By: Tim Truemper

Tim Truemper — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:05:20 +0000

Lots of good comments. I’m going to use Shattenjager’s comments as a basis. Int.’s are overall random occurrences, though based on what we know about good vs. bad QB’s, a lower int rate tends to go with the former. Let’s just go with the notion that int rate and completion rate are roughly the same for all levels of QB play. I would say that the number of attempts is irrelevant, but with this nagging and contrary caveat. We would intuitively think that more attempts would create more opportunities for int’s (overall). But if you are completing more passes, this in converse reduces the chance that int’s occurred. Is it a wash between these two numerical factors? We probably would know if we compare percentage completion rate to int percentage rate (as compared to total attempts). Thus, we need to read the POPIP article by Chase and consider its merits to this hypothetical.

By: sn0mm1s

sn0mm1s — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 16:45:10 +0000

My gut says the 25 attempt guy would have a slightly higher number of interceptions per game – but a much higher INT%. A QB going 12/25 is probably less accurate than a guy going 32/45. Which means his incompletions are probably “worse” than the more accurate QB. However, at the pro level that difference is still pretty small so 13 incompletions from one player is probably pretty similar to 13 incompletions from another player. I think an interesting stat might be INTs per Incompletion. I would bet that it is pretty constant across all tiers of QBs.

Comments on: A thought experiment

By: Tim Truemper

By: sn0mm1s