What do you think about passer ratings?

[seminoles]

This topic is sometimes talked about so i wanted feedback on it from people other than ESPN. I think it's an o.k perception on QB's because have you ever seen a great QB with a 65 passer rating?

[Chief Dick]

I don't even know what the heck it means.

[Furd]

Same here.

 

But Joey Harrington was bragging about his earlier in the year, so it can't mean ***.

[Big John]

passer ratings are based on TD percentage, INT percentage, completeion percentage, and yards per attempt. It is bases on passes only and not other factors of the QB.

 

More about QB ratings

[Gunther]

It is an decent barometer as long as you are talking about QBs that you know are playing regularly. If I remember correctly, you can get a perfect passer rating (158.3) if you throw one pass, completed it and it went greater than some yardage (like, maybe 11 yards as mentioned in the link Big John posted) and it resulted in a TD.

 

If I recall correctly, 70 is about average...there was a NY Times article I read some time ago that talked about this. I'll see if I can find it.

 

I've heard some say that it should be overhauled if it is continued to be used, it has never been adjusted for at least a couple decades. I have also read that, because there is a cap, it may not be the best system.

 

Like Big John also said, it is only based on passing. No rushing capability of the QB is taken into account.

 

I will admit that, my perception is, if a QB ends up with a 90 to 100 or higher for a season, it is very good. If it is around 40 or 50, yuck.

[Gunther]

Well, that was not tough to find.

 

Sorry for the long post, but here is the article in entirety in case the above link does not work (I had to find a link that would let me in w/o having to register):

The N.F.L.'s Passer Rating, Arcane and Misunderstood

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

 

Published: January 14, 2004

 

It is the numerical ideal for National Football League quarterbacks. Yet it is an odd figure that lacks the clarity of a .400 batting average, or 2,000 rushing yards in football, or a 300 score in bowling.

 

It is 158.3, the best passer rating a quarterback can obtain in the N.F.L., and it is derived from a formula that has survived 30 years without tweaking or rounding or serious challenge to its obtuse mathematical foundations.

 

It is a number based on accuracy but not perfection, because as Seymour Siwoff, the head of the Elias Sports Bureau, the N.F.L.'s statistical service, notes: "There is no such thing as perfect. To be perfect, you complete every pass."

 

And it is a lonely number, because no quarterback has achieved a 158.3 rating for anywhere near an entire season. Can the pursuit of excellence become any sexier?

 

The 158.3 figure leapt onto CBS Sports screens the past two Sundays because of the spectacular playoff efficiency of Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning (season passer rating: 99.0). He came out of the Colts' 41-10 rout of Denver two weeks ago with the magical 158.3 number, although if there were no statistical curbs to the calculation, his rating for the game would actually have been a 197.1. After the Colts beat Kansas City, 38-31, on Sunday, in a game in which Indianapolis scored virtually every time it had the ball, Manning's two-game rating actually declined to 156.9.

 

Manning's playoff numbers are, of course, abnormal, and game-by-game calculations skew what was meant to be a statistic built over a season. Quarterback ratings (the more technical term is passer rating) in the 80's and the 90's are actually considered quite good. One hundred or more is a career year, like Steve McNair's league-leading 100.4 this season. In 1964, one of Johnny Unitas's greatest years, he posted a 96.4 but was bettered by Bart Starr's 97.1.

 

"I think people understand completions, attempts, yards and touchdowns, but you put up a passer rating," said Lance Barrow, who produced the Colts-Chiefs game for CBS, "and viewers need direction."

 

It is then, Barrow said, that Dick Enberg or Dan Dierdorf have to help out, letting viewers know that the rating means the quarterback is having a great game or a poor one.

 

Barrow said he started using passer-rating graphics two years ago, despite their availability for 30 years. "It's part of a graphic no one pays much attention to," he said.

 

So woe to the N.F.L. quarterback rating, misunderstood and maligned and impossible for mortals to figure in their heads. On NFL.com's list of statistics to retrieve, it is listed ninth.

 

And just how did the measurement of a quarterback's performance yield a figure as unmajestic as if the White House were at 1622 Pennsylvania Avenue? All other N.F.L. statistics are straightforward, easy-to-grasp accumulations: passing yardage, sacks, receptions, interceptions, fumbles. The passer rating is that type of arcane, complex calculation that baseball's statistics mavens salivate over. Only the formula behind the Bowl Championship Series' half-human, half-computer calculations is more bizarre.

 

Unless, that is, you try to figure out how Nascar drivers get their points.

 

While Manning's performance against Denver gave the passer rating its best one-day buzz ever, it is unlikely that fans dreamily recall when Steve Young set the single-season quarterback rating of 112.8, in 1994, which beat Joe Montana's 112.4 five years earlier.

 

Fans remember Bobby Hull scoring his 50th goal in 1962, Mark McGwire hitting his 62nd home run in 1998 and Secretariat winning the Triple Crown.

 

But "where were you when Milt Plum notched a 110.4?" may not be a question that even hard-core fans of the (original) Cleveland Browns can answer about that history-making event of 1960.

 

Until 1973, quarterbacks were measured wholly by four statistics: completion percentage, passing yardage, touchdowns and interceptions. The passer rating was born that year, the result of a study led by Don Smith, then a public relations man for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

 

Smith said he and his committee sought to use the four categories to create a 10-year standard of achievement against which quarterbacks could be measured. "It would depend on what the quarterback did against the standard," Smith said yesterday from Tucson, "not against what anyone else does."

 

But this would be a pure passer rating, an in-the-air parameter that would ignore rushing yardage, so those 107 yards gained by Donovan McNabb last Sunday in Philadelphia's victory over Green Bay don't count. They'll never count, not retroactively for Fran Tarkenton, or prospectively, for Michael Vick.

 

"This is a forward-passing statistic," Smith said. "Rushing has nothing to do with it."

 

The founding fathers of the rating, Siwoff included, would not measure intangible qualities like leadership skills or comebacks, or try to account for meaningful touchdowns or tipped passes that turn into interceptions. A batting average, after all, does not separate a grand slam from a bloop single.

 

How does a quarterback attain a 158.3 rating? He must ace all four categories, which for mathematical reasons, awards a maximum of 2.375 points if his completion percentage is at least 77.5 percent; his ratio of touchdowns to passing attempts is at least 11.9 percent; he averages 12.5 yards a pass; and he throws no interceptions.

 

If the quarterback hits the jackpot, as Manning did against Denver, his four-category total of 9.5 is divided by 6, then multiplied by 100, and the result is 158.3.

 

Any performance below those targets receives fewer points, and requires a maze of arithmetic gesticulations to reach the final rating.

 

Last Sunday, McNabb accumulated 1.192 points for his 21-for-39 passing; 0.8397 points for his average yards per pass; 1.026 for his touchdown percentage; and a perfect 2.375 for not being intercepted. The 5.432 total yielded a 90.5 rating.

 

The quarterback rating rewards high percentages of completions and yards per attempt as well as an aversion to interceptions. Mistakes, unless they are too numerous, can be offset by a passel of touchdowns. Not surprisingly, two wizards of the low-risk West Coast offense — Young and Montana — have the top two figures for a single season. Kurt Warner, much more of a nervy slinger, weighed in with the fifth-best-ever figure in 1999, a 109.2 number in which his 13 interceptions were balanced by 41 touchdowns and a 65.1 percent completion average.

 

The system does not reward freewheeling quarterbacks like Joe Namath, who, in 1967, the year he led the American Football League with 4,007 yards passing, also threw 28 interceptions to go with his 26 touchdowns. His rating: 73.7. (Career: 65.4.) That season, a more careful rival, Len Dawson of Kansas City, produced an 83.7 rating.

 

Now, having stood the test of time, the quarterback rating is living the good life, thanks to Manning.

 

"No one has said it's terrible," Siwoff said. "They just say we don't understand it."

[CaptainHook]

I think it's pretty goofy. How can the highest rating be 158.3? Shouldn't the highest rating be 1000, or 500, or 100? Some round number, not 158.3? Goofy.

Edited December 31, 2004 by CaptainHook

[seminoles]

On the link for NY Times it said that Steve Young has the record with 112. something. Peyton right now has a 121.4 and assuming he won't play much in week 17, Peyton will get that record too. I cant remember but is Peyton breaking two records (TD's and passer rating) or are there more out there.

[CaptainHook]

You are correct. He has the single season TD record and should also get the passer rating record. Steve Young's mark is 112.8. He will almost definitely NOT reach the single season passing yardage mark. Marino had 5,084 yards in 1984. Manning has 4,551 yards.

 

He broke the record for most cosecutive two or more TD passing games earlier this year with his thirteenth in a row.