NFL Quarterback Comparison through Week 16

Who's the Man?

The QB position is considered to be the most important single position in team sports.  There are so many elements that go into qualifying performance how do you figure out how to rank signal callers?   Jameis Winston leads in passing yards through Week 16, while Lamar Jackson leads in passing TDs.  Jackson also leads the league in QBR but Ryan Tannehill leads in Passer Rating.  How do you stack QBs?

If you follow this space, it is clear efficiency is a key driver in my rankings and QBs are not any different.  I use a single efficiency metric in analyzing wide receivers (Return on Investment or ROI) but for QBs, we will look at several statistics and the measures of efficiency we get when combining them.

Raw Numbers

The table above reflects stats through Week 16 2019 pulled from Pro Football Reference.com (found here). sorted by passing yards.  The list includes all QBs who have at least one QB decision (win, loss or tie) and total passing attempts greater than 1 standard deviation below the mean for that group (more than 114 attempts).  

The raw numbers are the basis for our evaluation but, as previously stated, they just provide justification for arguing without any context.  So let's see what the numbers can tell us if look at them from different angles...

The table above displays the scaled scores (based on 100 for the top performer with the average score set to 70 and all other scores being set accordingly based on the distribution) as follows:

• TD% Score - (TD/ATT) Ranking of players based on the TD% rate of the first table, with highest at 100% .
• INT% Score - (INT/ATT) Same as TD% score but with the lowest at 100%.
• Yards/INT Score - Based on the number of yards a QB throws between each INT.  I feel this efficiency measure gives a nice impression of scale for INTs.   For reference, Aaron Rodgers throws an INT every 1,226.3 yards while Duck Hodges throws one every 121.0 yards. For further context, both Dak Prescott and Daniel Jones threw 11 INTs but Prescott is just hovering around average with a score of 70.4 while Jones is below at 64.2.
• Pos/Neg Score - Based on Positive Elements (TDs and First Downs) divided by Negative Elements (INTs and Sacks).  

Correlations for each score relative to the others were calculated and, as a result, the above efficiency measures are averaged two ways:

• 4 Way Average - Straight averaging of all scores.
• INT Adj Avg - Given there was a high correlation between INT% Score and Yards/INT Score, these were averaged with the resulting score averaged with the other two scores.  

The above Averages were correlated to each quarterback's respective Win/Loss Record; INT Adj Avg had a stronger correlation to WL Record than did 4 Way Average.  As such, the column next to 4 Way Average reflects QB ranking using that method (and is provided for referece) while the final ranking is based on INT Adj Avg (the far left column) because of the stronger relationship to player results. 

Notes:

• Young G's - Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Lock did not start a majority of games for their teams but when they did play, they performed at high levels showing up at numbers 8 and 10, respectively.  Teddy is going to continue to be my favorite young QB until proven otherwise and many have Drew Lock as one to watch for the future.
• Scraping By - The Bottom Five include 3 first time starters in Haskins, Blough and Hodges, sophomore shakes victim Mayfield and, Mr. Krabbs himself, Jameis Winston. who really took a hit with his INT rate of 4.7% which equates to 1 INT every 21.5 passing attempts.  For context, the top man in this category, Aaron Rodgers threw an INT every 171 attempts.
• Matthew Dangerfield - Stafford has had a rough year.  After throwing his team on his back and fighting losing battles week after week, he is injured and there is talk from the media wall of noise that he will not/should not be on the team next year because he's a valuable asset they could move for a bonanza of picks/players.  Of course, then they would need a QB...dumb dogs always chase their tails, eh?  At any rate, Stafford is top 5 based on this analysis. 
• Face Off  - How did the QBs of the last three drafts fare when squared off?
• 2016: Prescott #9 out of 39 (drafted QB8 at #121 overall), Wentz #13 (QB2 and #2 overall), Brissett #14 (QB5 at #91) and Goff (overall #1).
• 2017:  Mahones #2 out of 39 (drafted QB2 at #10 overall), Watson #19 (QB3 at #12 overall) and Trubisky #25 (drafted QB1 at #2 overall).
• 2018:  Jackson #3 out of 39 (drafted QB5 at #32 overall), Allen #21 (drafted QB3 at #7 overall), Rudolph #28 (drafted QB6 at 76 overall), Darnold at #29 (drafted QB2 at #3 overall) and Mayfield #35 (QB1 and overall #1). 
• Prime of Life- The QBs over 40 years old, Brees (#1)  and Brady have an average score of 82.6 which would put them at 3rd on our list if they were one person.  
• Thirty-something - The guys in their late 30s, (Rivers, Manning, Rodgers and Fitzpatrick) have an average score of 68.7 - take out Rodgers (#4 on our list), the average collapses to 64.6. Yaar!

The Bottom Line

1. INT Adj Average has a 61.4% correlation to QB Win/Loss ratio.  While the number is not strong, it is solid to infer these metrics have a material impact on team performance and are therefore relevant. 
2. Dak Prescott is #9 out of 39 when he was QB 121 out of college.  Pay the man.
3. Overall #1 draft pick in 2016 Jameis Winston is #36 out of 39 with only first time starters behind him on the list. With the "going rate" for QBs at $30MM, it will be interesting to see what the TB GM will do in this situation.

Thanks and check this space for more NFL/College Football analysis.

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