QB Rankings for 2019 & 2020 projections

[Matts4313]

The next post will show rankings from various resources and analytical sites. This is meant to be completely unbiased (no "eye test") and solely based on statistical analysis. Obviously there are some subjective factors that we as fans will want to incorporate (IE: WRs sucked/great, OL sucked/great, etc). So lets discuss those for last year and how they might be different next year!

So what is your list for 2019? What is your projection for 2020?

@ET80 => Not sure if this would be better in NFL Gen?

Edited May 30, 2020 by Matts4313

[Matts4313]

4 hours ago, Matts4313 said:

From /u/ AegonTargaryan

Which stats are the most important? Can you actually rate quarterbacks in a manner to encompass all aspects of the game? In an attempt to accurately rate QBs I have taken four of the most widely used and highly regarded stats and combined them to see which QB is best. Passer Rating, ANY/A, EPA, and QBR will be the stats used in this comparison. Passer Rating measures TD%, INT%, YPA, and Completion % but it fails to account for rushing, situational need, and supporting cast. ANY/A has similar measurement but also includes sacks and historically is the most predictive stat for success. It is here we start to see some basic stats like completion % counted multiple times. This is intentional because these stats that are primarily passing based which is the largest part of a QB's game. Though rushing is a large part of some QBs' games, passing is dominant. EPA shows how beneficial a player is in comparison to others. EPA also takes into account situational need and supporting cast. QBR is the most divisive of the stats being used. This is because its methodology is not publicly known and it often has some drastically different results to other ratings like the ones we are using. Despite this it accounts for rushing ability as well as other parts of the QB's game which raw stats may not address.

Methodology:

This is for 2019 only. I took 28 quarterbacks leaving out backups or QBs that went out early. From these 28 QBs I took the highest and lowest grade in each stat. I then measured each QB stat between these for a percentile score. Example: Dalton had the lowest passer rating of 78.3 while Tannehill had the highest at 117.5. Dalton's percentile is .000 while Tannehill's is 1.000. Watson, with a 98.0 passer rating is in the .502 percentile. I then took the four percentile grades for each QB and averaged them. Example 2: Carr's passer rating %: .574 - ANY/A %: .635 - EPA %: .597 - QBR %: .537 = Average of .586 . I call this metric the Quarterback Performance Percentile or QBPP. It is important to remember that .500 is NOT the average. .500 is directly in the middle of the worst and best scores. the QBPP average is actually .467 meaning that the best the average QB was closer to the worst graded QB then he was to the best graded QB.

Creation:

Originally I was going to do this from 2016-2019 with 40 starts minimum. Some stats proved harder to find though (like QBR) so I just did 2019. I was also going to include PFF and maybe DVOA but PFF is private and subjective and I just flat out forgot DVOA by the time I was started. The reason to begin in 2016 is that 4 years is enough to get a good understanding of a QB as well as being a standard contract length. This was originally to rank QBs overall, not just grade a season. If this is successful enough I may give that another go. Anyway, here is you Quarterback Performance Percentile for 2019. * indicates less than 12 starts.

Rank	Player	QBPP	PR	ANY/A	EPA	QBR
1	Jackson	.973	113.3	8.19	103.7	81.8
2	Mahomes	.880	105.3	8.38	97.3	76.3
3	Stafford*	.813	106.0	8.15	56.1	69.6
4	Brees*	.789	116.3	8.33	62.6	71.7
5	Wilson	.755	106.3	7.42	90.9	69.8
6	Prescott	.754	99.7	7.84	93.1	70.2
7	Tannehill*	.692	117.5	8.52	45.8	62.2
8	Watson	.641	98.0	6.63	91.6	68.7
9	Cousins	.598	107.4	7.73	59.0	58.4
10	Carr	.586	100.8	7.25	70.3	62.2
11	Garroppolo	.567	102.0	7.22	69.3	58.8
12	Wentz	.533	93.1	6.26	90.5	60.8
13	Ryan	.437	92.1	6.08	75.1	57.6
14	Rodgers	.428	95.4	6.71	66.4	50.4
15	Fitzpatrick	.405	85.5	5.78	70.7	66.5
16	Brady	.347	88.0	6.24	61.0	53.7
17	Murray	.345	87.4	5.55	71.6	55.7
18T	Rivers	.312	88.5	6.32	57.4	48.6
18T	Winston	.312	84.3	6.15	78.4	53.7
20	Goff	.309	86.5	6.46	57.5	48.5
21	Brisset	.280	88.0	6.06	52.2	50.1
22	Jones	.260	87.7	5.38	55.1	53.6
23	Minshew	.244	91.2	6.44	41.8	42.6
24	J. Allen	.218	85.3	5.71	51.4	47.3
25	Mayfield	.188	78.8	5.29	54.4	52.4
26	Darnold	.100	84.3	5.50	31.6	43.6
27	Trubisky	.066	83.0	5.04	39.8	39.5
28	Dalton	.014	78.3	5.19	30.3	40.1

 

On 12/31/2019 at 12:25 AM, RandyMossIsBoss said:

Passer Rating

Player Passer Rating 1 Ryan Tannehill 117.5 2 Drew Brees 116.3 3 Lamar Jackson 113.3 4 Kirk Cousins 107.4 5 Russell Wilson 106.3 6 Matthew Stafford 106 7 Patrick Mahomes 105.3 8 Jimmy Garoppolo 102 9 Derek Carr 100.8 10 Dak Prescott 99.7

 

Total QBR

Player Total QBR 1 Lamar Jackson 81.7 2 Patrick Mahomes 76.4 3 Drew Brees 71.8 4 Dak Prescott 70.6 5 Matthew Stafford 70.2 6 Russell Wilson 69.8 7 Deshaun Watson 68.9 8 Ryan Fitzpatrick 66.6 9 Ryan Tannehill 62.5 10 Derek Carr 62.4

 

PFF

Player PFF 1 Ryan Tannehill 92.5 2 Drew Brees 91.2 3 Russell Wilson 91.2 4 Lamar Jackson 91.1 5 Kirk Cousins 84.3 6 Pat Mahomes 84.1 7 Matthew Stafford 82.4 8 Aaron Rodgers 81.2 9 Deshaun Watson 81.0 10 Dak Prescott 80.3

 

DVOA

	Player	DVOA
1	Drew Brees	40.1%
2	Lamar Jackson	35.3%
3	Pat Mahomes	30.0%
4	Matthew Stafford	28.8%
5	Ryan Tannehill	28.1%
6	Dak Prescott	27.2%
7	Russell Wilson	25.2%
8	Derek Carr	18.9%
9	Kirk Cousins	14.5%
10	Jimmy Garoppolo	11.2%

 

Adjusted Net Yards/Attempt

	Player	ANY/A
1	Ryan Tannehill	8.52
2	Patrick Mahomes	8.38
3	Drew Brees	8.33
4	Lamar Jackson	8.19
5	Matthew Stafford	8.15
6	Dak Prescott	7.84
7	Kirk Cousins	7.73
8	Russell Wilson	7.42
9	Derek Carr	7.25
10	Jimmy Garoppolo	7.22

 

 

 

Aggregate of these 5 lists (if you were to hold each in equal regard)

QB PR QBR PFF DVOA ANY/A Avg 1 Drew Brees 2 3 2 1 3 2.2 2 Lamar Jackson 3 1 4 2 4 2.8 3 Ryan Tannehill 1 9 1 5 1 3.4 4 Patrick Mahomes 7 2 6 3 2 4.0 5 Matthew Stafford 6 5 7 4 5 5.4 6 Russell Wilson 5 6 2 7 8 5.6 7 Dak Prescott 10 4 10 6 6 7.2 8 Kirk Cousins 4 13 5 9 7 7.6 9 Derek Carr 9 10 12 8 9 9.6 10 Deshaun Watson 11 7 9 11 12 10.0 11 Jimmy Garoppolo 8 12 13 10 10 10.6 12 Aaron Rodgers 12 20 8 12 11 12.6 13 Carson Wentz 13 11 16 20 16 15.2 14 Matt Ryan 14 14 15 13 20 15.2 15 Tom Brady 19 16 10 16 17 15.6 16 Philip Rivers 17 22 17 14 15 17.0 17 Ryan Fitzpatrick 23 8 14 19 22 17.2 18 Jared Goff 22 24 19 17 13 19.0 19 Gardner Minshew 15 27 20 22 14 19.6 20 Jacoby Brissett 18 21 29 15 21 20.8 21 Drew Lock 16 23 30 18 18 21.0 22 Kyler Murray 21 15 25 21 24 21.2 23 Jameis Winston 25 18 21 24 19 21.4 24 Daniel Jones 20 17 24 28 26 23.0 25 Baker Mayfield 30 19 18 23 27 23.4 26 Josh Allen 24 25 26 26 23 24.8 27 Sam Darnold 26 26 28 29 25 26.8 28 Andy Dalton 31 29 23 25 28 27.2 29 Mitchell Trubisky 27 28 27 27 29 27.6 30 Mason Rudolph 28 31 31 30 30 30.0 31 Dwayne Haskins 32 32 22 32 32 30.0 32 Kyle Allen 29 30 32 31 31 30.6

 

From what takes the least into account to what takes the most into account:

Passer Rating= completion %, Y/A, TD% and INT%

ANY/A= similar to passer rating but weighed differently + sacks and yards lost on sacks are added to the equation

DVOA= the outcome of every play is compared to the league average in that same situation, every box score factor possible is utilized. For QBs, DVOA does not include running, unlike QBR.

QBR= similar to DVOA, but with a touch of subjectivity that goes beyond box score (drops, bad plays that weren't fault of QB, etc.), and a clutch factor (more weight towards plays in situations deemed clutch)

PFF= every play is looked at and given a grade, the final grade is the cumulative score of every play normalized to a 0-100 scale

NEITHER OF THESE ARE MINE - THESE ARE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS FROM RMIB AND A REDDIT USER. 

They are simply unbiased rankings from 3rd parties aggregated together. 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Matts4313

[Matts4313]

From /u/Kobegriffeysanders on reddit:

So, I am not a huge manipulator of data, spreadsheets, etc. This relatively simple project took longer than I wish to admit. Basically, using PFF, I compiled a list of 36 quarterbacks from the 2019 NFL season and compiled their Passer Ratings from a clean pocket and when pressured, then calculated the actual and percent differences of the two passer rating figures for each QB.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know Passer Rating is not a perfect all-powerful statistic, but it at least serves as something of an overarching indicator of performance, and I felt it worked sufficiently for this kind of project.

First, let's look at how effectively each QB passed the ball from a clean pocket.

QUARTERBACKS	Clean Pocket Passer Rating
Ryan Tannehill	122.8
Drew Brees	120.8
Matt Stafford	120.0
Lamar Jackson	118.5
Kirk Cousins	118.1
Russell Wilson	114.5
Teddy Bridgewater	114
Jimmy Garoppolo	110.8
Patrick Mahomes	110.6
Deshaun Watson	107.9
Dak Prescott	107.8
Drew Lock	105.3
Derek Carr	104.8
Mason Rudolph	104.7
Aaron Rodgers	104.2
Matt Ryan	101.5
Tom Brady	101.2
Jacoby Brissett	100.5
Sam Darnold	99.6
Jared Goff	99.5
Carson Wentz	99.4
Jameis Winston	98.6
Ryan Fitzpatrick	98.4
Marcus Mariota	98.0
Joe Flacco	97.7
Daniel Jones	96.8
Gardner Minshew	96.7
Philip Rivers	96.4
Nick Foles	95.7
Josh Allen	95.2
Kyler Murray	94.8
Mitch Trubisky	93.0
Kyle Allen	89.6
Baker Mayfield	85.0
Andy Dalton	83.9
Dwayne Haskins	81.8
AVERAGE	102.45

A couple of things to note here:

• Holy hell Tannehill

• Bridgewater, Rudolph (!), and Brissett stand out as surprises in a good way.

• Brady, Rivers, Allen, Murray, and Mayfield (!) stand out as surprises in a bad way, relative to league-average.

Next, let's look at how each of these QBs passed the ball when pressured, as well as the % of dropbacks they were pressured. (sorted by passer rating when pressured)

QUARTERBACKS	Pressured Pocket Passer Rating	% Dropbacks Pressured
Drew Brees	100.1	25.1%
Ryan Tannehill	98.4	29.9%
Lamar Jackson	97.7	30.9%
Patrick Mahomes	89.7	28.3%
Russell Wilson	89.3	39.8%
Derek Carr	88.4	28.4%
Kirk Cousins	84.9	36.4%
Dak Prescott	79.5	31.9%
Carson Wentz	78.8	35.8%
Gardner Minshew	77.7	35.1%
Matt Stafford	77.2	37.5%
Deshaun Watson	76.6	38.4%
Marcus Mariota	75.1	35.1%
Jimmy Garoppolo	74.2	30.0%
Aaron Rodgers	74.0	34.5%
Matt Ryan	73.8	39.2%
Daniel Jones	72.2	41.7%
Philip Rivers	71.7	35.5%
Jacoby Brissett	63.8	38.3%
Kyler Murray	62.1	29.5%
Baker Mayfield	62.0	33.4%
Teddy Bridgewater	60.9	33.6%
Josh Allen	60.5	36.1%
Jared Goff	60.4	36.0%
Andy Dalton	60.0	29.2%
Dwayne Haskins	58.9	35.9%
Sam Darnold	58.5	41.9%
Drew Lock	58.4	36.0%
Ryan Fitzpatrick	57.8	39.7%
Nick Foles	57.5	32.8%
Joe Flacco	55.4	36.4%
Mitch Trubisky	55.2	32.3%
Kyle Allen	54.1	34.2%
Tom Brady	51.8	29.9%
Jameis Winston	44.4	33.0%
Mason Rudolph	35.6	36.4%
AVERAGE	69.35	34.39%

A couple more notes:

• Darnold and Jones are the only QBs who were pressured over 40% of the time. Close to that 40% mark are Wilson, Fitzpatrick, Ryan, Watson, and Brissett (!)

• The percent difference between the least-pressured and 2nd-least-pressured QBs is greater than the percent difference between the 2nd- and 9th-least-pressured QBs (Brees #1 at 25.1%, Mahomes #2 at 28.3%, Jackson at #9 at 30.9%). This is a testament to the New Orleans offense as a whole -- Brees getting rid of the ball quickly, having weapons (AKA Michael Thomas) good enough to be successful in getting rid of the ball quickly, Sean Payton's playcalling, and an elite offensive line.

• Tom Brady played alarmingly bad when pressured, having a pressured Passer Rating worse than QBs like Kyle Allen, Mitch Trubisky, and Joe Flacco.

Lastly, let's look at the percent difference in Passer Rating for each QB, as well as the actual difference. (ex. An actual difference of 120.0 and 96.0 is 24.0, whereas the percent difference would be 20%) This is sorted by percent difference. Being at the top of the list means a QBs passing was more significantly affected by being pressured. Being at the bottom means a QBs passing was less significantly affected.

QUARTERBACKS	Percent Difference in Passer Rating	Actual Difference
Mason Rudolph	66%	69.1
Jameis Winston	55%	54.3
Tom Brady	49%	49.4
Teddy Bridgewater	47%	53.1
Drew Lock	45%	46.9
Joe Flacco	43%	42.3
Sam Darnold	41%	41.1
Ryan Fitzpatrick	41%	40.6
Mitch Trubisky	41%	37.8
Nick Foles	40%	38.0
Kyle Allen	40%	35.5
Jared Goff	39%	39.1
Jacoby Brissett	37%	36.7
Josh Allen	36%	34.7
Matt Stafford	36%	42.8
Kyler Murray	34%	32.7
Jimmy Garoppolo	33%	36.6
Deshaun Watson	29%	31.3
Aaron Rodgers	29%	30.2
Andy Dalton	28%	23.9
Kirk Cousins	28%	33.2
Dwayne Haskins	28%	22.9
Matt Ryan	27%	27.7
Baker Mayfield	27%	23.0
Dak Prescott	26%	28.3
Philip Rivers	26%	24.7
Daniel Jones	25%	24.6
Marcus Mariota	23%	22.9
Russell Wilson	22%	25.2
Carson Wentz	21%	20.6
Ryan Tannehill	20%	24.4
Gardner Minshew	20%	19.0
Patrick Mahomes	19%	20.9
Lamar Jackson	18%	20.8
Drew Brees	17%	20.7
Derek Carr	16%	16.4
AVERAGE	32%	33.1

Finally. The meat and potatoes of this post. Which QBs saw the steepest decline in play when pressured? Well, as we can see, within the top half of the list are many inconsistent/question-mark guys (Winston, Bridgewater, Flacco, Fitzpatrick, Trubisky, Foles), young guys (Rudolph, Lock, Darnold, Kyle Allen), and... Tom Brady? This is not a Tom Brady roast, but I was very surprised to see his Passer Rating decrease by nearly half when pressured this past season.

Toward the bottom of the list were generally guys who are more highly-regarded. Three of the more interesting names are Daniel Jones at only a 25% decline, Gardner Minshew (20%) and Derek Carr (16%). It's interesting to say that Derek Carr is the QB who was least-affected by pressure in the 2019 season.

My next question would be if this kind of data is at all consistent from year to year. For example: Is Derek Carr normally this unaffected by pressure? Has Tom Brady always been this highly affected?

What a great way to kill a morning for me. I miss football. I also hope these formatting tables work.

[Matts4313]

@HTTRDynasty => Can you get a list of the SIS numbers for 2019?

Edited May 30, 2020 by Matts4313

[HTTRDynasty]

6 minutes ago, Matts4313 said:

@HTTRDynasty => Can you get a list of the SIS numbers for 2019?

Sure, why not.

Definition:

Points Earned or Passing Points Earned: The total of a player's EPA responsibility on passes using the Total Points system that distributes credit among all players on the field for a given play. For passers, this includes accounting for offensive line play, sacks, off-target passes, dropped passes, and dropped interceptions.

JFYI, more dropbacks generally lead to a higher Total Points Earned.  It's better to use Total Points per dropback for a more equivalent comparison, but I don't have those numbers on me right now.