FanPost

New QB Rating System

This is a pet project I've been meaning to undertake for quite some time; to devise a system for qualitatively rating quarterback play that doesn't suffer from the deficiencies that afflict the NFL's Passer Rating metric (which grossly overvalues raw yardage and completion percentage, and utterly ignores quarterback rushing statistics), and is less of an unmitigated disaster than QBR, whose only usefulness is as a cautionary tale about what can happen when ill-conceived statistical metrics are rushed out for public consumption before they've been sufficiently thought through.

After much tinkering, I've come up with something I think does the job better than the two aforementioned formulas. I haven't thought of a sexy name for it yet, so for the time being I'm just going to call it Quarterback Efficiency Rating, because QER is as good an acronym as anything, right?

First off, I don't mind saying my system is a hell of a lot simpler and more elegant than Passer Rating, which requires (over and over again) multiplying and dividing by random numbers pulled out of thin air for no particular reason. Once the front-end calculations are done in my formula, all that's really required is moving decimal points and simple adding/subtracting. As will be obvious when looking at the numbers, I feel this system offers a greater degree of precision than does Passer Rating or QBR, in that it has a higher ceiling and a lower floor, and there is certainly no "perfect" maximum score as with Passer Rating, because that's sheer madness.

80% of the score is derived from equally weighted shares of the following:

1) Total passing/rushing yards divided by number of pass/rush attempts.

2) Total touchdowns (pass and rush) as a percentage of all passing/rushing attempts.

3) Total turnovers (INTs and lost fumbles) as a percentage of all passing/rushing attempts.

4) Yards per completed pass.

The remaining 20% is comprised of:

1) Completion percentage.

2) 20+ yard gains as a percentage of all pass/rush attempts.

3) 40+ yard gains as a percentage of all pass/rush attempts.

Without further adieu, here are the QER scores for all currently qualified NFL quarterbacks, with their Passer Rating score and rank in brackets for easy comparison (the top and bottom of the list are largely the same, but there was some interesting and significant movement in the middle, both up and down). Obviously, any comments or critiques are welcome and appreciated.

1) Nick Foles – 169.85 [117.0, 1]

2) Peyton Manning – 147.99 [112.9, 2]

3) Josh McCown – 144.89 [109.8, 3]

4) Aaron Rodgers – 135.65 [108.0, 4]

5) Philip Rivers – 130.31 [106.9, 5]

6) Drew Brees – 126.67 [104.0, 7]

7) Russell Wilson – 120.23 [105.0, 6]

8) Tony Romo – 116.29 [96.6, 8]

9) Cam Newton – 107.99 [89.6, 13]

10) Alex Smith – 106.17 [91.0, 10]

11) Sam Bradford – 105.03 [90.9, 11]

12) Colin Kaepernick – 102.94 [88.8, 15]

13) Andrew Luck – 102.66 [85.2, 22]

14) Ben Roethlisberger – 99.94 [94.3, 9]

15) Matthew Stafford – 98.82 [85.8, 20]

16) Jason Campbell – 95.52 [84.7, 23]

17) Andy Dalton – 94.73 [87.6, 17]

18) Tom Brady – 94.64 [88.1, 16]

19) Jay Cutler – 93.04 [89.8, 12]

20) Ryan Fitzpatrick – 92.29 [83.3, 24]

21) Ryan Tannehill – 89.13 [86.6, 18]

22) Case Keenum – 87.63 [78.2, 26]

23) Mike Glennon – 87.13 [85.3, 21]

24) Matt Ryan – 86.15 [88.9, 14]

25) Carson Palmer – 84.29 [86.5, 19]

26) Robert Griffin III – 78.47 [82.2, 25]

27) Joe Flacco – 74.81 [76.5, 30]

28) E.J. Manuel – 73.49 [77.7, 28]

29) Matt Schaub – 73.49 [77.6, 29]

30) Christian Ponder – 69.86 [77.9, 27]

31) Chad Henne – 67.93 [74.8, 31]

32) Brandon Weeden – 67.49 [70.3, 32]

33) Terrelle Pryor – 63.32 [66.0, 34]

34) Eli Manning – 57.96 [69.7, 33]

35) Geno Smith – 53.05 [62.9, 35]

This FanPost was written by a member of the Bolts From The Blue community and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Bolts From The Blue editors or SB Nation.