Rating Quarterbacks - TQBR

ESPN dedicated 2011 to examining one of the most crucial positions in all of sports -- the quarterback.

 Early in a scoreless game, a quarterback throws a 20-yard pass just by the reaching arms of a defender and into the hands of his intended receiver, who holds on despite the distraction, then scampers the remaining 15 yards for a touchdown.

Another quarterback, down 30-10 with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, throws a 3-yard screen pass to a running back, who maneuvers another 32 yards through prevent defense to pick up a first down deep in opponent territory.

Both are called good plays, but labeling them as "good" isn't enough. Each play has a different level of contribution to winning, and each play illustrates a different level of quarterback contribution. What is the quarterback's contribution to winning in each situation? Coaches want to know this; players want to know this; and fans want to know this.

The Total Quarterback Rating is a statistical measure that incorporates the contexts and details of those throws and what they mean for wins. It's built from the team level down to the quarterback, where we understand first what each play means to the team, then give credit to the quarterback for what happened on that play based on what he contributed.  At the team level, identifying what wins games is not revolutionary: scoring points and not allowing points. Back in the 1980s, "The Hidden Game of Football" did some pioneering work on that topic and on how yardage relates to points. We went back and updated what that book did … then we went further. At the individual level, more detailed information about what quarterbacks do is really necessary. Brian Burke at AdvancedNFLStats.com has done very good work in advancing that effort, and FootballOutsiders.com has done some of this by charting data, but, for the past three years, ESPN has charted football games in immense detail. By putting all these ideas together and incorporating division of credit, we have built a metric of quarterback value, the Total Quarterback Rating, Total QBR or QBR for short.

The final step is transforming the clutch-valued expected points rate to a number from 0 to 100. This is just a mathematical formula with no significance other than to make it easier to communicate. A value of 90 and above sounds good whether you're talking about a season, a game or just third-and-long situations; a value of four or 14 doesn't sound very good; a value of 50 is average, and that is what QBR generates for an average performance.

 

That being said, the top values in a season tend to be about 75 and above, whereas the top values in a game are in the upper 90s. Aaron Rodgers might have gone 31-of-36 for 366 yards, with three passing TDs, another TD running, 19 first-down conversions, and eight conversions on third or fourth down in one game -- for a single-game Total QBR of 97.2 -- but he can't keep that up all year long. Pro Bowl-level performance for a season usually means a QBR of at least 65 or 70. We don't expect to see a season with a QBR in the 90s.

 

I cut and pasted the above discussion from a much longer and more detailed article. I only included enough to show that the Total QBR is a actually a good measure of the consistency and skill degree exhibited by   a quarterback.  It is perhaps most useful in getting past just the amassed stats and evaluating 1) how much the quarterback is responsible for the team’s success,  2) how does a good quarterback perform with a poor team and even more importantly, vice versa.

From another source (ESPN) using the Total QBR metric (and don’t tell me  metrics don’t work (see “Money Ball”, I am posting Total QBRs from the last 3 or 4 years. Note:

2013 Regular Season NFL Leaders (through 15 games)

       PLAYER                          Rating                                                   

1 Josh McCown, - 85.1                                                            

2 Peyton Manning, - 82.2                                                   

3 Philip Rivers, - 73.3                                                            

4  Nick Foles, -71.8                                                           

5  Aaron Rodgers, -70.3                                                           

6  Colin Kaepernick, - 68.6                                                           

7  Drew Brees, - 66.6                                                          

8  Jay Cutler, - 63.8                                                          

9  Matt Ryan, - 63.1                                                          

10 Tom Brady, - 62.9                                                          

2012 Regular Season NFL Leaders

  PLAYER                                                                                       

1  Peyton Manning, - 82.4                                                           

2   Tom Brady, - 77.7                                                            

3   Matt Ryan, -  74.8                                                            

4  Aaron Rodgers, - 74.7                                                                     

5  Robert Griffin III, - 73.2                                                           

6  Colin Kaepernick, - 72.2                                                           

7  Russell Wilson, - 71.7  

8. Alex Smith, - 69.4                                                           

9  Eli Manning, - 68.9

10 Drew Brees, -  66.5                                                                    

2011 Regular Season NFL Leaders

          PLAYER                                                                             

1  Aaron Rodgers, -  87.1                                                           

2  Drew Brees,-   83.0

3  Tom Brady, -  73.0

4  Matt Ryan, -   69.9                                                           

5  Tony Romo, -  69.5                                                           

6  Matt Schaub, -  67.3                                                           

7  Michael Vick,-  64.7                                                           

8  Matthew Stafford,-  64.4                                                           

9  Philip Rivers, -  63.4                                                           

10 Roethlisberger,- 62.7                                                                   

 2010 Regular Season NFL Leaders

    PLAYER                                                                     

1  Tom Brady,-77.0                                                               

2  Peyton Manning, - 71.7                                                               

3  Aaron Rodgers, -  70.7                                                              

4  Matt Ryan, - 70.6                                                               

5  Michael Vick,- 67.2                                                              

6  Josh Freeman,- 66.1                                                              

7  Ben Roethlisberger,- 65.4                                                               

8  Drew Brees,- 64.7                                                              

9  Eli Manning, - 64.6                                                              

10 Philip Rivers,- 63.7                                                              

 As a famous man once said, “Figures lie and liars figure’, but I don’t think this is always true. There are some constants and one of them seems to be that elite quarterbacks are consistently in the top 10 based on the Total Quarterback Rating metric. Names like Manning, Ryan, Brady and Rogers are seemingly always there. Others may appear for a season or two and vanish (Eli Manning, Matt Schaub) it seems that elite quarterbacks can, from year to year, cope with personnel changes and differing levels of support and somehow manage to drag their teams into the playoffs. These guys will be first or second year Hall of Famers. In my opinion, the best of the young guns to have that chance are Matt Ryan , Russell Wilson, and possibly Colin Kapernick. Names that are buried down at the 15^th and below TQBR each year are revelatory, as well. As examples, Matt Schaub and Eli Manning are in spots 32 and 34 in 2013. Joe Flacco is #25. Two of these guys (Manning And Flacco) have rings yet  neither will play in this post season. In 2010, playing for a  Bucs team with a defense reminiscent of their Superbowl winners, Josh Freeman actually ranked #6, the following year as players were lost to free agency, he ranked #23. Today Josh Freeman may never take another snap as a pro!  If there is anything to be taken from this nattering it is that the good QBs seem to stay near the top of the list, even when their supporting casts wane in effectiveness. The great ones find ways to bring their team along. It's true, that the elite QB's teams aren't always the Super Bowl winners, but it surely seems certain that they always put their teams in position to have a chance.