Cam Is My 11th Ranked QB of 2012 w/ QBA of 58.42. Peyton is 1st with 66.68 QBA

[fieryprophet]

http://50.116.44.142/qba/?start=current&end=current&type=all&min=3

Also of note is that today's game is Cam's first ever upset win, where his QBA was lower than his opponent but he still won. He has been on the flip side of that five times in his career, so it was great seeing the team finally pull one out without him needing a big game.

Finally, starting from the last Tampa Bay game on Cam averaged a QBA of 65.45, compared to 52.95 up to that point. In other words, he went from playing like Jake Locker to playing like Peyton Manning.

http://50.116.44.142/qba/player/C.Newton?start=2012-11-18&end=2012-12-30&type=all

[teeray]

I'll take it. Good job BTW.

nerd

[The Special One]

I'll take it. Good job BTW.

nerd

haha

[fieryprophet]

I am a nerd :(

But thanks, overall I'm very happy with how my metric has turned out. It finished 8 games ahead of passer rating and is essentially tied with ESPN's QBR despite them spending millions and including a bunch of number manglers in their system.

Also, if the QBA differential is to be believed Denver looks like the best shot to win it all this year.

[Guest Irv]

I'm sorry but i can't be the only one that feels like QBA ratings is a load of horseshit

[The Special One]

I'm sorry but i can't be the only one that feels like QBA ratings is a load of horseshit

haha

[fieryprophet]

I'm sorry but i can't be the only one that feels like QBA ratings is a load of horseshit

What makes you think that? You can see how the formula is calculated right here: http://50.116.44.142/qba/about/

(And I wrote the damn formula :P )

[teeray]

I am a nerd :(

But thanks, overall I'm very happy with how my metric has turned out. It finished 8 games ahead of passer rating and is essentially tied with ESPN's QBR despite them spending millions and including a bunch of number manglers in their system.

Also, if the QBA differential is to be believed Denver looks like the best shot to win it all this year.

I don't get ESPN's QBR.

I think their "clutch" weight is over weighted or something.

For instance. When we beat the poo out of San Diego, Cam completed just under 60% of his passes for 231 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs. We dominated the game and converted 7 out of 14 third downs and Cam had a QBR of only 53.4

It actually hurts a QB to beat the hell out of someone. If it is a close game your QBR will go way up but if even you dominate you will have an average QBR unless you score like 35+ points.

I think their "clutch" thing fugs it up.

[fieryprophet]

I don't get ESPN's QBR.

I think their "clutch" weight is over weighted or something.

For instance. When we beat the poo out of San Diego, Cam completed just under 60% of his passes for 231 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs. We dominated the game and converted 7 out of 14 third downs and Cam had a QBR of only 53.4

It actually hurts a QB to beat the hell out of someone. If it is a close game your QBR will go way up but if even you dominate you will have an average QBR unless you score like 35+ points.

I think their "clutch" thing fugs it up.

Their clutch mangling also made it seem like The Golden Calf of Bristol was outplaying Aaron Rodgers last year. It's a stupid attempt to answer the flawed question "but isn't a 10 yard completion on 3rd and 9 better than a 15 yard completion on 4th and 20?"

Guess what, for one play, maybe, but for an entire game, no. Good quarterback play means succeeding a lot of small plays and a few big ones, not subsisting entirely on a diet of "clutch" plays. Not only will the numbers eventually balance out but you actually introduce more statistical randomness by overweighting inherently infrequent plays.

[Marguide]

Just so I understand, are you judging the effectiveness of your QBA by whether or not the team with the higher rated QB wins?

If so, can you share with us the thought process behind that? While it looks to be a very good predictor, it is just surprising to me that QB performance alone would correlate so well with wins.

Or am I just totally off base in how I'm looking at your data?

[fieryprophet]

Just so I understand, are you judging the effectiveness of your QBA by whether or not the team with the higher rated QB wins?

If so, can you share with us the thought process behind that? While it looks to be a very good predictor, it is just surprising to me that QB performance alone would correlate so well with wins.

Or am I just totally off base in how I'm looking at your data?

The reason quarterback performance seems to correlate so well with wins is because so much of the team's offense is conducted through the quarterback. Even if he is handing the ball off on most downs he will typically have a higher TD % (the amount of total TDs he scores based on his own yardage) and a higher AYPP % (the average number of yards he generates on each dropback.)

Now, realistically I don't think it's possible to get a metric that could be accurate to much more than within 87 to 90% maximum without weighting for the actual score of the game, because many of the games that the metric fails to predict will be because the other QB was within a few QBA points of the other, making the outcome practically a dead heat. A perfect example of this is the the Patriots/Jaguars game last week that the Patriots nearly lost. The metric predicted the winner correctly, but only because Tom Brady had a 0.01 point advantage on Henne.

One thing I think my metric does do better than passer rating, and the reason it reflects more accurately on winning QB performances, is that it includes rushing yardage and also takes out meaningless plays like kneeldowns and spikes, and treats all yardage gained equally rather than judging a passing play to be more worthwhile than a rushing play.

But I wouldn't necessarily say that a QB performance makes up 85% of the outcome of a game, only that their good play will encourage trends from the rest of the team that will in turn reinforce his statistical advantages. So while I do judge the effectiveness of QBA in picking the winner it's not just picking the QB, but the total team offensive performance he led.

[Marguide]

The reason quarterback performance seems to correlate so well with wins is because so much of the team's offense is conducted through the quarterback. Even if he is handing the ball off on most downs he will typically have a higher TD % (the amount of total TDs he scores based on his own yardage) and a higher AYPP % (the average number of yards he generates on each dropback.)

I just have this vision in my head of a Trent Dilfer led Ravens team when their defense was in it's prime. Remember when they went for a string of like 6 or 8 games without scoring a TD and yet they were still winning? With a defense like SF has or maybe Seattle, it just seems they could still win a good percentage of games even when their QB did not play well.

But facts are facts, and obviously the numbers don't lie. It makes it easier to understand why teams will mortgage their future (like the Skins did in the offseason) on the chance they get a true franchise QB.

Anyway, nice work and I look forward to following your metric as we go forward.

[fieryprophet]

I just have this vision in my head of a Trent Dilfer led Ravens team when their defense was in it's prime. Remember when they went for a string of like 6 or 8 games without scoring a TD and yet they were still winning? With a defense like SF has or maybe Seattle, it just seems they could still win a good percentage of games even when their QB did not play well.

But facts are facts, and obviously the numbers don't lie. It makes it easier to understand why teams will mortgage their future (like the Skins did in the offseason) on the chance they get a true franchise QB.

Anyway, nice work and I look forward to following your metric as we go forward.

The flip side of a streak like that with Dilfer is that you often see QBs that are carried by their defenses running into bad quarterbacks that still lose the QBA comparison simply because of the terrific defense a player like Dilfer had carrying him. It's not just whether Quarterback A has a high QBA score on his own, but whether he ends up with a higher QBA than Quarterback B, which if he avoids turnovers and is decently efficient with a limited number of plays isn't too hard to accomplish. It's when a low QBA player with a good defense runs into the buzzsaw of a high QBA player like a Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers that the contrast really comes into play.

[Marguide]

***'s not just whether Quarterback A has a high QBA score on his own, but whether he ends up with a higher QBA than Quarterback B, which if he avoids turnovers and is decently efficient with a limited number of plays isn't too hard to accomplish.

Maybe I should rephrase my question. QB 1 is going into an upcoming game against QB 2. QB 1 has a higher rating YTD (let's say by 5 points in your system). Do you expect QB 1 to win say 80% of the time?

My question isn't so much whether the higher rated QB performance in a given game won that game, it's whether it is a good predictor of future contests. And that question came to mind following your comment about Peyton being the favorite in the post season based on his QBA.

Has the QB position become so important that the best QB consistently carries his teams to wins? Even over teams with a killer defense and perhaps a middle of the road QB as defined by your metric?