Re: NFL Off Topic
I know you're a guy who's into stuff like this and I am fine with what they are trying to quantify, but as you've said it has its own flaws. You swap QBs and Dallas wins that game going away Weeden just isn't/wasn't that good. Brady gets dinged for sacks but in a three step offense shouldn't more of that be weighted on the Oline and the quality of the Dallas pass rush. Like I said you're a guy who enjoys analysis of the game like this.
Me I guess I'm old school, I watch the coaches film of 2-3 games a week plus the Redskins and Brady was the vastly superior QB given what was happening around him. QBR trying to say otherwise is asinine. Terrance Williams beat the defense a few times early in the game and Weeden never looked him up there were plays in the vertical passing game for Dallas but they were never attacked.
Much like sabermetrics, QBR is fine to a point, but anyone watching the games can tell when and how it's flawed (as you pointed out). Every year there are games like this. I believe the year Big Ben win his last Super Bowl (or went can't recall) his QBR for the season was lower than Dan Orlovsky's to me something in their evaluations are lacking.
Bear with me for a minute here: this makes sense once one understands how the system works.
Background: among other things, Total QBR considers three factors that traditional passer rating does not: Expected Points Added, Win Probability Added, and Air Yards.
Tom Brady got a grade of 3.8 for his contributions to his team's passing offense, 10th best in the league in Week 5. This grade considers that much of Tom Brady's passing yardage was yards after catch (I think his receivers had close to 200 yards of YAC). This grade also considers that much of the 3rd and 4th quarter was a blowout, so Brady's contributions weren't necessarily greatly contributing to his team's Win Probability because the Pats' WP was consistently 90% or greater in the second half.
Tom Brady also earned a -3.8 grade for taking five sacks. Every one of these fives sacks came in the first half - while the game was still a meaningful contest - and a few of these sacks happened on 3rd down - which kills drives and results in the greatest decrease in Expected Points (compared to a loss of yards on 1st or 2nd down).
ESPN appears to weigh the sacks taken portion of their calculation equally to the passing contribution, as Brady's -3.8 sacks grade completely cancels out his 3.8 passing grade, and he ends up with a negative total grade, which results in a low Total QBR.
In comparison: Brandon Weeden didn't really ever try to go downfield and didn't throw a TD, and as such the passing component of Weeden's Total QBR was -0.1, second-worst in the league in Week 5. The main difference is that Weeden ran for a few first downs (he finished with a positive running grade, Brady had a running grade of -0.1) and he didn't take as many drive-killing sacks when the game was competitive. Weeden's grade is still bad, but it's not quite as bad because he was largely irrelevant, the plays he participated didn't really impact the game in a meaningful way, speaking to primary and second-level statistics.
I think it's fair to say that Total QBR probably still needs some more tweaking - I'm not going to begin to argue that Brandon Weeden was better than Tom Brady last week, that's obviously absurd, Weeden didn't even throw a touchdown and the Cowboys passing offense was dreadful. But the Total QBR metric isn't absurd once one understands what it is attempting to quantify and how it arrives at the numbers it does. It is indeed a much more thorough measure of QB performance than passer rating, albeit not without its own flaws (traditional passer rating puts too much of an emphasis on high completion percentage and low INT percentage, and doesn't account for how much of the QB's passing yardage is YAC, for example).
Background: among other things, Total QBR considers three factors that traditional passer rating does not: Expected Points Added, Win Probability Added, and Air Yards.
Tom Brady got a grade of 3.8 for his contributions to his team's passing offense, 10th best in the league in Week 5. This grade considers that much of Tom Brady's passing yardage was yards after catch (I think his receivers had close to 200 yards of YAC). This grade also considers that much of the 3rd and 4th quarter was a blowout, so Brady's contributions weren't necessarily greatly contributing to his team's Win Probability because the Pats' WP was consistently 90% or greater in the second half.
Tom Brady also earned a -3.8 grade for taking five sacks. Every one of these fives sacks came in the first half - while the game was still a meaningful contest - and a few of these sacks happened on 3rd down - which kills drives and results in the greatest decrease in Expected Points (compared to a loss of yards on 1st or 2nd down).
ESPN appears to weigh the sacks taken portion of their calculation equally to the passing contribution, as Brady's -3.8 sacks grade completely cancels out his 3.8 passing grade, and he ends up with a negative total grade, which results in a low Total QBR.
In comparison: Brandon Weeden didn't really ever try to go downfield and didn't throw a TD, and as such the passing component of Weeden's Total QBR was -0.1, second-worst in the league in Week 5. The main difference is that Weeden ran for a few first downs (he finished with a positive running grade, Brady had a running grade of -0.1) and he didn't take as many drive-killing sacks when the game was competitive. Weeden's grade is still bad, but it's not quite as bad because he was largely irrelevant, the plays he participated didn't really impact the game in a meaningful way, speaking to primary and second-level statistics.
I think it's fair to say that Total QBR probably still needs some more tweaking - I'm not going to begin to argue that Brandon Weeden was better than Tom Brady last week, that's obviously absurd, Weeden didn't even throw a touchdown and the Cowboys passing offense was dreadful. But the Total QBR metric isn't absurd once one understands what it is attempting to quantify and how it arrives at the numbers it does. It is indeed a much more thorough measure of QB performance than passer rating, albeit not without its own flaws (traditional passer rating puts too much of an emphasis on high completion percentage and low INT percentage, and doesn't account for how much of the QB's passing yardage is YAC, for example).
I know you're a guy who's into stuff like this and I am fine with what they are trying to quantify, but as you've said it has its own flaws. You swap QBs and Dallas wins that game going away Weeden just isn't/wasn't that good. Brady gets dinged for sacks but in a three step offense shouldn't more of that be weighted on the Oline and the quality of the Dallas pass rush. Like I said you're a guy who enjoys analysis of the game like this.
Me I guess I'm old school, I watch the coaches film of 2-3 games a week plus the Redskins and Brady was the vastly superior QB given what was happening around him. QBR trying to say otherwise is asinine. Terrance Williams beat the defense a few times early in the game and Weeden never looked him up there were plays in the vertical passing game for Dallas but they were never attacked.
Much like sabermetrics, QBR is fine to a point, but anyone watching the games can tell when and how it's flawed (as you pointed out). Every year there are games like this. I believe the year Big Ben win his last Super Bowl (or went can't recall) his QBR for the season was lower than Dan Orlovsky's to me something in their evaluations are lacking.
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