Many people post that the passer rating is not that important and I disagree, here's why and I would be interested in anyone's take on the subject. QB throws a bomb, 60 yards in the air and on the money, WR drops the ball and the QBs passer rating drops. If the WR makes a catch the QB's rating soars. Ball is on the 2 and QB screens and RB breaks 3 tackles and goes side to side and 98 yds for score; huge passer points. 3rd and 3 in the 4th and QB makes perfect slant for 4 and a 1st down, rating may actually drop on a perfect play. A QB can be perfect but if his receivers don't make the plays he will be poorly rated and conversely if his receivers do make the plays or if his line protects and gives him an oppourtunity to do his job his rating goes up. So, the fact that Favre is rated 110.8 with only 1 sub 90 game means not only is Favre getting the job done but in general so is the rest of the offense. To prove my point look at some highly rated passers, Brady, Manning, Young and Montana, they all had strong supporting casts because someone else has to execute on their passes. I believe the passer rating stat perhaps imperfectly rates a QB but is an excellent indicator of team strength and this Jets O is as strong in the passing game as any Favre has played and they complement each other nicely and should only get better. If the run game could improve who knows? Just a thought
why do people blame Passer Rating? Why not blame every stat? ie comp %, yards, TDs, INTs, etc. They can all be just as misleading as the next.
Hmmm.,--passer rating as measuring overall team strength. A test of this would be to make your picks based upon QB ratings and compare that to a random choice. If you try it, please post your picks for Sunday based upon passer ratings and we can see how it works.
I have been reading on this board over the past couple of years that the QB passing rating means nothing. Oh that's right now that it is Brett Farve, it means something...
It's more the fact that some people use passer rating as the end-all be-all of QB stats and it's really misleading. In reality, it's just hard to evaluate a QB on stats alone, let alone one pure statistic. Some people just don't realize this. And yes, passer rating is by and large irrelevant. I like Chad, but his 100+ passer ratings were no indication of how average of a QB he truly was.
Case in point: 1. Neil O'Donnell 2. Chad Pennington QB Rating is one of the most worthless stats in the entire NFL stats.
And he achieved that by taking sacks when he should have thrown away. Why? He didn't want to ruin his so-precious passer rating. Speaks volumes about the usefulness of that stat, eh?
Just wondering if it predicts not so much the QB, though it does imperfectly but rather whether it predicts things like 1. Pass Protection 2. YAC 3. Dropped balls or their lack 4. Good Playcalling and 5. Good route running etc. Won't do a thing to predict a team's D, Special Teams, Penalties or Run Game. By the way Pennington only had 1 year with a 100 plus rating and that year the Jets played a rough schedule, went 9-7 and blew out Indy 41-0 in the wildcard and lost in the second round to Oakland. Green bay was really decent that year (12-4) but it was the NFC and the Jets butchered them in week 17.
Sort of a good point that I had not thought of that an excellent QB will correctly throw away if the D covers well or protection is blown and the correct play to throw away actually lowers the rating BUT his rating was only marginal to begin with.
Work the problem and think it through whether it means something or not because I am not sure. I do know that it seems more than coincidental that when a QB has a big rating for the year he plays for a team that makes the playoffs and somebody has to get open, catch and run with the ball and somebody has to block to give the QB time to make a play. Oddly enough I can't find a single QB with a high rating that did not play for a good offensive team and that is a statistical anomaly and therefore I am leaning towards a conclusion that a high rating for the year means that a QB was operating in a system with people who do their jobs. So does this mean that EVERY SINGLE TIME a QB had a mediocre rating he was nothing more than mediocre? Is it a coincidence that everytime Favre, Elway and Marino etc had modest ratings they played on modest teams ergo the rating may indicate a teams overall passing offense.
so passer rating has more to do with a team's efficiency? and the only you can tell how good a QB is good is not by passer rating or any stat but to actually watch the guy every single game?
Ken O'Brien was accused of the same thing. I saw almost all of O'Brien's games and many of O'Donnell's games. There were plenty of times where they took sacks when they could have thrown the ball away. I don't think it was a stat issue, though. I think it was more of a moron decision. Getting pummelled to save percentage points on your passer rating? That seems very odd.
No I am leaning towards a conclusion that a high passer rating means a QB is actually good or excellent AND that he is surrounded by good or excellent people in the passing game BUT that a mediocre passer rating probably means: 1. That a good QB was surrounded by very mediocre people, 2. The QB and the team were mediocre or 3. The QB is bad or mediocre at best and he is holding back a quality team. Case in Point Tavaris(Sp?) Jackson in Minnesota. Excellent team, a 50 man juggernaut with 3 forgettable QBs. I am just asking for others thoughts and opinions and if I am missing something tell me what.
Perhaps you have'nt noticed, but QB ratings takes into account almost everything a QB does. Not sure about the sacks though. It tells you about his completion percentage, TDs, Ints, yards/pass, and maybe something else too. People say it is irrelevant because a 2 yard dump off can result in a 90 yard TD and pump the ratings. Guess what, the QB was part of that play, he see's an open WR/HB, and dumps it off. WR does the rest. If QB is unable to complete that pass, he doesnt get to take advantage of booting his rating. what about a 50 yard strike to an open WR and he drops it? His rating goes down due to incompletion where as it should have been a completion, long completion and a TD. At the end of the day, a QB must do what he is supposed to do...complete passes and score points. Dropped catches, one handed grabs, break tackles, perfect passes in great coverage, tipped passes for ints, miscommunication between QB/WR, fumble by a WR/HB preventing an obvious TD...all those things add up and over a period of time, QB rating gives you a good 'IDEA' of how good or bad that QB is. Its not a definate thing, but it does give you a good idea if you have nothing else to compare to.
Your point "that at the end of the day a QB must do what he is supposed to do...complete passes" is an excellent one and when you say "...all those things add up over time" I could not agree more: That is exactly my point that if the QB is surrounded by excellent people the rating will rise through no action of the QB because he has people around him that capitalize on their oppurtunities. Conversely if a QB is surrounded by something less his rating will lower because of their play. It is not enought to say that all these things will even out over along period of time because the good or better players will continue to play good or better until injury or age and the mediocre will continue to be mediocre unless as in the case of a rookie they improve etc. All I am saying is that we MAY have to acknowledge the QB rating does not properly rate QBs on marginal teams and may somewhat inflate QB ratings on good teams and therefore it gives a good indication of team passing strength. My other conclusion is that a good passer rating will not prop up a really marginal QB much because negatives (Interceptions & Uncatchable Passes) are more harshly considered than positives and therefore a good passer rating indicates a generally good or better QB in a good situation.
The Passer rating rewards the QB who makes the safe plays more then any other. If you take the underneath stuff all day, and pick up 5 yards on a 3 and 9, your rating goes up. If you throw an attempt at the 15 yarder for the first and miss it you go down. In both plays the team fails, but in one it works out for your pass rating. Not exactly a great stat. QB's who constantly play it safe get a huge bump, even if they are not helping thier team score, which leads me to ask how it is a great way to measure anything but a stat dorks wet dream.
QB rating is a good stat but can be misleading as it does not take into account red zone effeciency or third down conversions. It is why Pennington could have a really high QB rating but be relatively ineffective. In the case of Favre, when you have a really high QB rating accompanied by lots of yards touchdowns and team points scored it is just another indicator that the QB is doing a really good job. Aikman used to have his own effeciency rating system that took into account red zone and third down effeciency but I am not sure if he does it anymore.
