Quarterback Rating Revisited

Not too long ago, several writers on espn.com starting looking at the difference between white and black quarterbacks and while they never specifically called anyone out for being racist, they came extremely close. In one of these pieces, it was brought up that one of the most common stats used to evaluate a quarterback (QB Rating, a formula that spits out a number between 0 and 158.3 to measure a quarterback’s performance) does not take into account the running ability of a quarterback.

At first, I thought this task was a little on the tall side but eventually I decided to tackle it and while my formula is simplistic, it takes into account total times touching the ball, yardage accumulated, touchdowns scored, and times turning the ball over. Different people will disagree on what they value most from a quarterback but I think that in general we can agree that yards are good (and more yards are better than fewer yards), touchdowns are good, and turnovers are bad. That is the template that I used.

THE SAMPLE

In order to qualify for the rate titles, the Stat-Geeks-That-Be have determined that quarterbacks need to have at least 14 pass attempts per team game or 224 over the course of a full season. For this analysis, only those individual seasons were looked at from 1990-2010. Granted, the 2010 season isn’t over yet but already 30 quarterbacks have thrown the ball more than 224 times and it is this season that has brought up the debate over whether or not the mystical QB Rating is the best way to measure a quarterback. Overall there were 659 such seasons from 1990-2010 with Brett Favre providing 19 of them all by himself.

While this leaves out a good number of quarterbacks that have thrown many passes over the last 21 years, this method compares apples to apples in my opinion. For the most part, backup quarterbacks do not get to throw 224 passes in a season unless the starter suffers a pretty bad injury. Therefore, this sample (for the most part) includes starting quarterbacks only; theoretically the best of the best.

THE METHOD

For this analysis, I wanted to look at as much that shows up in the box score for a quarterback as I could. The main categories that I totaled up were touches, yards, touchdowns, and turnovers.

- Touches included pass attempts, sacks, and rush attempts.
- Yards includes passing yards, rushing yards, and yardage lost on sacks
- Touchdowns included passing and rushing touchdowns
- Turnovers included interceptions and fumbles

I then took these raw numbers and calculated the following rate stats; yards per touch, yards per game, touchdown percentage, and turnover percentage. Once I had those, I compared them to the average of all the quarterbacks that qualified for that season. In other words, Tom Brady’s 2007 season wasn’t compared against Peyton Manning’s 2004 season. For instance, let’s say the average for yards per touch (YPT from now on) was 5.92 (which it was) and a certain player were to have a YPT value of 6.911 (like Tom Brady does this year).

6.911/5.92 = 1.1689
1.1689*100 = 116.89

Therefore, like OPS+ and ERA+ in baseball, I get a number where above 100 is above average and below 100 is below average. Much like quarterback rating, I capped the possible number at 200 (twice as good as league average) and then divided each of the metrics by 4. I know 4 seems like a random number but if you were twice as good as league average in all four metrics, then your MR (Murphy Rating, as I’ve decided to call it) would be an even 200 and I like nice round even numbers. Accordingly, league average is 100, just as it was before.

THE RESULTS

This year, Michael Vick has turned the corner as a quarterback. His QB Rating is 104.3, easily a career high, and his 483 rushing yards already rank 15th for quarterbacks since 1990 and with three games to go if he were to maintain his average, he would go up to 7th. Surely with this dual threat combination, he is having just as good a season as his counterparts that stand like a statue in the pocket and distribute the magic bean.

Nope, this year, Michael Vick ranks just 4th in MR, behind Aaron Rodgers (who is mobile), and two guys that will never be mistaken for track champions, Matt Cassell and Tom Brady. So why is Vick only fourth in by far his best season since being drafted with the number one overall selection? Why do running quarterbacks still not measure up? Well, there are two explanations and one of them is apparently that I am racist.

If any of you reading this know me, you’ll know that’s ridiculous. There is another explanation and it might be a possibly reason why black quarterbacks get paid a little less or why they are continually underrated.

Michael Vick has a better YPT, TD% (touchdown percentage), and yards per game (YPG from now on) than both Aaron Rodgers and Matt Cassell and a better YPT and YPG mark than Tom Brady. Why is he ranked behind them? It’s that fourth metric, the turnover percentage (TO% from now on). Vick has thrown 4 interceptions, the same number as Cassell and Brady and 6 fewer than Rodgers. However, here are their pass attempts this year:

Brady – 425
Rodgers – 410
Cassell – 354
Vick – 294

Now here’s the other part that perhaps wasn’t fully thought through by those who said that the Quarterback Rating needed to be rethought. When Michael Vick tucks the ball and heads upfield, he doesn’t always tuck the ball. I’ve seen many replays where he’s holding the ball at arm’s length as if he’s about to throw the ball well beyond the line of scrimmage. So what, am I saying he can’t hold onto the ball? Not at all, on the contrary, I’m saying it’s much easier for a defender to knock the ball loose. Despite carrying the ball 82 times for 483 yards and 7 touchdowns this year, Vick has fumbled the ball 9 times. When you take that into account, his running ability seems to be mitigated by his turnovers. Why is Aaron Rodgers ranked ahead of Vick? Mostly because Vick has turned the ball over 13 times in a total of 401 touches (rushes, sacks, and pass attempts). Aaron Rodgers has 492 such touches and only 12 turnovers. Matt Cassell is surprisingly high because he is at 395 and 6, respectively, and Brady is number one this year because he has only turned the ball over 6 times and has a total of 474 touches.

In 2006 Michael Vick set the record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,039 and in this sample, that season ranks only 256th (or in the 61st percentile) because he turned the ball over 22 times while providing 22 touchdowns. On top of that, his total yards per touch were very low that year, mostly because his yards per pass attempt was significantly lower (6.4) than his yards per rush attempt (8.4).

THE BEST

If you look at the quarterbacks that did well in this analysis, they do have one thing in common; they can throw the football. If you look at the top of the MR rankings, there are several quarterbacks who could run the ball but they could still throw it. In Steve Young’s best 5 seasons, he ranked 3rd, 7th, 10th, 13th, and 16th in MR and combined to rush for 2,106 yards. His lowest passer rating in those five years was 101.1.

Of the top ten seasons, the average number of passing yards was 3,781 and passing touchdowns was 32.9. By contrast, those ten averaged just 187 rushing yards, a decent total from a quarterback but hardly at the level of a “running” quarterback. Most notable when you’re looking at that top ten list is the fact that those quarterbacks combined for 356 touchdowns and just 130 turnovers.

These are the top ten seasons of the past 20 years:

Name (year)
MR (out of 200)
Touches-Yards-TD-Turnovers

Tom Brady (2007)
163.9
636-4,776-52-14

Peyton Manning (2006)
155.8
594-4,347-35-11

Steve Young (1994)
154.9
550-4,099-42-14

Peyton Manning (2004)
153.8
535-4,494-49-15

Randall Cunningham (1998)
152.8
477-3,704-35-12

Donovan McNabb (2006)
148.9
369-2,719-21-9

Steve Young (1991)
147.3
358-2,853-21-11

Kurt Warner (1999)
144.6
551-4,244-42-22

Tom Brady (2010)
143.5
474-3,276-30-6

Steve Young (1992)
141.1
507-3,850-29-16

SUMMATION

Is it coincidence that black quarterbacks have only two of those ten seasons? Yes, it is. Every action in football has a tradeoff. When you throw a pass, it’s possible that it can get intercepted. When you tuck the ball and run, it’s possible that the ball can get stripped from your hands. Considering that many quarterbacks are taught for their entire careers to avoid interceptions and perhaps aren’t taught at all to properly cradle the ball to protect it from defenders, it shouldn’t be that surprising that quarterbacks have high fumble rates and running quarterbacks have even higher fumble rates.

Of the top 12 rushing seasons by QB’s since 1990, seven of them have fumbled more than 10 times. While Daunte Culpepper rushed for 609 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2002, he also fumbled the ball 23 times.

So the real question is, who would you rather have on your team, a guy who may not make spectacular plays with his feet but turns the ball over about once a game or the guy who will make the highlight reel every Sunday night but will give the ball to the defense 25-30 times in a season?

Am I racist when I say that Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb aren’t as good as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning? Some of you may think so but I don’t think I am. Many people say that success as a quarterback is measured by how many rings you have and while Manning has one and Brady three, McNabb and Vick have combined for zero. Peyton Manning will probably break nearly ever career passing record in the books and will hold them for a very long time. Brady has an excellent shot at a fourth ring this year despite a porous defense. Donovan McNabb is finally finding out what it’s like to play on a team that isn’t studded with Pro Bowlers and Michael Vick has a good shot at a deep run in the playoffs because he is now on a balanced team.

I’m all for using more tools to evaluate quarterbacks, but to put guys like McNabb and Vick in the conversation with Manning and Brady (when considering their careers) is nothing short of ludicrous and that has nothing to do with the color of their skin.