ESPN Total QBR Stat Ranks Dalton #4, Tannehill #22

I don't put much stock into QB ratings...at least not without watching the games in question. I wonder where Ryan is without the four (possibly five) picks that aren't his fault plus the extra two TD's that have been dropped. Thats not even mentioning the other 2-3 Hartline could have taken to the house with more physical athleticism, I can't count those balls because they are speculation really.


Geeze I read poorly. I see they take away some INTs.

 

I remember when Trent Dilfer was espousing Andy Dalton during his draft year and when I wrote about in here he was virtually unanimously dismissed as an insignificant evaluator of talent. Matt Ryan also being valued only SLIGHTLY better than Chad Henne is worth noting as well , people who say Ryan hasn't won a playoff are correct , however they should look at who he lost to in those games. Go ahead pretty telling imo.

 

Its interesting how the 5 rookie QB's are almost ranked in the order they were drafted with the exception of Wilson and Weeden. I would like to see how it ends up at the end of the season.

 

I said at the beginning that I had hoped Tannehill would have a season similar to the one Andy Dalton had last year. So far that hope has come true. I remember thinking "man Cincy really Effed up taking Dalton and starting him right away" but I was way off and he has become one of my favorite QB's in the game. Tannehill needs an AJ Green to throw to and he'll look a lot better. Lets hope he can stay healthy and continue to improve.

 

I keep tellin yall, Dalton can ball.

 

ESPN is to sports what Access Hollywood is to film criticism.

 

Worthless stat.

 

Here is a more interesting stat IMO..... Hartline and Bess are ranked in the top 10 at WR. Now you think about that for a minute and then realize how well Tannehill is doing. To have those two WR's in the top 10 in the NFL is freaking amazing. I dream about what the man can do with some real good talent if he makes them look that good.


BTW not saying that Bess and Hartline arn't good. Bess is one of the best WR's in the game IMO, but he is getting a lot of his catch's at wideout. Neither should be top 10 though.

 

Without knowing the quality of each QB's opposition those figures are useless imo.

 

Why so?

 

Nice that you mention that because we also have the 4th rated running attack. Thats really good especially the way teams our keying on the run against us. Tannehill is keeping them honest. Somehow someway the only stat we are really struggling in is wins and losses. The most important stat. I could see this team winning 10 in a row and also losing 10 in a row. We just have to figure out a way to win and break that bad juju we having going in this organization.

 

It really would't surprise me if we went on a run like that. We have good rankings and the toughest part of the schedule is over considering we have already played 2 of the only 3 undefeated teams this year!

 

Here's to hopin Tannehill shows him up.

 

It sucks that Tanne is rated so low but people have been asking for a better rating system then the previous one and this is way better. It takes more statistics into account and adjusts for statistics like INT's that are not a QB's fault; such as a receiver falling down. I like it. As far as Tanne goes first two games he wasn't that good. Only the last game did he play better; even it was not spectacular. Lot of yard's.......you bet, but he had more INT's then TD's. Get those numbers up, especially the TD's and he will instantly jump into the top 10

 

Why does it suck he's rated so low? It sucks the team has lost 2 games they should have won. A 4 game rating for a QB that no one thought should see the field before the bye week is irrelevant. If he can get his QBR into the 60s and his passer rating in the high 70s by the end of the season then I'm good. Week 1 put him in a big hole. Let's see if he can dig himself out.

 

Weeden has it worse then Tannehill because Richardson isnt enough for him to succeed and i expect the browns to finish worse then Miami .

I too like Dalton but I really like Wilson .

 

Total QBR has never accurately reflected specific quarterback or general passing game performance. The stat at one point claimed that Dan Orlovsky was a better quarterback than Ben Roethlisberger, for crying out loud.

It also seeks to fix something that doesn't need to be fixed, namely good ol' fashioned passer rating. People hate passer rating because it produces an uneven number—it's not rated 1-100, but from 30-158.3. People hate that, even though passer rating is a far more accurate indicator of actual relative performance than Total QBR could possibly aspire to.

Total QBR is ESPN's attempt to fend off Football Outsiders, CHFF, and PFF, nothing more. It's an embarrassing failure, and the fact that people actually sit around and cite it as if it had any sort of meaningful bearing is absurd to me.

 

I talked a bit about this in my win probability thread. A lot of what QBR entails is in Brian Burke's win probability stat. Situations matter. For instance, if Tannehill hits Hartline for an 80 yard TD on the opening play, it's weighted less than it would be if they do it with 2:00 left in the 4th quarter. So what win probability and espn's QBR are telling us is how much the QB helped the chances of the team winning a particular game with particular circumstances.

There is some value in that. But it's limited in scope. The problem I have with it is espn is only doing it for the QB. Obviously, other players matter too. Naanee's one play decreased our chances of winning almost as much as Harline's entire game increased our chances of winning. Tannehill was only one part of that play and Hartline's success. And that's not even mentioning the defense.

QBR is at least an attempt by espn to move away from flaw stats like passer rating. So I'll give them some credit. But they still focus too much on the QB because it's a simple narrative that they know plays with the public. So if it works and it's simple, they don't have much incentive to not be lazy and broaden/deepen their scope.

 

False premise. Passer rating is not flawed. It's one of the best indicative stats in all of sports, especially when applied to measure defense.

 

I completely disagree with the bold statement...or rather what it implies.

An 80 yard TD pass the first play is no different than an 80 yard TD pass on the final play. Regardless of when it is thrown it counts for seven points towards the final score. Let's use bookends as an example.

You throw an 80 yard TD pass on both the first and final snap. Well without those initial seven points at the start your late game TD wouldn't matter. A football game is the culmination of every single snap throughout the game. None is more important than any other. It doesn't matter when you execute on offense so long as at the end of the game you executed more than the opposing team.

 

Dalton is good, but he has yet to beat a good team, unless you count beating Arizona last year in Cincy.

 

ya, they beat the titans last year, a 9-7 team.

 

I disagree with everything in bold.... Mainly because you only get 6 points for a TD, the PAT is a separate play completely and not guaranteed by any means.

 

I have to disagree with this, because it ignores that the score and situation dictate play calling and strategy.

I think if we were talking about basketball, you'd be right, but there's just so much more strategy involved in football, especially when you consider 2-pt conversions, onside kicks and the like.

 

Fair enough. Though I'd say it's a 99% guarantee.

 

Sure, but the point is that six points is six points. You never say no to six points due to any situation. It never counts for more or less than six points at the end of the day. If anything scoring early should be more heavily weighted for the reasons you stated.

 

and ive already admitted im not down playing this game against you guys, but it kills me to listen to you all knock the bengals for not beating a good team. like you guys qualify for a good team... not trying to offend anybody but what qualifies a team as being good? how many rushing TD's they get? Passing? Where their Defense is ranked? as far as im concerned the only thing that qualifies you as a good team is your record... should you guys be 3-1? ya probably, but your not, which tells me your team isn't as good as it wants to be. they cant finish games. whether its protecting the ball late in the 4th on offense, i.e. tannehill fumble to give cardinals short field, or missing game winning field goals. The Dolphins haven't really figured out how to WIN games yet, so don't talk about the bengals not beating good teams like you guys have ANY right whatsoever to suddenly claim yourselves as being a good team. one thing the bengals do very well is beat bad teams, or not even bad teams, but they win games they're supposed to win.

 

hey, i might be reaching but come on, ill take what i can get. im a troll supposedly, what do you expect.

 

This is the best performance in QBR history:

[table="width: 500, class: grid, align: left"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]C/ATT[/td]
[td]YDS[/td]
[td]AVG[/td]
[td]TD[/td]
[td]INT[/td]
[td]SACKS[/td]
[td]QBR[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]C. Batch[/td]
[td]12/17[/td]
[td]186[/td]
[td]10.9[/td]
[td]3[/td]
[td]2[/td]
[td]0-0[/td]
[td]100.0[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

It needs work.

 

The passer rating is quantitative.
It just plugs in counting stats.
An INT thrown in an end of the half hail mary is the same as an INT from a perfect throw that bounced off a WR hands or a INT that Romo throws directly to the other team.
Passer rating doesn't recognize the difference therefore its not a qualitative metric its just a record or a mash-up of a bunch of stats.

QBR is the closet thing to a QB 'grade' as it rates each pass based on situation.

How anyone that understands both the passer rating and the QBR and deem the passer rating as more indicative of how a QB actually played is beyond me.
My only gripe I have about the QBR is that its harsh on sacks.

 

lol, what does this prove? How do you know they grade isn't right unless you watched the game?
You cannot look at stats to understand the QBR you have to look at the actual game.

 

This is nonsense, in part because you don't seem to realize that passer rating applies to passing, not quarterbacking. If a ball bounces off a WR's hands and is intercepted, that's a failure of the passing game. It's charged to and tracked from the quarterback position because the QB throws the ball.

Additionally, you are completely disregarding the fact that passer rating has already been proven to be far, far more closely correlated with winning and losing than TQBR ever has. Passer rating is already proven, to the point where top DCs like Dom Capers and Dick LeBeau track their defensive performance by looking at the passer rating their defenses allow. They do not track the TQBR their defenses allow.

Game losing INTs are heartbreakers, but they don't deserve extra weight over any other INT.

 

I didn't say a word about the Dolphins, they aren't a playoff contender and the Bengals are. I'm sure Dalton will beat a good team at some point this year. It just hasn't happened yet. Count 9-7 Tennessee if you want.

 

I'm not saying it's a bad stat. Just that it weights completion % too much and is thus flawed.

 

I tend to agree. If I'm analyzing Tanny or comparing him to other QBs, I'm not going to knock him if he threw the TD 2 minutes into the game as opposed to a QB who threw the TD with 2 minutes left. I don't think there is a significant difference there in terms of the ability of the QB. So I don't find QBR all that useful when comparing QBs.

But what win probability tells us is that the TD late in the game (likely) has a bigger effect on the outcome than the TD early in the game. That's because there is a time limit to the game. For instance, if we score a TD 2 minutes into the game that might give us a 55% chance of winning. It doesn't increase our chances much from a coin flip because it's a one TD lead with a lot of time left. But if the game was tied until the 2 minute warning in the 4th and we scored a TD, we'd have probably over a 75% chance of winning the game.

QBR is weighting the performance of the QB based on that, among other things. I think it's unfair to make a complete judgement of a QB based on this metric. I think expected points added is probably a bit better. And something much more simple like yards per attempt is probably better if you are assessing QB skill or making comparisons. But just in terms of explaining why a team won/lost a game, it's probably not a bad stat.

 

'passer rating applies to passing not quarterbacking' <-----Lol, that is precisely why using passer rating is a poor way to measure QB performance because as you point out its not designed to.
If you want to know how a QB played QBR leads you closer to the truth then passer rating precisely because it differentiates between meaningful and meaningless stats.
Passer rating doesn't do that.

 

[h=3]http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/6833215/explaining-statistics-total-quarterback-rating

Dividing Credit[/h]
Division of credit is the next step. Dividing credit among teammates is one of the most difficult but important aspects of sports. Teammates rely upon each other and, as the cliché goes, a team might not be the sum of its parts. By dividing credit, we are forcing the parts to sum up to the team, understanding the limitations but knowing that it is the best way statistically for the rating.

On a pass play, for instance, there are a few basic components:
• The pass protection
• The throw
• The catch
• The run after the catch

In the first segment, the blockers and the quarterback have responsibility for keeping the play alive, and the receivers have to get open for a QB to avoid a sack or having to throw the ball away. On the throw itself, a quarterback has to throw an accurate ball to the intended receiver. Certain receivers might run better or worse routes, so the ability of a QB to be on target also relates somewhat to the receivers. For the catch, it might be a very easy one where the QB laid it in right in stride and no defenders were there to distract the receiver. Or it could be that the QB threaded a needle and defenders absolutely hammered the receiver as he caught the ball, making it difficult to hold on. So even the catch is about both the receiver and the QB. Finally, the run after the catch depends on whether a QB hit the receiver in stride beyond the defense and on the ability of a receiver to be elusive. Whatever credit we give to the blockers, receivers and quarterback in these situations is designed to sum to the team expected points added.

The ESPN video tracking has been useful in helping to separate credit in plays like these. We track overthrows, underthrows, dropped passes, defended passes and yards after the catch. The big part was taking this information and analyzing how much of it was related to the QB, the receivers and the blockers. Not surprisingly, pass protection is related mostly to the QB and the offensive line, but yards after the catch is more about what the receiver does. Statistical analysis was able to show this, and we divided credit based on those things.

As a relevant side note, statistical analysis showed that what we call a dropped pass was not all a receiver's fault, either. A receiver might drop a ball because he wanted to run before catching it, because the defense distracted him, because it was a little bit behind him or because he was about to get hit by a defender. If the defender was there a half second before, the defender would have knocked the ball free and it would have been called a "defended pass," not a "dropped pass." There are shades of gray even on a dropped pass, and analysis showed that. Drops are less a QB's fault than defended passes or underthrows, but the QB does share some blame.

On most other plays, quarterbacks receive some portion of credit for the result of the play, including defensive pass interference, intentional grounding, scrambles, sacks, fumbles, fumble recoveries (Carson Palmer once recovered a teammate's fumble that saved the game for the Bengals) and throwaways.

On plays when the QB just hands off to a running back, we didn't assign any credit to the QB. Our NFL experts did suggest that some QBs are very good at interpreting defenses pre-snap and identifying better holes for their backs. However, they also told us it would be nearly impossible to incorporate. Because they suggested this, we built in the ability to give credit for QBs when they just handed off, but we couldn't find the right analysis to do it in 2011.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, behold what ESPN does to its average viewer.