Hawprey on Quarterbacks: A Long, Boring Read

[hawkprey]

Assessing Quarterback Greatness: Situation and Circumstance

 

So it's that time when people like to compare QBs. Jaws came out with his list, though I'm sure yours is a lot better. This is the hot topic in the sports world, and once again I have the answer. So please take a few minutes to indulge me during this horribly boring time of the year known as baseball season. There's quite a lot of thought on this page, so here's to me causing you horrible, horrible eye pain and leaving you with a sticky mound of ol' seat sweat. 

 

 

How we define and rank quarterbacks is subjective. But that doesn’t mean some people are wrong.

 

How we see a quarterback is almost entirely a combination of situational value or circumstantial value. Situation is a play-to-play difference in a quarterback’s surrounding. Down, distance, time, or score. Circumstance implies more concrete variables such as the overall team around a quarterback that he has no control over. Some quarterbacks play for better teams. Some quarterbacks play in better systems. Some are injured before they can prove themselves and some have seen more luck than others. So when judging at quarterbacks, you want to try and remove circumstance.

 

With an extreme difference in circumstance from QB to QB, there are a number of statistics that go beyond the traditional formula by accounting for certain factors. How someone plays indoors, or against good defenses, or given these receivers. But there are an overwhelming number of factors we can‘t account for. Generally, picking which factors to account for and which to ignore simply because it's easier to is the wrong decision.

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Here’s a simple example. Take two equal quarterbacks on equal teams. But say QB1 has an offensive system with a heavy run game, and QB2’s system involves a heavy pass game. Both systems are equally effective at producing wins, they‘re just different approaches. QB1’s touchdown rate is lower because his run game eats up TD‘s. QB2’s team passes more, so he scores more TDs and throws for more yards. His defense also gives up more points because competition is forced to score more. So QB2 plays alongside a defense that is considered worse and his passing stats are more generous. The casual fan therefore sees two arguments to why QB2 is better than QB1. But the assumption here was that they’re both the same.

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This is picking and choosing factors. Saying "I can account for level of team defense but not offensive identity, so that's what I'll do" isn't slightly more accurate than not accounting for nothing. It actually leads you in the wrong direction. This is the problem with many advanced QB metrics. 

 

Wins vs. Rating.

The prevailing stat for ranking quarterbacks is passer rating. The simplest stat is wins. The dumbest is Total QBR. As I've stated above, if you can't account for everything, you're better off accounting for nothing. Let time and quantity of games sort things out for you. That leads us to wins. And again we refer to the argument of situation vs. circumstance. We want to see who prevails given a situation, and remove circumstantial factors evenly. 

 

Still following? Ok, then brace yourself for some logic that will change the way you think about football. Maybe.

 

Passer rating is completely without situation.

With passer rating, every pass, yard, touchdown, and interception is weighed the same. But it’s not without circumstance. 

 

Many people assume wins are a team statistic but passer rating is a quarterback statistic. Instead, passer rating is entirely influenced by the quality of receivers, blocking, scheme, opponent defense, weather, and other circumstantial factors. In turn, QB play affects the statistics of the rest of the team. 

Circumstance is a factor in both passer rating and wins. The difference is that wins are situational as well. If you win a game, you’ve beaten the situation. Whether it was “don’t turn the ball over 4 times today or you‘ll lose” or “throw 6 touchdowns to win”. You did what you had to do that day. 

 

Situation is key. This example will help describe why passer rating’s lack of situation is problematic.

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Take two games. In game 1, a passer rating of 80 will be good enough for the QB to win. But in game 2 the QB needs to reach or exceed 120. A quarterback who excels in playing the situation may only end up with a clean 80 and 120 passer rating, but he’ll have two wins. A quarterback who puts up a 100 each week would only have one. Both QBs wind up with 100 ratings over the course of two games, but one QB has twice as many wins as the other. So which QB is better?

     Most people would mistakenly take the second quarterback over the first because looking at the stat sheet, the first one is too “inconsistent”. This is the flaw with ignoring situation. The first quarterback has the ability to play up to competition. The second QB can’t. The first QB doesn’t have to put his team on his back in game 1 and shouldn’t be indicted for only doing enough to win. But come week 2, his higher ceiling is on display. He wins games.

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Actually, the “100 rating every week” guy doesn’t really exist. In fact, every quarterback’s rating wildly fluctuates from week to week. If you’re a firm believer in passer rating as a QB metric, you see this as good days and bad days, which is plenty untrue of players who are the best in the world. You wouldn’t say any other professional is terrible at their job one day and magnificent the next. 

 

The difference between a good surrounding cast and a bad one may only be 7 points per game. That difference is no big deal for a great quarterback, who can easily overcome a single-score deficit when necessary. While they may only be 1 of 53 starters, quarterbacks are the chess masters. Saying the value of a QB is only a small fraction is like saying chess is won by who has the better pieces. No one plays chess with all pawns or all queens, but the same is true of the NFL. No one's going to argue that a novice chess player with 2 queens is better than a pro with a normal set. That’s why when teams want better passing stats, they draft receivers. When they want more wins, they draft quarterback. In the mean time, other teams will be drafting players, rendering the "better passing stats" to more of a choice on how they'll keep up, rather than an all-around team improvement. 

 

QB or not QB?

The reason why QBs are so well correlated with wins is because passing is much more effective than running. Running the ball still has its advantages, but 75% of the time, the team that wins is the team with the better passer rating. Wins are also highly correlated with the QB who passes for more yards, TDs, or has fewer INTs that day - all statistical factors of passer rating. However, each game is its own situation. Every game is different. Sometimes the situation is “who blinks first”. How soon does one team go “Oh crap, we need to score NOW”? When that happens early in games, we usually have a shootout. When it happens late, it‘s a stalemate. The sooner the shift to a shootout happens, you’ll see more passing TDs, passing yards, and generally higher passer rating for both sides. But that doesn’t mean both quarterbacks from the shootout are better than both from the stalemate, as most basic statistics would suggest. We’ve forgotten that QB play affects everything else on the field. You scoring more forces the other team to score more. If passer rating was correct, then final scores would just be a random splattering of how good everyone is. Team A scores 8 points more per game than Team B, therefore Team A will win by 8 points. Will they? Or will Team B try to score more for this game? No situation, all circumstance. 

 

All In:

Super Bowl wins are the defining factors for quarterback greatness. Ultimately, you win a Super Bowl by succeeding through a collection of situations given your circumstance. The general rule is that the better quarterback you are, the more Super Bowl wins you’ll have. This notion is of course refuted by NFL scholars who suggest the exception to the rule (Dan Marino’s 0 wins to Trent Dilfer’s 1) disproves the rule and renders it meaningless. (Even though Marino lost a Super Bowl to Montana and Dilfer’s 2000 competition included Brian Griese and a sophomore Peyton Manning. :eyes:)

    Super Bowl wins are super-glorified wins that are just part of the argument and part of the win column. By winning the Super Bowl, there’s no telling how many more postseason games you could’ve won that year. It’s a win cap, and reaching that cap should be noted. A Super Bowl winning QB who is far and away the best of that year would only win 1 more game than the Super Bowl losing QB (who could be a distant #2). That 1 extra win only shows that you were at least a little better.

 

So the best measurement is wins.

 

I like wins in the long term. Wins, (with special recognition to Super Bowl wins), incorporates factors of longevity of success, the detriment of being injured, and ultimately, prevailing against a team that only cares about preventing you from winning.

 

For one, when we try to eliminate circumstance from a measurement, wins seem to balance out more than passer rating does in the long run. If you draft the best receiver, that’s a big boost to your passer rating for 10+ years. If you play under the same pass-oriented system your entire career, that’s another huge boost. In other words, it’s much easier for a team to purposefully inflate a QB’s passer rating than his total wins. Every team tries to win as much as possible every year, but not every team is drafting offensive help or adding easy completions to their arsenal at the same rate. 

 

“But isn’t the metric of wins unfair to quarterbacks who are on bad teams?”

Somewhat. But isn’t life unfair to quarterbacks who get injured before they take a single snap? You can’t assume greatness if you haven’t had a chance to see that it’s not there. Don’t believe me? Name a great quarterback with no playoff appearances. Name a QB you consider great who’s been on the same lousy team for a full decade. There aren’t any. Great quarterbacks all make the playoffs multiple times and have a legitimate shot at a trophy. That is especially true in the salary cap era. So no, it's not a good excuse for your guy.

 

Wins even out. A bad QB on a good team won’t accumulate many wins because he’ll eventually be replaced. A good QB on a bad team will still accumulate wins because he’ll play for a long time. He’ll even be rewarded with high draft picks and a change of circumstance until the team finds one that finally works. Conversely, several very good quarterbacks can mask the deficiencies of their circumstance (such as coaching), preventing their win total from being exceedingly dominant. So wins tend to even out in the long term. 

 

In addition, many quarterbacks have insufficient arm strength or football IQ to take capacity of the full playbook. A shortened playbook - that doesn’t take advantage of the more difficult throws - makes for a better passer rating. But wins suffer because the offense becomes less potent. Passer rating incorrectly accounts for the positive of a full complement of options. A quarterback stockpiling “easy” throws may accumulate a high passer rating but fail to win, and we’re meant to think that he plays well despite lacking talent around him.

      So how well can we really track surrounding talent accurately? If a QB is posting high numbers but never winning games, this is a more likely theory. Only a rare, defunct organization would fail to supply their QB with surrounding talent for the entirety of his career. :surrender: If they have, unfortunately they've wasted that QB's career, because he'll never have the chance to prove that it wasn't his fault. We don't make assumptions on his behalf, we have to see it.

 

In a way, there’s a problem with cause and effect. Do quarterbacks win because they’re great? Or are they considered great because they’ve won? Both are possible, but that’s okay. It’s okay that wins make quarterbacks appear great in retrospect. Joe Montana, John Elway, Tom Brady, and Johnny Unitas all have a reputation built on wins. How would you feel if some new advanced metric came along that claimed Jim Plunkett or Kerry Collins were better than all of them? Maybe you can come up with a reason that proves Trent Dilfer really was better than every other Super Bowl winner. But you’ll never get anyone to believe you. No one will argue the 2008 Lions had the better quarterback than the 1972 Dolphins, even if those QB's aren’t the endpoints of the spectrum.

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There is no way to completely extricate the quarterback’s situational performance from the rest of his circumstance. The best way for assessment is to watch the situation unfold. A “clutch” throw. A remarkable effort. Leading by example. It could be one play, game or season. But you know it when you watch it. After all, stats are for people who didn’t watch the game. No one needs the stat sheet to explain to them what they just saw. And watching something firsthand is always the most reliable source. The next is wins. 

And while the idea of "quarterbacks wins" sounds absurd to you up front, you could just check the career wins of the all quarterbacks and see if it's not already shaping up to a sensible list. All that's left to do is sort out how to weigh Super Bowl wins.

 

[K-Dog]

Cliff notes please...

[RavensAllTheWay]

Wow.  You oughta put this out there.  Nice read.

[berad]

Cliff notes please...

 

Speaking from what I got from it: Career wins are the equalizer. Passing stats are heavily and easily manipulated by surrounding cast and offensive philosophy. The "cream" of the QBs will eventually rise to the top and win a lot of games. Super Bowls hold special importance.

 

Also, seeing how QBs perform in certain pressure situations (and how it compares to others) says more about them than the overall stat sheet for the game/year.

 

Great stuff, hawkprey. You're right in that football is so multivariate that it's impossible to come up with a metric that accounts for everything. Stats are easy and fun to look at, it's debate fodder, but the game comes down to getting it done and not getting it done - ie WINS.

[flaccopoe]

 

Speaking from what I got from it: Career wins are the equalizer. Passing stats are heavily and easily manipulated by surrounding cast and offensive philosophy. The "cream" of the QBs will eventually rise to the top and win a lot of games. Super Bowls hold special importance.
 
Also, seeing how QBs perform in certain pressure situations (and how it compares to others) says more about them than the overall stat sheet for the game/year.
 
Great stuff, hawkprey. You're right in that football is so multivariate that it's impossible to come up with a metric that accounts for everything. Stats are easy and fun to look at, it's debate fodder, but the game comes down to getting it done and not getting it done - ie WINS.

 
That would explain flashes in the pan, like Philip Rivers!

[berad]

That would explain flashes in the pan, like Philip Rivers!

He still actually has a decent W-L to his name. He has a 62.5% which is better than some of his bigger named peers.

[easternshore97]

Cliff notes please...

 

 

Speaking from what I got from it: Career wins are the equalizer. Passing stats are heavily and easily manipulated by surrounding cast and offensive philosophy. The "cream" of the QBs will eventually rise to the top and win a lot of games. Super Bowls hold special importance.

 

Also, seeing how QBs perform in certain pressure situations (and how it compares to others) says more about them than the overall stat sheet for the game/year.

 

Great stuff, hawkprey. You're right in that football is so multivariate that it's impossible to come up with a metric that accounts for everything. Stats are easy and fun to look at, it's debate fodder, but the game comes down to getting it done and not getting it done - ie WINS.

Cheers.

 

Curious Hawkprey as to what you think about Matt Ryan's new deal? Do you think the Falcons can ever be the best team in the NFC? Do you think their front office can make them the best team in the NFL during his tenure?

[hawkprey]

Cheers.

 

Curious Hawkprey as to what you think about Matt Ryan's new deal? Do you think the Falcons can ever be the best team in the NFC? Do you think their front office can make them the best team in the NFL during his tenure?

I've mentioned it in the pinned thread here but that deal doesn't mean much to me. Signing a big deal like that is more about perception, since those contracts always get restructured anyway. The Falcons have more wins than any other NFC team since 2008 and that goes to show how good Ryan is. They've also drafted well recently (including drafting Ryan), so yes, I do think they can be the best in the NFL.  Last offseason I even correctly predicted that they'd go 13-3 and win a playoff game.

 

We'll see how the "all-in" mentality of trading up in the 1st round twice in 3 years affects them down the line.

[The Oakland Cathedral]

Cliff notes please...

I prefer Spark notes..

[flaccopoe]

I prefer Spark notes..

 

Wikipedia! :control:

 

Back on topic: Ryan has yet to prove himself in th epostseason with a stellar cast of receivers, so this deal of his strikes me as nothing but expensive posturing.

[flaccopoe]

I wonder what atljbo thinks of the Ryan contract...

[Cville-Raven]

I wonder what atljbo thinks of the Ryan contract...

He posted some stuff in the free agency thread

[Purple Punishment]

Stopped reading at Assessing....

[ravensdan]

So after reading this whole piece I take your assessment to say that only career wins will give you the proper qb rating. Taking the super bowl wins first. How are you supposed to compare say matt stafford and andrew luck?

[hawkprey]

So after reading this whole piece I take your assessment to say that only career wins will give you the proper qb rating. Taking the super bowl wins first. How are you supposed to compare say matt stafford and andrew luck?

I don't know how many career wins Stafford has, but I'm talking end-of-career anyway. Stafford has more wins than Luck but Luck has more years left. Luck should wind up with many more wins and should also wind up the better QB. Thanks for reading!

[ravensdan]

I don't know how many career wins Stafford has, but I'm talking end-of-career anyway. Stafford has more wins than Luck but Luck has more years left. Luck should wind up with many more wins and should also wind up the better QB. Thanks for reading!

Right, but how would you compare them now. Or how to compare Peyton on roethlesbeger?

[flynismo]

Threads like this make me wish we had a Thread Hall Of Fame. Whether you agree or disagree, the thought that went into this makes the read worthwhile

 

[hawkprey]

Thanks! 

Threads like this make me wish we had a Thread Hall Of Fame. Whether you agree or disagree, the thought that went into this makes the read worthwhile

 

I hope some people who've read this understand my position, because on the surface, QB wins sounds ridiculous. It sounds completely backwards to say a passer is better described by the wins of his team than the quantity of his passing statistics. But I had to make the case because you'll never hear it on TV, on the radio, or among most fans. 

 

I've been debating on finishing up another long boring explanation, this time about "scrambling QBs". Even if not many people care to read it, I like having the information out there. I would never blame anyone for not wanting to read something long. It's kinda selfish of me to make topics just about my opinion, even if I happen to be right. Then I think about all the awful posts in the gameday thead...

[hawkprey]

Threads like this make me wish we had a Thread Hall Of Fame. Whether you agree or disagree, the thought that went into this makes the read worthwhile

 

Thanks! 

 

I hope some people who've read this understand my position, because on the surface, QB wins sounds ridiculous. It sounds completely backwards to say a passer is better described by the wins of his team than the quantity of his passing statistics. But I had to make the case because you'll never hear it on TV, on the radio, or among most fans. 

 

I've been debating on finishing up another long boring explanation, this time about "scrambling QBs". Even if not many people care to read it, I like having the information out there. I would never blame anyone for not wanting to read something long. It's kinda selfish of me to make topics just about my opinion, even if I happen to be right. Then I think about all the awful posts in the gameday thead...

[flynismo]

 

Thanks! 

 

I hope some people who've read this understand my position, because on the surface, QB wins sounds ridiculous. It sounds completely backwards to say a passer is better described by the wins of his team than the quantity of his passing statistics. But I had to make the case because you'll never hear it on TV, on the radio, or among most fans. 

 

I've been debating on finishing up another long boring explanation, this time about "scrambling QBs". Even if not many people care to read it, I like having the information out there. I would never blame anyone for not wanting to read something long. It's kinda selfish of me to make topics just about my opinion, even if I happen to be right. Then I think about all the awful posts in the gameday thead...

 

 

Not selfish at all.

 

Only thing I'd say about it is I would go through this and make it a bit more structured. You have a lot of thoughts and arguments presented, but they seem to be thrown about randomly.