Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The First-Ever Weekly Quarterback Rankings

So, apparently Boomer Esiason came up with a "ranking" that would give you the absolute word on "who the best QB in the league is" at any given point. Well, that's fucking horseshit, and is really disrespectful to the few out there who use statistics for what they are worth, which is to document patterns and past behavior.

So, I decided to put together rankings for myself, since that's totally something that I would want to do. I tried to make it relatively comprehensive, and also make it representative of the player's overall performance and value to his team. However, it most certainly does not give us a determination on who the "best QB in the league" is. Rather, it's merely a way of ranking overall performance, more than just yards and rating (although those numbers are considered).

So, what I did is I took every QB who has started at least 2 games this year (so, Ryan Fitzpatrick has another week until he's on the list), and I quantified various statistical categories, based on performance relative to the other individuals on the list. So, you could get a set number of points for each category, and the best player would get the full total, the worst would get 0, and everyone in the middle would get an amount, not based on their place in the rankings necessarily, but rather based on where they fell on this imaginary continuum between the best and the worst. The categories I included were: win-loss record, QB rating, completion percentage, ratio of TDs to INTs, net yards per attempt (includes sacks in the total number of attempts), total production value, performance in difficult situations (3rd & 6+ and 4th down), performance on passes thrown more than 20 yards downfield, and red zone performance.

So, I will be redoing these each week, and I encourage anyone using them to use them as a conversation point, something to get the discussion started, and not as any evidence of my opinion as to how good the players actually are right now (well, not precise evidence, at least).

1. Drew Brees (93.27 points (out of potential 106))
Strength: Win-Loss Record, Passes thrown deeper than 20 yards (1st)
Weakness: 3rd and Long (5th)

2. Peyton Manning (90.41)
Strength: Win-Loss Record, Rating, Completion Percentage, TD-Interception Ratio, Net Yards/Attempt, Total Production (1st)
Weakness: Red Zone Performance (17th)

3. Aaron Rodgers (86.55)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio (2nd)
Weakness: Win-Loss Record (tie-9th)

4. Brett Favre (79.91)
Strength: Win-Loss Record (4th)
Weakness: Passes Thrown Over 20 yards (5th)

5. Matt Schaub (78.91)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio (5th)
Weakness: 3rd and Long Production (18th)

6. Tom Brady (78.35)
Strength: Total Production (tie-4th)
Weakness: Passes Thrown Over 20 yards (14th)

7. Ben Roethlisberger (76.52)
Strength: Red Zone Performance (3rd)
Weakness: 3rd and Long Performance (27th)

8. Kyle Orton (76.44)
Strength: Win-Loss Record (tie-1st)
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards (11th)

9. Donovan McNabb (72.87)
Strength: Red Zone Performance (1st)
Weakness: Completion Percentage (24th)

10. Eli Manning (72.41)
Strength: 3rd and Long Performance (1st)
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards (8th)

11. Philip Rivers (68.23)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio (10th)
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards (10th)

12. Carson Palmer (67.59)
Strength: Red Zone Performance
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards

13. Joe Flacco (67.49)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio, Total Prodcution
Weakness: Red Zone Performance

14. Matt Ryan (62.19)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards

15. Tony Romo (59.39)
Strength: Net Yards/Attempt
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards

16. Kurt Warner (58.89)
Strength: Completion percentage
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards

17. Jason Campbell (56.58)
Strength: Red Zone Performance
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards

18. David Garrard (55.98)
Strength: Win-Loss Record
Weakness: Passes thrown over 20 yards

19. Kevin Kolb (55.76)
Strength: Completion Percentage
Weakness: Red Zone performance

20. Jay Cutler (54.67)
Strength: Completion Percentage
Weakness: Red Zone Performance

21. Shaun Hill (53.83)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio
Weakness: Total production

22. Matt Hasselbeck (49.11)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio
Weakness: 3rd and Long Performance

23. Matt Cassel (48.20)
Strength: Red Zone Production
Weakness: Passes over 20 yards

24. Trent Edwards (45.57)
Strength: Red Zone Performance
Weakness: Passes over 20 yards

25. Matthew Stafford (40.92)
Strength: 3rd and Long Performance
Weakness: Passes over 20 yards

26. Marc Bulger (36.03)
Strength: TD-INT Ratio
Weakness: Win-Loss Record

27. Mark Sanchez (35.98)
Strength: Win-Loss Record
Weakness: Net Yards per Attempt

28. Kerry Collins (30.68)
Strength: Red Zone Performance
Weakness: Win-Loss Record, Passes over 20 yards

29. Daunte Culpepper (29.45)
Strength: Completion Percentage
Weakness: Red Zone Performance

30. Brady Quinn (27.31)
Strength: Completion Percentage
Weakness: Red Zone Performance

31. Jake Delhomme (24.00)
Strength: Completion Percentage
Weakness: TD-INT Ratio

32. JaMarcus Russell (18.00)
Strength: 3rd and Long Performance
Weakness: Total production, passes over 20 yards

33. Derek Anderson (12.46)
Strength: Win-loss record
Weakness: Rating, Completion Percentage, Net Yards per Attempt, 3rd and Long Performance

Just as an aside, Derek Anderson, on 3rd and 6+ and 4th downs, combined, Anderson is 7-30, 70 yards and 5 interceptions. QB Rating is 0.0. And THAT is why he is all the way at the bottom...

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