Talk:Passer rating

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"Perfect" Rating?
The highest possible NFL rating of 158.whatever should not, IMHO, be called "perfect", since, e.g., one only has to complete 75% of one's passes, which is obviously not perfect! Why not call it what it is, the highest possible rating? GeneCallahan (talk) 23:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense to divide the rating by the maximum possible, so that the highest possible would be 1.000? We humans like our numbers between 0 and some power of 10; this would make sense to me. Why isn't it done? User:ASkirsch —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.98.122 (talk) 20:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's called "Perfect rating" because that's what the NFL calls it. RF23 (talk) 23:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * RF's right, although it does make no sense. Beyond495 (talk) 21:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. It's the leagues' privilege to define the terms; our job is to report what they have decided.
 * But it can be argued that "perfect passer rating" is indeed the right term, because a perfect passer, who throws a touchdown pass every time he throws the ball, would get that rating. TypoBoy (talk) 14:10, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Cleanup
From the article: Another criticism is the fact that rushing yards gained by a quarterback do not result in his getting a higher rating &mdash; a particularly important contemporary issue due to the recent emergence of many excellent running quarterbacks in the NFL, most notably Steve Young, Daunte Culpepper, Donovan McNabb, John Elway and Michael Vick and players like Damon Allen and Kerry Joseph in the CFL.. On the other hand, Vick holds the NCAA freshman record for passing efficiency and Young is the former record holder for passer rating in a season. This record was shattered in 2004 by Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning.

Response: The entire "On the other hand..." statement about NCAA passing efficiency records is not only irrelevant, there's no way that Peyton Manning, in the NFL in 2004, could break an NCAA record in that year! This section is poorly worded, and seems more like a backhand attempt to promote Vick and Young.

-- MattBattison

Another Response: And was John Elway ever a mobile quarterback? He certainly wasn't toward the end of his career...

""Health warning"" - The calculation of this rating makes no sense and to describe it as passing efficiency is inaccurate. The fact is that this statistic is meaningless because it is passing judgement on the performance of the quarterback when it is no such thing. The variables used depend on far more than the performance of the quarterback but depend on the performance of the whole offence. Completions depend on the receiver and the offensive line as much as the quarterback. Yardage is often down to the receiver and the blocking by the offence as a whole. Similarly touchdowns are dependent on how good the receivers are. Finally interceptions can be for a myriad of reasons and are often nothing to do with the QB. If the NFL wants credibility it needs to have credible statistics not a load of nonsense. Rexhorwood (talk) 01:52, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, Rexhorwood, given the football is a team game and almost everything the QB does depends on the team, what do you recommend measuring that depends on the QB alone? Hair style? Cheery attitude? GeneCallahan (talk) 23:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Unnecessarily complex
An obvious criticism -- I'm surprised it's not mentioned -- is that the rating is too complex and thus has no intuitive meaning for regular fans. If the TV announcer says that the starting QB has thrown 2 interceptions in each of the last 14 games, the average viewer will think that the the QB should perhaps be replaced. If the same announcer says that the QB has had a rating of 91.2 for the year, most viewers will await a further prompt ("... which is the highest in the conference!") to digest the information better. This isn't true of yards per carry, batting average, rebounds per game, etc. Even more complicated stats like slugging percentage at least measure something pretty straightforward. QB rating doesn't measure anything, it's an attempt to produce a super-stat that represents everything about a QB.Priceyeah 20:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Alternate Rating
This chart shows the draft results of a new rating formula I propose (min. 100 games): TG=TDs per game YG=yards per game  TD-INT=career differential PC=%completion  SBW=SuperBowl wins  SBA=Superbowl appearances:

$$rating=[0.20*TG+0.20*YG/100+0.20*(TD-INT)/100+0.20*PC+0.15*SBW+0.05*SBA]/2.5$$ This rating addresses some of the criticisms of the current rating formula on the main page --Billymac00 02:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That's nice, but... NOR The Monster (talk) 23:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Hall of Fame
as of 2006, there are 23 modern era QBs in the Hall of Fame, alphabetically:

Aikman,Blanda,Bradshaw,Dawson,Elway,Fouts,Graham,Griese,Jurgensen,Kelly,Layne

Marino,Montana,Moon,Namath,Starr,Staubach,Tarkenton,Tittle,Unitas,VanBrocklin

Waterfield and Young.

Examining the statistics, the typical Hall of Fame quarterback will exceed the following career criteria: attempts>4500, yards >30000, TDs>150 and TD/INT ratio > 1.25, %completion >50%.

Often the HOF quarterback has a Superbowl win and appears in the all-time top 10 for at least 1 major passing category.

A quarterback appears to be a "lock" if he meets any of the following over his career:

TDs>250(Manning,Montana,Favre*,Marino,Fouts,Moon,Jurgensen,Tarkenton,Elway,Unitas) completions>3000 (Montana,Fouts,Moon,Elway,Tarkenton,Favre*)

TD/INT ratio > 1.50 (Young,Manning*,Montana,Brady*,Favre*,Marino,Cunningham*)

%completion>60% (Kelly,Favre*,Aikman,Brady*,Young,Montana,Manning*)

has multiple SuperBowl wins (Bradshaw,Brady*,Montana,Starr,Young,Aikman,Elway)

Considering the aforementioned, three active players, Favre, PManning, and Brady are locks to get in, and strong cases can be made for McNabb*,McNair* and Cunningham.

--Billymac00 15:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * indicates not yet in HOF

College System
The article does not explain what the college formula is. Does anyone know? Makerowner 04:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

KISS. I propose the following formula:

$$ rating=100*(((comp/att)/(quarters/4))+((yards/(quarters/4))/100)+((td-int)/(quarters/4)))$$

Where "yards" is equal to the QB's total yards, both QB running and QB passing... hey, the QB got the yards right?

It is written as simply the sum of all the factors. If that is the case, the lower limit is incorrect. Completing every pass for a 99 yard loss results in a rating of 1. But merely throwing every pass incomplete would give a rating of zero.136.181.195.10 (talk) 16:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

College Rating has no upper limit???
"The NCAA passer rating system has no upper limit" I do not believe that is correct. The longest possible pass is 99 yards, so the best rating possible would occur if one threw every single pass 99 yards for a touchdown. If my calculations are correct, that would yield: (100 * 1.0) + (8.4 * 99) + (330 * 1.0) - (200 * 0.0) = 1261.6. If that is the case, then it's very inaccurate to say that the rating system "has no upper limit."Mickeyg13 06:40, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You're correct. I edited the section to clarify this point. I think "no upper limit" was referring to the fact that none of the NCAA passer rating components are capped (like the max of 2.375 in the NFL), but it was still rather confusing. Chaz Beckett 20:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Average Rating
The following statement is pretty meaningless. "Conceptually the average rating would be 79.2..." Simply averaging the highest possible and lowest possible ratings does not get anything like a 'conceptual average'. (note: if if did the college 'conceptual average' would be in the neighborhood of 600.) The other fallacy in this statement is related to the idea that it is not a linear scale, rather "outstanding performances meet diminishing returns". I think that the historical average is a much more reasonable measure. maxsch 17:15, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I changed the first paragraph, removing the bit on conceptual averages. maxsch 20:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Calculation Error
From the Article:Evidence for the possible overemphasis on completion percentage may be seen in the following simple example in which each quarterback has three passing plays. The first two quarterbacks completed fewer passes but got a first down for their teams while the third quarterback is rated the highest, despite only gaining five yards, due to a high completion percentage.

A counterargument to the example above is that the formula should not be applied to a sample as small as 3 passes. The minimums and maximums for each of the four passing categories attempt to modify the formula to apply to small samples. But the actual merits of the formula are best examined when the samples become large enough for the minimums and maximums to become unnecessary in calculation.

Response: Based on my calculations (C=.1111,Y=2.375,T=0,I=2.375)the first quarterback in the chart should have a passer rating of 81, not 71.5. That would make him the best of the three. However, if you still want to make your point that quarterback 3 has the higher rating, then the "Yards" for quarterback 1 needs to be 10 which will put him at a rating of 70.6. Odelphi 19:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Is this the wrong wiki?
It seems this wiki should be titled "criticism and critique of the passer rating system", since 90% of it details such. No arbitrary rating system is without its faults. There is no need for thousands of words of text to merely state rushing yards are not counted, though maybe some one can fill me in on why a PPASSER rating system would care about rushing yards?

Criticism section
I've moved the criticism section from the article to this page. This section has become nearly half the article and consisted almost entirely of original research. It was also very poorly sourced and organized. In my opinion, I believe the article is fine simply describing the rating without offering opinions on its perceived shortcomings. However, I could see having a brief, well-sourced section describing its most commonly mentioned deficencies. Chaz Beckett 13:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * agree completely. Good to have the text here as well. NjtoTX (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Text of criticism section
Passer rating has many critics, who have objected to it on several different grounds.

The most frequently-voiced objection is that plays on which the quarterback is sacked do not count toward compiling the rating, thereby giving a quarterback who is about to be sacked an incentive to deliberately take the sack rather than throw the ball away and have an incomplete pass lower his completion percentage, touchdown passes-per-attempt ratio and his yards-per-attempt ratio. However, many defenders have pointed out that no professional quarterback would intentionally take a sack to the detriment of his team in order to preserve a passer rating, not to mention that sacks often have more to do with the offensive line than the quarterback.

Another criticism is the fact that rushing yards gained by a quarterback do not result in his getting a higher rating &mdash; a particularly important contemporary issue due to the recent emergence of many excellent running quarterbacks in the NFL, most notably Randall Cunningham, Steve Young, Donovan McNabb, John Elway, Michael Vick, and Vince Young, and players like Damon Allen and Kerry Joseph in the CFL. On the other hand, Vick holds the NCAA freshman record for passing efficiency and Steve Young is the former NFL record holder for passer rating in a season. However, "It is important to remember that the system is used to rate passers, not quarterbacks. Statistics do not reflect leadership, play-calling, and other intangible factors that go into making a successful professional quarterback." 

Some observers have proposed replacing yards per attempt with yards per play as one of the rating's components, counting both sacks and rushing attempts (in addition to passes actually thrown) as plays, thereby resolving both of the above issues.

A third complaint concerns the placing of artificial limits (both upper and lower) on the points that can be earned in the various categories. Critics claim, for example, that it is unfair not to give a quarterback a higher rating for completing 90% of his passes than for completing 77.5%, or for averaging, say, 15 yards per attempt as opposed to only 12.5, although this is likely to affect only the rating for a single game and not for an entire season. As well as encountering problems when approaching the arbitrary limits for performance, the system is biased inasmuch as some of the "benchmarks" are more achievable than others: A 2.00-worthy performance in Completion % is far easier to obtain than a 2.00 in the Touchdown % category. In fact, until recent years, the league norms in each non-Completion % category were below the formula's expected "average" figures.

Yet another criticism is that the formula overemphasizes Completion Percentage. While Completion % in and of itself makes up 25% of the rating's calculation, the use of Yards per Attempt rather than Yards per Completion adds to the weight of Completion %, since incomplete passes are penalized under yds/attempt. Thus, many critics feel that the Passer Rating formula automatically is skewed in favor of quarterbacks who play in a West Coast scheme that favors many high-percentage (but low-yardage) pass plays, e.g. Steve Young, who held the single-season record until 2004.

Evidence for the possible overemphasis on completion percentage may be seen in the following simple example in which each quarterback has three passing plays. The first two quarterbacks completed fewer passes but got a first down for their teams while the third quarterback is rated the highest, despite only gaining five yards, due to a high completion percentage:

A counterargument to the example above is that the formula should not be applied to a sample as small as 3 passes. The minimums and maximums for each of the four passing categories attempt to modify the formula to apply to small samples. But the actual merits of the formula are best examined when the samples become large enough for the minimums and maximums to become unnecessary in calculation.

The simplest complaint may be that the weighting of each category is, on the whole, arbitrary. There is no evidence to suggest that Completion %, Yards/Attempt, Touchdown %, and Interception % are of equal value (25% each) in terms of an offense's efficiency (or if those stats, in that combination, have any correlation to scoring, or winning, at all).

The system also does not account for changing offensive conditions in the NFL over time. When the formula was devised in 1973, the standards were set based on statistical averages from 1960 through 1972. For example, a score of 66.7 was supposed to represent an average quarterback (50% completions, 7 yard average gain, 5.5% interceptions, 5% touchdowns), while a rating of 100 would be considered exceptional. And in 1970, the average passer scored a 65.6, a figure almost perfectly in line with the rating-creators' vision. But in 1980, the average was 73.7; in 1992, the average quarterback had a rating of 75.3; and in 2004, a record-setting year for passers, the league's mean passer rating was 82.8. The great Johnny Unitas finished his hall of fame career with only a 78.2 rating, having played in an era when interceptions were more common than touchdown passes.

The system also counts all interceptions equally regardless of the circumstances. Not all interceptions are the fault of the quarterback as a result of a bad decision or pass. Some of the interceptions were caused by factors beyond the quarterback's control such as dropped or tipped passes by the receivers that end up being caught by a defensive player. 

At least part of the reason for the increase in passer ratings is that the NFL has consistently made rule changes favoring the offense, most notably the "Mel Blount" rule in 1978 that limited contact with receivers to within five yards of the line of scrimmage. Thus, scores must be interpreted with care when doing cross-era analysis.

No matter what system is used, a large part of a quarterback's success is related to the talent around him. A poorly thrown pass can be overcome with a great catch, and the perfect pass can be dropped. The offensive line also has quite a lot to do with the quarterback's success.

Restoration of criticism section
I have no objection to the removal of the above section, given the reasons provided. But certainly, some type of criticism section is warranted, if for no other reason than the fact that most people a) don't understand it, and b)those who do understand its formulae nonetheless question why a quarterback can be called "perfect" with a 75% completion percentage.

Now we can't control what the NFL calls perfection--that's their call. But surely there are plenty of sources out there with professional writers at least questioning the formulae, and others pointing out how the average fan is confused by it. This, at the very least, is warranted. 98.82.190.226 (talk) 21:04, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Alternative NFL formula
I have no objection to the final result. The individual stats might be easier to understand if, rather than use 2.375 as the top result, one uses 40 x 2.375 or 95 points - the equivalent to a grade of A in each category. I came to this conclusion decades ago when the rating system was first reset, and the section would change to something like this, the first part remaining unchanged:

.... If the result in any category is greater than 95, the given result should be 95. This makes the maximum possible quarterback rating for the NFL (95+95+95+95)/2.4 or 158 1/3. A perfect rating requires at least a 77.5% completion rate, at least 12.5 yards per attempt, a touchdown on at least 11.875% of attempts, and no interceptions.

$$a = 2 \times \left ({{100\% \times COMP} \over ATT} - 30\% \right ) $$

$$b = 10 \times \left ({YARDS \over ATT} - 3 \right ) $$

$$c = 8 \times \left ({{100\% \times TD} \over ATT} \right ) $$

$$d = 95 - 10 \times \left ({{100\% \times INT} \over ATT} \right )$$

Then use the above calculations to complete the passer rating:

$$Passer Rating_{NFL} = \left ({mm(a) + mm(b) + mm(c) + mm(d) \over 2.4} \right ) $$ where $$mm(x) = \text{max}(0, \text{min}(x, 95))$$ — Glenn L (talk) 06:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If this is your own formula, and not mentioned in any third party reliable source, it would then be considered original research, and therefore cannot be included in this article. Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

New ESPN formula
Apparently ESPN has come out with its own rating system. It remains to be seen if they will be forthright in revealing the exact details on how to calculate it. If we are not able to display the entire formula via the Math formula markup like the NFL and NCAA ones, it might give the appearance that it is less important, IMO. Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Apparently someone has now created an article on it: Total quarterback rating. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:52, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I removed the mention of ESPN's Total Quarterback Rating in this article because it seemed like WP:PROMOTION to me. Other than the fact that it has a similar name, there is no relationship between the two stats. Thoughts? aqwfyj Talk/Contribs 05:37, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The Total Quarterback Rating article should no longer be considered promotion. As stated on that guideline and others about advertising and promotion, "an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view. ESPN's "QBR" has received plenty of criticism, as noted in Total Quarterback Rating. As originally stated by ESPN, they originally intended it as a replacement, or at least a more meaningful alternative, for the passer rating -- but this turned out very differently. In addition, it is also very likely someone who is looking for information on the QBR may accidentally stumble to this page instead, so there also should be a mention of it here. Otherwise, it would seem like censoring (or making it more difficult for people to find) the disadvantages and criticisms of a feature offered by a high-profile company, vis-a-vis ESPN and its proprietary statistic. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not suggesting that the Total Quarterback Rating article is WP:PROMOTION; I'm just saying that it doesn't warrant a mention in the passer rating article. Outside of ESPN itself, it isn't really a recognized metric. aqwfyj Talk/Contribs 15:25, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree that it should be removed entirely from this page. It was ESPN's attempt to criticize and "fix" the measurement of quarterbacks, with what it claims to be a "better stat". That is why it is mentioned in the criticism section on the passer rating article. So what if it is not widely used? Here we have a multi-million dollar corporation trying to pitch an alternative service or idea, and this product ended up being criticized itself and thus not used by most people. Zzyzx11 (talk) 17:27, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Why not just create a category of Quarterback rating methods and include both this and QBR in it? These are not the only two, there is also DVOA and DYAR (Football Outsiders), EPA and WPA (Advanced Football), PFF Rating etc.  Most of these methods are developed by a commercial site but if they don't have wiki pages for the metric at least have a wiki site for the company that is responsible for them where it is mentioned...Aapold (talk) 13:44, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Flaws section
Regarding the Flaws section, paragraph 7, the sentence ending with "...yet nine of those seasons happened in 2018 alone." How is it possible to have nine seasons in one year (2018)? Not sure that is correct. Epearlma (talk) 06:49, 24 October 2021 (UTC)