New QB Rating?

Peter King had this in his MMQB this morning:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/08/01/camps/1.html

Be interesting to see if this catches on.

 

Trent Dilfer really can't get over the fact that everyone knows Trent Dilfer was the luckiest suckiest motherfucker to ever win a Super Bowl. But nobody can give the numbers a vigorous enough deep-tissue massage to change that fact.

 

Will we be allowed to call this passer rating a sabermetric-type stat or not?

 

The beauty of baseball stats, sabermetric and otherwise, is that anyone can understand them. This sounds complicated.

But I guess football's a more complicated game.

To quote George Carlin...

In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his recievers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! "I hope I'll be safe at home!"

 

Maybe someone can use Dilfer's new stat to show everyone how shitty he really was.

 

The current rating system is absurd, but it's not possible to quantify every single play a quarterback makes and weigh it accordingly. A 17-yard pass in the final two minutes of a tie game isn't necessarily more important than one in the first quarter; sack on first down, holding penalty, sack on second down and defense gladly gives up a 17-yard play on third-and-30.

But it's worth more thought.

 

It just seems like they are altering the grading formula used for linemen to quarterbacks.

I would keep the people doing it anonymous, though. Too much judgement in this, and I am sure these poor folks will get harassed if their identities are released.

 

For all the debate about baseball and sabermetrics, the best part of it is that it basically comes down to batter vs. pitcher. There is no situation in football that is even remotely like that. For example, this new rating eliminates handoffs -- well, that's a pretty big part of the game, and Peyton Manning helps his team quite a bit when he checks to a running play after he sees a linebacker drop out of the box. Similarly, you're going to take away YAC from the quarterback? Throwing in front of the receiver, putting it in a spot where he can turn an 8-yard gain into an 80-yard touchdown -- Joe Montana in a nutshell -- is a hugely important skill and not just some fluke that happens because the receiver is fast.

Honestly when I see something like this I wonder if ESPN is having a feud with Elias, and ESPN is trying to stroke its own ego with ulterior motives while just telling us it's for the betterment of the game.

 

Well - it IS the Year of the Quarterback.

 

this FACT has driven ALL stats geeks nuts since loooong before anyone heard of sabermetrics: quarterback, more than any other position in all of sports, CANNOT be quantified by any statistical formula. it makes y'all nuts! i mean, there must br some sort of numbers-driven analysis beyond your basic 'comp/atts/yds/tds/ints' to define a qb's effectiveness, right? like how wins-and-losses are seen as an 'obsolete'
measure for pitchers, surely there must be a statistical formula to measure a qb's true effectiveness.

a measure beyond simply wins-and-losses, given how football is the ultimate team game. how darn frustrating it is that some qb's, roethlisberger is a good example, can have a godawful 'game' yet still pull out the win for his team with a couple of big plays at the right time.

ultimately, a qb's beauty is, indeed, in the eye of the beholder. perhaps it helps explain why namath is a legend and a daryle lamonica -- who laps joe in EVERY statistical category -- is never mentioned anymore in a discussion of anything, let alone the hof.

but 'winning' ultimately trumps everything for a qb. how many super bowl rings a qb has has is HUGE. but a pitcher can be tremendous without ever sniffing the postseason. i'm not being nearly as smart or sharp as i'd like to be here but hope others will understand and express it better.

maybe it's a copout, but how do you measure 'greatness' in a qb?you know it when you see it but the basics tell most of it, too.

 

What's so interesting is that scouts have their own ways to try to quantify QBs, and those perpetually fall flat.

 

third down conversions are underrated. It's all there - the ability to read the defense and change the play if needed, find an open receiver, avoid a sack, avoid an interception, being able to run for it if needed.