find something interesting.

[Philliesfan980]

Nice site. Very interesting, thanks for sharing it with us!

[21C]

Just bumping this because I have added a lot of stuff since I first posted. I update almost every day and my MVP Ratings give a pretty good idea of the best players at each position.

[lighthousekeeper]

thanks - good read

[21C]

Just updated these with final stats of the year.

I've shown Pro Bowl players in bold for comparison sakes.

I also plan on breaking ratings down by team and individual defensive positions over the coming weeks.

I also have to add that I'm doing this from a hotel room in Bratislava, Slovakia. I'm on a five week vacation where I'll also get to Vienna, Budapest and Prague.

[dubb93]

Just curious but when I click on power rankings I see an expected wins column. Did you actually do that prior to the season? If you did that is amazing that you were able to correctly pick the teams in that order prior to the season.

[21C]

I'm not sure what power rankings you're clicking on - but I'm guessing that you're looking at the most recent one I did.

If you meant the label "rankings" then you would see each week's rank from when I started (Week 5). Like this:
This Week In Football: rankings

edit: Yeah, I think you clicked on the most recent post done after the season was over.

[Galaril]

So according tho those ratings Chris Johnson "should" be the MVP? Not saying I disagree.

[21C]

Yeah, it's not necessarily supposed to pick "the" best player since it doesn't factor in teams' win-loss records but it does show the top players worthy for consideration.

[Tigercat]

IMO, ratings would be much improved with defensive TDs and recieving first downs thrown into the equations.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by 21C

I also have to add that I'm doing this from a hotel room in Bratislava, Slovakia.

"Ahh yes, Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. Here's a fun fact: YOU MADE OUT WITH YOUR SISTER MAN!"

[21C]

Bump.

2010 MVP Ratings and other stuff of interest. Updated weekly.

[QuikSand]

Care to walk us through the logic (or computation) that puts Drew Brees ahead of Rivers or Manning in your MVP rankings? That's a fairly surprising result, to me.

[21C]

QBs get points for completions and lose points for incompletions so Brees leads in that category. Rivers loses some points for fumbles lost otherwise he might be leading.

The ratings are cumulative so Manning is only slightly behind the other two with one less game played.

It may not be perfect but gives a reasonable picture of MVP-caliber players at each skill position.

[Lathum]

Not to be a nit, and we all know I am a Giants homer, but Bradshaw is way to low on the RB scale. He has more rushing yards and more or the same number of TDs than 6 of the guys on the list. They have all played the same number of games except McFadden, who had one good game.

I guess you can factor in receptions and receiving yards, but I think maybe you are overvaluing them. I would rather see yards per carry or carries over 10 yards as a factor.

[jbergey22]

Are you factoring in team wins on your MVP ratings? The NFL MVP seems to always go to a player on a very good team. It seems some players on such mediocre teams are a bit high up in these ratings.

Orton
Rivers
AP
Gore

to name a few.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by 21C

QBs get points for completions and lose points for incompletions so Brees leads in that category. Rivers loses some points for fumbles lost otherwise he might be leading.

The ratings are cumulative so Manning is only slightly behind the other two with one less game played.

It may not be perfect but gives a reasonable picture of MVP-caliber players at each skill position.

If you are posting for input... I'll offer that in my opinion, any system that ranks 2010 Drew Brees ahead of (or really anywhere near) 2010 Peyton Manning or 2010 Philip Rivers (all as of this date) is not giving a "reasonable picture."

Seems to me you are massively over-weighting the value of a completion, or something along those lines.

And if you're not posting for input, feel free to disregard the above.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by 21C

QBs get points for completions and lose points for incompletions so Brees leads in that category. Rivers loses some points for fumbles lost otherwise he might be leading.

The ratings are cumulative so Manning is only slightly behind the other two with one less game played.

It may not be perfect but gives a reasonable picture of MVP-caliber players at each skill position.

Yards/per completion

Brees, 9.9
Rivers, 13.7
Manning, 10.9

In other words, both Rivera and Manning tend to throw deeper passes, which in turn means a lower completion percentage. I think TD/INT ratio has to play a bigger part in it as well. For the difference in number of games, just divide by the number of games played.

[21C]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Not to be a nit, and we all know I am a Giants homer, but Bradshaw is way to low on the RB scale. He has more rushing yards and more or the same number of TDs than 6 of the guys on the list. They have all played the same number of games except McFadden, who had one good game.

I guess you can factor in receptions and receiving yards, but I think maybe you are overvaluing them. I would rather see yards per carry or carries over 10 yards as a factor.

Bradshaw takes a hit on my scale because he has had 4 fumbles - all of them lost. I haven't got fumbles lost shown on the RB output but I will in future.

[k0ruptr]

you guys need to understand, Manning IS winning. he has one game played less. at 9 games Manning would be the leader.

[21C]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Are you factoring in team wins on your MVP ratings? The NFL MVP seems to always go to a player on a very good team. It seems some players on such mediocre teams are a bit high up in these ratings.

I haven't found an easy way to incorporate team wins into my calculations. I know what you're saying but I don't want to make my formulas too complicated and I want to leave some room for people to decide for themselves.

[21C]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

If you are posting for input... I'll offer that in my opinion, any system that ranks 2010 Drew Brees ahead of (or really anywhere near) 2010 Peyton Manning or 2010 Philip Rivers (all as of this date) is not giving a "reasonable picture."

Seems to me you are massively over-weighting the value of a completion, or something along those lines.

And if you're not posting for input, feel free to disregard the above.

I started this out by trying to come up with a simple way of rating QBs - the other positions came later. The NFL QB rating formula is not something that the average person can work out on the fly so I tried to simplify it.

Is it perfect? No. Is it better than the NFL's system? I think so.

Here are the top 4 NFL QBs based on ratings.

Tarvaris Jackson	MIN	122.2
Troy Smith	SFO	115.2
Michael Vick	PHI	105.3
Vince Young	TEN	103.1

These are based off all QBs. Jackson and Smith wouldn't be included if I selected the qualified leaders which would leave Vick and Young as the best two QBs this year.

I think it's great that you disagree with my ratings but you have to agree that it's a lot easier to identify the alternatives to my picks.

[jbergey22]

Ive always thought I good way of judging QBs was. Yards - (Int*40)/att

Tds are too reflective of the system they play in so I dont put much stock in them. I figure an int is worth around 40 yards of field position on average which is how I come up with that number. Yards per attempt doesnt need an explanation.

It's all subjective however. A Qb's numbers can be sliced and diced so many ways.

[21C]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Yards/per completion

Brees, 9.9
Rivers, 13.7
Manning, 10.9

In other words, both Rivera and Manning tend to throw deeper passes, which in turn means a lower completion percentage. I think TD/INT ratio has to play a bigger part in it as well.

This is the problem with the NFL QB rating. It tries to include stuff like yards per attempt but it just makes things more complicated.

Originally Posted by Matthean

For the difference in number of games, just divide by the number of games played.

That's the part that I wanted to avoid including.

I've always liked that the HR leader in baseball was the guy who hit the most home runs - not the player who had the most HRs per AB that missed half the season through injury.

I found it completely unsatisfying when a player comes in for a couple of plays, does well and gets a better QB rating than someone who played the whole game.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Yards/per completion

Brees, 9.9
Rivers, 13.7
Manning, 10.9

In other words, both Rivera and Manning tend to throw deeper passes, which in turn means a lower completion percentage. I think TD/INT ratio has to play a bigger part in it as well. For the difference in number of games, just divide by the number of games played.

Why yards per completion? That has just as much to do with the WRs than it does the QB.

Yards per attempt is a much better stat IMO. If you have a QB that completes 50 percent of his passes he gets docked on yds/att.

[21C]

I wanted a formula/rating that was easy and gave a clearer picture of production.

Here's a quick example.

Tarvaris Jackson came in for Brett Favre a couple of weeks ago. He goes 4-6 for 36 yards with a TD and gets a QB rating of 122.2. My formula gives him a rating of 22 (33 yards rushing included).

On the same day, Drew Brees got a QB rating of 101.0 for going 34-44 305 yards 2 TD-1 INT. My formula gives him a score of 98 and I can work it out in my head in 5 seconds.

I've said all along that my formula is not meant to be perfect. It started out as a way of rating QBs and then I tried to come up with a similar way of ranking other positions. It wasn't meant to be definitive - you can argue that a player ranked 17th is better than someone ranked 12th and you may be right. It was meant to give people the opportunity to look at the top 5 at each position and let them decide who they think was better/best.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by 21C

I wanted a formula/rating that was easy and gave a clearer picture of production.

Here's a quick example.

Tarvaris Jackson came in for Brett Favre a couple of weeks ago. He goes 4-6 for 36 yards with a TD and gets a QB rating of 122.2. My formula gives him a rating of 22 (33 yards rushing included).

On the same day, Drew Brees got a QB rating of 101.0 for going 34-44 305 yards 2 TD-1 INT. My formula gives him a score of 98 and I can work it out in my head in 5 seconds.

I've said all along that my formula is not meant to be perfect. It started out as a way of rating QBs and then I tried to come up with a similar way of ranking other positions. It wasn't meant to be definitive - you can argue that a player ranked 17th is better than someone ranked 12th and you may be right. It was meant to give people the opportunity to look at the top 5 at each position and let them decide who they think was better/best.

It sounds fine. The thing I hate most about the NFL QB rating is that it awards TDs so heavily.

All TJack did was come in and throw a 1 yard TD pass after Favre got the team there. It certainly wasnt deserving of a 122.2 rating.

In comparing them 2 I dont feel Brees deserved such a high rating either. He threw a lot of passes to get them 300 yards.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by 21C

I've always liked that the HR leader in baseball was the guy who hit the most home runs - not the player who had the most HRs per AB that missed half the season through injury.

I found it completely unsatisfying when a player comes in for a couple of plays, does well and gets a better QB rating than someone who played the whole game.

This is why you add in minimum attempts, games played, etc. Based on the games he's played Stafford might be number one, but you can't give the MVP to somebody who has played 3 games.

[Autumn]

Do you guys look at Football Outsiders stats at all? They've done a lot of work covering this whole area, rating players by success per play, not just total stats.

[QuikSand]

And hey, it's perfectly fine by me if what you want out of your system is something you "can work it out in [your] head in 5 seconds." For those of us who are more interested in the value of the outcome of a system rather than the ease of generating the outcome, we're simply bound to disagree with you about the inherent value of your apparently simple-to-compute system. I'm okay with that, and it seems like you are, too. All good.

The fact of the matter is that in trying to actually evaluate something like an MVP, your mentions of Tarvaris Jackson or the like are clearly red herrings. Just because the widely used "passer rating" (passer, not QB, incidentally) measures efficiency and can sometimes give lofty numbers for short-time players isn't really a demonstration of a problem. It's not like *anyone* is out there arguing that Jackson is an MVP candidate.

Most thinking people more or less drift toward a concept like value over replacement player, which essentially means performing better than most over an extended period of time. Any system of credits and debits based on the obvious factors ought to more or less do the same thing.

So, the fact that your system hands us Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers as being among the top guys at QB this year doesn't really advance the cause much. Of course they are. There's nobody relevant to this discussion who wouldn't come up with those two guys given a quick look at the obvious headline stats summaries. So while you want to take credit for your system identifying them as being among the leaders, I'm really not giving much of any credit there, since that exercise is basically a trivial one.

What *would* be sort of interesting is a well-conceived way to sort out the relative values of different styles of player -- the guy who throws a ton of short passes, versus the effective downfield passer, versus maybe the play-action specialist who hands off 3/4 of the time and picks his spots for the unusual but effective throw. The passer rating does a decent but imperfect job here (it tends to over-reward high-completion passers, in my view), but it's components and assembly are admittedly too hard for most people to comprehend (if that's important, not all would agree that it is). So, for what you're offering, to me the most important thing is not so much whether it puts the right several guys in the top several slots... but maybe more like "so what does it say about the super-precise Manning versus the super-prolific Rivers?" And for me, when I see that at that level of detail, it actually puts both guys behind someone else with everyone-would-agree worse outcomes... I candidly lose interest before I even get to working out why the Manning/Rivers split is the way it is.

[21C]

Thanks for your input. I'm sorry it doesn't meet your demands.

[21C]

Updated for end of season. Pro Bowl players bolded.

Like I said before, it's not meant to be perfect - it has Brady ranked third due to his lower yards total and pass completions.

[21C]

Bump for end of 2011 regular season.

[QuikSand]

*shurg*

[21C]

[jbergey22]

Id appreciate your ratings more if you found a way to have Rodgers #1 as MVP.

Actually thanks for the bump, its cool to see the things you do.

[21C]

Updated for 2014 season. MVP score is adjusted based on team record.

This Week In Football

[QuikSand]

Fun stuff.

[Blackadar]

I'd say it's exceptionally overvalued for QBs.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

Id appreciate your ratings more if you found a way to have Rodgers #1 as MVP.

Actually thanks for the bump, its cool to see the things you do.

Problem solved in 2014.