Is QB rating overrated?

[LionelRichie]

I haven't paid much attention to stats at all this year, but was bored and spent some time on espn.com. Interesting to see that Ryan, Brees, Rodgers, Flacco, Schaub are all behind Young, Garrard, Romo, and Orton.

If I had to rank QB's I think of Rivers, Manning, Brady as the elite.

Tier 2 I have Brees, Rodgers, Ryan

If QB rating has Garrard ahead of just about everyone, is the stat even relevant?

[THE ILK]

When Sanchez has a good rating, it's not relevant, when he has a bad one, it is.

[SenorGato]

When Sanchez has a good rating, it's not relevant, when he has a bad one, it is.

The bad ones are the days you know the wrong plays were called.

[T0mShane]

Phil Mushnick pointed out that John Elway and Johnny Unitas are ranked in the 50's/60's, behind such luminaries as Ken O'Brien and Jake Delhomme. I think it's a nice stat, but it doesn't really tell you who the "better" QB is. It just tells you which QB's had a higher margin between their TD's and their picks.

From Wikipedia, the All-Time QB rankings:

Rank Quarterback Rating

1 Philip Rivers 96.9

2 Steve Young 96.8

3 Tony Romo 95.5

4 Peyton Manning 95.2

5 Kurt Warner 93.7

6 Tom Brady 93.5

7 Joe Montana 92.3

8 Ben Roethlisberger 92.0

9 Drew Brees 91.9

10 Matt Schaub 90.8

11 Chad Pennington 90.1

12 Daunte Culpepper 87.8

13 Jeff Garcia 87.5

14 Carson Palmer 87.5

15 Dan Marino 86.4

16 Brett Favre 86.3

17 Donovan McNabb 85.9

18 David Garrard 85.9

19 Trent Green 86.0

20 Rich Gannon 84.7

21 Marc Bulger 84.4

22 Jim Kelly 84.4

23 Jay Cutler 84.1

24 Mark Brunell 84.0

25 Roger Staubach 83.4

26 Steve McNair 82.8

27 Brian Griese 82.7

28 Neil Lomax 82.7

29 Sonny Jurgensen 82.6

30 Len Dawson 82.6

31 Matt Hasselbeck 82.5

32 Brad Johnson 82.5

33 Jason Campbell 82.2

34 Ken Anderson 81.9

35 Bernie Kosar 81.8

36 Neil O'Donnell 81.8

37 Danny White 81.7

38 Troy Aikman 81.6

39 Dave Krieg 81.5

40 Randall Cunningham 81.5

[Larz]

it's misunderstood

it's an effeciency rating so players who throw safer throws do better than gunslingers

[docdhc]

8 Ben Roethlisberger 92.0

9 Drew Brees 91.9

10 Matt Schaub 90.8

11 Chad Pennington 90.1

12 Daunte Culpepper 87.8

13 Jeff Garcia 87.5

14 Carson Palmer 87.5

15 Dan Marino 86.4

16 Brett Favre 86.3

Dolphin fans should be happy to know their starting QB today is better than Dan Marino!

[jason423]

I dont think there is really any relevant statistic to "rank" the QBs. The problem with QB rating that its essentially a rating of a QB being mistakefree more than anything else. It doesnt measure the fact that certain QBs dont have the skillset to even attempt to throw a pass that could be a "reward pass" nor does it take into account that coaches, who often know the personnel best, simply dont trust the guy to throw the football. Of all the stats DYAR is probably the best out there at ranking a QB as it takes more of the intangible variables into play, but I doubt there will ever be a way to accurately rank QBs.

[Klecko73isGod]

The stat is not "Quarterback Rating." It's not a total evaluation of a QBs play. The stat is "PASSER EFFICIENCY RATING."

The main numbers it takes into account are completion percentage, TD/INT ratio and yards per attempt. Completion percentage and yards per attempt obviously go hand in hand to and extent. If you have a high completion percentage, you can maximize your yards per attempt and that can lead to a high rating. This is the reason many dink and dunk passers wind up with high ratings. They also wind up with higher ratings because they tend to be more careful with the football and are less likely to throw picks.

But that brings us to what passer rating can not measure - such as the liklihood of a QB to lead a team on a late game comeback. If you go by passer rating, no way would you say Mark Sanchez could do what he did in the final five minutes last week. However, there he was, going 10-of-11 to lead the team to a come from behind win.

When applied properly, passer efficiency rating can be a useful stat. One thing that trends well for Sanchez this year is his ability to make plays downfield. Someone posted the ratings for AFC East QBs this year when throwing 20 or more yards downfield and Sanchez was significantly more effective than any of the other AFC East QBs. Sanchez and Brady had similar completion percentages on these types of throws but Sanchez had more TDs and less INTs than Brady on deep passes. What these numbers tell us is that as a defense, you want to force Brady into situations where he has to throw deep downfield because that is when he is most likely to throw a pick. It also tells us that the Jets would be wise to take more chances downfield as Sanchez has a strong tendency to be successful when doing so.

[LionelRichie]

I never had any idea of what the QB rating formula actually was so I looked it up. The key stats are: completion %, TD %, Int %, and YPA.

a = (((Comp/Att) * 100) -30) / 20

b = ((TDs/Att) * 100) / 5

c = (9.5 - ((Int/Att) * 100)) / 4

d = ((Yards/Att) - 3) / 4

a, b, c and d can not be greater than 2.375 or less than zero.

QB Rating = (a + b + c + d) / .06

[RutgersJetFan]

it's misunderstood

it's an effeciency rating so players who throw safer throws do better than gunslingers

Really doesn't need much more explanation that this. It's a flawed number, but every stat out there is flawed from some standpoint so you have to just take it for what it is.

[Bergen Jet]

The stat itself is a decent metric of passer efficiency but it has the unfortunate misnomer of QB rating. Unfortunately people tend to associate QB Rating as a stat that actually shows who the better QB is rather than who the most efficient is. Tony Romo > Peyton Manning and Tom Brady should be enough to show anybody that the stat isn't designed to show who the better QB is.

[Blackout]

historically speaking, QB Ratings are like OPS in baseball...COMPLETELY WORTHLESS

but if somehow we could find a way to adjust QB ratings to that particular year, that would show some value