User:SeanRichardson.3/Passer rating

Passer Rating Flaws

The biggest criticism of passer rating is that it is too simple of a stat that fails to take into account more the full scope of a quarterbacks contributions to the team's performance. For example, the equation does not take into account a quarterbacks rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, sacks, or fumbles and favors quarterbacks that are efficient over effective. Pro Football Focus writer Nathan Jahnke provides a good example of this phenomenon in the following scenario of two different quarterbacks:

If Quarterback A completes three passes for three yards in a row, then they would have an impressive passer rating of 97.72.

Meanwhile, Quarterback B throws three straight passes, with the first two falling incomplete, while the third is caught for a 30-yard. The quarterback's passer rating in this circumstance is 71.53.

Albeit, Quarterback A does have a greater completion rate and is more efficient than Quarterback B, they still failed to gain 10 yards on the play and reward their team with a first down. On the other hand, Quarterback B wasn't necessarily efficient in his throws, but on their last throw they were able to make a completion of 30 yards and effectively gives their offense a new set of downs and are now likely on their opponents half of the field as well. Due to new rules that favor NFL offenses, such as targeting and roughing the passer penalties, an increase in the number of games, most recently in 1978, and teams opting to pass more than ever, almost all of the passer rating leaders are quarterbacks from the past two decades. Since 1950, there have been 93 quarterbacks who have finished the season with a passer rating of greater than 100.0, yet 9 of those season happened in 2018 alone. Moreover, Steve Young and Joe Montana are the only two quarterbacks whose careers ended prior to 2000 and are among the top 25 passer rating's in NFL history. The graph on the right shows a good visual representation of the passer rating inflation since 1950.

Therefore, passer rating is not a valid stat when comparing quarterbacks from two different eras. However, within an era and season itself passer rating is a much more accurate and reliable stat to measure the true effectiveness of a quarterback.

Other measurements

Total Quarterback Rating (QBR)

ESPN's Total Quarterback Rating is a proprietary statistic that was first introduced in 2011 and is designed to measure the total effectiveness and performance of a quarterback. The metric takes into account all of a quarterback's contribution to a game, including: passing, rushing, sacks, penalties, touchdowns, and turnovers. Moreover, each play is weighted based on its "difficulty", the context of the game, and the strength of the opposing defense. This means that statistics in garbage time of a blowout game hold less merit than statistics in a close game. Also, a quarterback who throws for four touchdowns and 300 yards against a strong defense will have a higher QBR than a quarterback who has the same stat line against the worst defense in the NFL.

QBR functions on a 0-100 scale, where an average NFL quarterback typically has around a 50 QBR, while a Pro-Bowl caliber quarterback will have approximately a 75. This scale also represents a percentile of overall quarterback performances since 2006. Meaning that if a quarterback has a QBR of 90, then their performance in that game is, on average, better than 90% of other quarterback performances.

It is also very common for their to be significant differences between QBR and passer rating leaders. Especially since passer rating favors yardage and pure volume of passing attempts rather than efficiency and performance. For example, in 2019 Lamar Jackson had a league leading QBR of 83.0 and earned MVP honors. However, Jackson finished 3rd in passer rating (113.3) behind Ryan Tannehill (117.5) and Drew Brees (116.3) who finished 9th and 3rd for QBR.

PFF Player Grades

Pro Football Focus (PFF) is a football website that conducts in-depth analysis on NFL and NCAA games and players. Part of this analysis is assigning each football player in the NFL and NCAA teams in the Power Five a grade that indicates the performance of said player.

According to the PFF website, the group's algorithm analyzes every play for each individual player and measures the impact that said player has while on the field. A player's impact is then given a grade between -2 to +2 in 0.5 increments. Each position has a scale with a unique algorithm and rules. The scale also takes into account game context, so a strong play in the fourth quarter of a close matchup will be graded higher than one in the 2nd quarter of a blowout game.

A 0 player grade on any given play represents any position player performing at an expected level and in a manner that neither positively nor negatively impacts their team. An example of this is a running back taking a carry through the correct hole and picking up 3 - 4 yards on first and ten. Meanwhile, a +2 represents an incredible performance on a play that shifts the dynamic of a game in favor of the player's team. Brandon Graham's, a defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles, strip sack on Tom Brady in Super Bowl LII would have easily been a +2 rating. On the other hand a -2 is a a play that catastrophically hinders a team's chance of winning, such as a quarterback throwing a pick-six in the fourth quarter of a close game. Ambiguous plays where the outcome is unclear on how a player impacted their team are typically given a 0.

The sum of these plus-minuses are then converted on a 0-100 scale and produce a grade for a single game. However, a player's season grade is not the average of the 16 grades a player receives each game. Instead, PFF credits a player's entire body of work and longevity throughout the season. It is, therefore, possible for a player to have a higher season grade than any individual grade that a player received in any game he played in.


 * 1) ^ "NFL Passer Rating Career Leaders". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2020-10-12.