Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson and Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers had the two best games of the season. The quarterbacks had nearly identical stat lines: Watson threw 33 passes for 426 yards with 5 TDs and no sacks (15.94 ANY/A) while Rodgers threw 31 passes for 429 yards and 5 TDs with 1 sack (16.28 ANY/A).

To calculate how much passing value each player provides in a game, we take the player’s ANY/A, subtract league average (6.16) and then multiply that difference by the number of dropbacks. For Watson, that gives him 323 adjusted net yards of value over average; for Rodgers, it’s 324 yards of value. But there was one difference between the two games: Watson played a below-average defense in Atlanta, but Rodgers played a Raiders defense that ranked in the bottom three of the NFL against the pass. Once you adjust for strength of schedule, Watson has the best game of the season.

The worst game of the season? Without adjusting for strength of schedule, that honor belongs to Sam Darnold against the Patriots. In that game, Darnold was awful: not only did he throw 4 interceptions, but he gained just 73 net yards on 33 dropbacks. In that game, Darnold finished at -310 adjusted net yards of value relative to league average, the worst performance of the season. But, of course, the Patriots had the best defense against the pass. After adjusting for SOS, the worst game of the year was … Kyle Allen against the Falcons. It doesn’t help that Atlanta was pretty bad against the pass, but Allen was absolutely awful: he threw 4 interceptions and took 5 sacks against a bottom 8 defense.

The table below shows the every passing performance in 2019, from best to worst. The table below is fully sortable and searchable. [continue reading…]

How much did passing efficiency decline in 2019 compared to a record-setting 2018? That depends, a bit, on how you measure passing efficiency — in more ways than one.

In 2018, all NFL passers combined to average 6.32 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. In 2019, all NFL passers combined to average 6.16 ANY/A, a decline of 2.6%. However, there is another way to measure league average, and that’s by taking an average of the average ANY/A stats for each of the 32 teams.

In 2019, while “the NFL” as a whole had a 6.16 ANY/A average, an average of each of the ANY/A rates for the 32 teams comes to 6.19. If that is confusing to you, think of it this way: when we calculate “the league average” in passing stats, we are giving more weight to the Bucs, Panthers, and Falcons than to the Ravens, Titans, and Vikings. Collectively, those three NFC South teams were responsible for 11.0% of all passing plays in 2019; meanwhile, pass plays from Baltimore, Tennessee, and Minnesota account for only 7.7% of NFL passing plays.

When we think of league average, we almost always mean a weighted average that gives more weight to the teams that pass most frequently. But there’s at least an argument to be made that league average would be better defined by taking an average of the averages. And in this case, in 2019, it would mean a higher average: that’s because the wrong passers threw it more often in 2019.

Last year, the right passers threw it more often: an average of the ANY/A produced by each of the 32 teams was 6.29 (which was lower than the normal average of 6.32, since the weaker passing teams threw less frequently last year). By this measure, passing efficiency declined only 1.6% — from 6.29 to 6.19 — from 2018 to 2019, rather than by 2.6%.

Let’s look at each team in 2019. The X-Axis shows the number of dropbacks: the NFC South teams (other than the Saints) are on the far right, because they passed the most. The Y-Axis shows pass efficiency, as measured by ANY/A.

It’s pretty clear that the “wrong teams” passed most often in 2019; the chart has a slope that is down and to the right. This, of course, is why the “NFL ANY/A” was 6.16 but the “average of the ANY/A for the 32 teams” was 6.19; by giving the Ravens and Titans equal weight to the Bucs and Panthers, you raise the average.

You might think this is how things always are: after all, the whole point behind my Game Scripts work is that teams with the lead pass less often, and trailing teams pass more often. But of course we already discussed that last year, the reverse was true: the right teams passed more often. In fact, there isn’t much of a trend in recent years as to whether or not the better passing teams are more likely or less likely to pass more often.

This final graph is a little wonky, but here goes. It shows the league average ANY/A in each season calculated the normal way minus the average of the ANY/A for all of the teams. So in 2019, you get a negative number (6.16 – 6.19 is -0.03); in 2018, it’s positive. Any time the graph is above 0, it means that the right teams are passing more often. Any time it’s below zero — as in 2019 — it means the wrong teams are passing more often.

What do you think?

On Monday, I looked at the top passers in 2019 after adjusting for strength of schedule. The same process and methodology is used to rank the defenses, so let’s look at that today. And while they had an easy schedule, there’s no denying that the 2019 Patriots had — by a good measure — the best pass defense in the NFL. Quarterbacks throwing against New England gained just 3.41 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt in 2019, a whopping 2.75 ANY/A better than average. And while that group was 0.31 ANY/A worse than average, it still means the Patriots pass defense was 2.44 ANY/A better than average.

The Bills actually had the easiest SOS in 2019, followed by the Dolphins, Cowboys, Jets, and then Patriots. No surprise there: the AFC East and NFC East had the six easiest opposing passing schedules in 2019. Meanwhile, the Panthers, Chargers, Texans, Cardinals, and Chies all had very difficult passing schedules. In particular, this is noteworthy for Kansas City: after adjusting for SOS, Kansas City’s pass defense ranked 3rd in the NFL in 2019. Derek Carr had his worst and third-worst games of the season against the Chiefs; Tom Brady had his second-worst game of the season against Kansas City; and Philip Rivers had two of his five worst games of the year when facing Kansas City. Lamar Jackson struggled, too: he had a rare game with no passing touchdowns against Kansas City, and averaged just 5.41 net yards per pass attempt.

The full results, below. [continue reading…]

Last week, I posted the final 2019 passing numbers; today, I am going to show those numbers after we adjust for strength of schedule, using the methodology described here. As always, an iterative process is used to adjust for strength of schedule: each quarterback’s season is adjusted for the quality of the defenses he’s faced, those defenses are adjusted for the quality of the quarterbacks they faced, and so on, until equilibrium is reached.

Carson Wentz and Sam Darnold had the two easiest schedules this year. Let’s begin with Wentz. Here’s how to read his graph, starting with his best game of the season.  In week 1, Wentz and the Eagles hosted Washington and won, 32-27.  Wentz threw 39 passes for 313 yards with 3 TDs and no interceptions, and 1 sack for no yards.  That gives him 373 Adjusted Net Yards (Passing Yards + 20 * TDs – 45 * INTs – Sack Yards Lost) on 40 DropBacks (Attempts + Sacks).  This game made up 6.2% of all dropbacks Wentz had all season.  He averaged 9.33 ANY/A in this game on 40 dropbacks; assuming the league average ANY/A of 6.16, this means Wentz produced 127 Adjusted Net Yards of Value above average.  However, Washington was a bad pass defense, finishing 0.88 ANY/A below average.  Therefore, Wentz’s actual value for this game was +91, now +127, after adjusting for strength of schedule. [continue reading…]

In 2018, Patrick Mahomes* led the NFL in both Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt and Value added. As regular readers know, ANY/A is calculated as follows: (Passing Yards + 20 * TD Passes – 45 *INT – Sack Yards Lost) / (Attempts + Sacks). Mahomes averaged 8.89 ANY/A last year, and the league average was 6.32; since the Chiefs quarterback had 606 dropbacks in 2018, that meant he added 1,554 Adjusted Net Yards of value over average. That easily led the league.

In 2019, Mahomes averaged 8.38 ANY/A and the league averaged 6.16 ANY/A. Mahomes missed some time this year due to injury, and finished with 501 dropbacks; he therefore added 1,113 Adjusted Net Yards of value over average. That wasn’t quite on pace with what he did last season, but it was still good enough to lead the league.

But it was Ryan Tannehill — who finally had his breakout season — who finished #1 in the NFL in ANY/A. Replacing Marcus Mariota in midseason, Tannehill averaged 8.52 over 12 games, 10 starts, and 317 dropbacks. That last number is why he only finished 5th in VALUE; he didn’t play long enough to add as much value as Mahomes, Dak Prescott, presumptive MVP Lamar Jackson (who also averaged 80.4 rushing yards per game), or Drew Brees.

The worst five quarterbacks in VALUE added, from 28th to 32nd: Giants rookie Daniel Jones, Browns second-year QB Baker Mayfield, soon to be ex-Bengals QB Andy Dalton, Bears third-year QB Mitchell Trubisky, and Panthers second-year QB Kyle Allen.

The full stats, below: [continue reading…]

Adam Steele is back for another guest post. You can view all of Adam’s posts here. As always, we thank him for contributing.

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When Does ANY/A Get It Wrong?

In Chase’s review of week one passing stats, I commented that the league’s passing efficiency was inflated by ANY/A in comparison to expected points added (EPA). Today’s post takes a deeper dive into the discrepancy between ANY/A and EPA and which quarterbacks look better in each metric.

While ANY/A is a good metric for quick and dirty analysis, it ignores a number of important variables for accurately measuring a quarterback’s passing efficiency. These variables include: first downs, failed completions, air yard / YAC splits, dropped passes, fumbles, the context of interceptions, and garbage time adjustments. My metric of choice to solve these issues is ESPN’s model of expected points (the primary component of Total QBR). I prefer ESPN’s version in particular because it attempts to isolate the quarterback’s share of credit for every play; the EPA numbers found at Pro Football Reference and Advanced Football Analytics hold the quarterback fully responsible for his team’s pass plays, which, in my opinion, is not much better than just using ANY/A.

In order to compare EPA to ANY/A, I divided pass EPA by dropbacks then converted EPA/A into an index stat using the same formula for ANY/A+. For those not familiar, index stats are scaled so a score of 100 is average and 15 points represents one standard deviation above or below that average. EPA data goes back to 2006 which gives us 439 qualifying seasons to compare. As you would suspect, these two variables are closely correlated (R^2 of 0.74) in the aggregate, but there will be many individual outliers. In the graph below, the X-Axis shows the ANY/A+ for each quarterback, while the Y-Axis shows the EPA/Attempt+ for that quarterback. [continue reading…]

A few years ago, I looked at Eli Manning and the HOF in the context of an ANY/A Gray Ink test. What do I mean by that? Here’s what I did:

• Step 1) Calculate each quarterback’s ANY/A for each season of his career where he had enough pass attempts to qualify for the passing title (14 attempts per team game). ANY/A, of course, is calculated as follows: (Passing Yards + PassTDs * 20 – INTs * 45 – Sack Yards Lost) / (Pass Attempts + Sacks).

• Step 2) For each quarterback, award him 10 points if he led the league in ANY/A, 9 points if he finished 2nd, 8 points if he finished 3rd, … and 1 point if he finished 10th. A quarterback receives 0 points if he does not finish in the top 10 in ANY/A or does not have enough pass attempts to qualify.

• Step 3) For each quarterback, add his “points” from each season to produce a career grade.

I decided to update that post (written in 2014) and make a few changes.

1) I have included the results from the last four seasons.

2) I included sack data from 1960 to 1968, using estimated individual sack data based on team sack data.

3) I have lumped together the AAFC/AFL with the NFL in each season as if it was all one big league.

4) I have pro-rated the values based on the number of qualifying passers in each season. So let’s say a player ranks 4th in ANY/A in 2017, where there were 32 qualifying passers. He gets the average of 7 points and 7 points * 32 divided by 32, which is of course just 7 points. Now, let’s say a player ranks 4th in ANY/A in a 10-team league. He gets the average of 7 points and 7 points * 10/32 (2.18), which is 4.6 points. This is not a special formula, but a “good enough” metric that helps discredit players in smaller leagues, but not overly so (hence the average idea).

Okay, enough words. Here are the results. I have also included the raw totals, so you can see what happens if I didn’t pro-rate the values. Finally, I subjectively included some HOF labels at the end: actually in the HOF (not very subjective), Future HOFer, Borderline, and then either Not Eligible or a No for the HOF.

The future HOFers rank 1-4-5-13-18 by this litmus test: there’s not much to debate there.

Among the actual HOFers, only George Blanda — who is probably the least qualified quarterback of the “modern” era to make the HOF — ranks outside of the top 50. Bob Waterfield and Ken Stabler are the next lowest quarterbacks, and that’s consistent with how I’d view them. As a litmus test, this does a decent job for being a (somewhat) quick and dirty way to measure HOF play.

Among the Not Eligible guys, only Carson Palmer is in the top 60. He ranks 37th, on the back of a #1 season in 2015 with the Cardinals (+10.3 points, since there were 34 qualifying passers that year), a #3 season with the Bengals in 2005 (+8.25, also 34), and a 6th and 7th rankings in ’06 and ’14 (+5, +4.06). That’s not really a HOF career by any stretch, but it’s a memorable career.

Among the pure no guys — those who have been passed over and didn’t receive my subjective borderline label — you have Charlie Conerly at 26, Trent Green at 27, Boomer Esiason at 29, John Hadl at 31, Tommy Thompson at 33, and Milt Plum at 35. All good quarterbacks, occasionally great ones, who are HOVG (at worst) type players.

And then we get to the borderline guys. I gave 10 players that label, including three guys who entered the league in the last ten years and who are probably too young to really evaluate. Among the other 7…

Philip Rivers, Ken Anderson, and Tony Romo all are in the top 25, and make sense to be discussed together. None of the three won a Super Bowl, all three had fantastic efficiency numbers, and all three are more favored by the analytics crowd than the non-analytics crowd. Statistically, based on regular season efficiency, all three are clear HOF players. But, of course, that’s not the HOF test.

Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb, and Randall Cunningham are all borderline guys, too, and are underrated by an analysis like this that ignores rushing. They rank 68th, 72nd, and 104th. McNair (2003) and Cunningham (1998) each have a first place finish in ANY/A, while McNabb has a 2nd (2006) and 3rd (2004) place spot. McNair also has a 5th (2001) and a 9th (1999), while Cunningham has a 10th (1990), but that’s it, and that’s the problem. McNabb and McNair each have three finishes at 11 or 12 (worth zero) and McNabb has three more at 13/14; this analysis ignores solid seasons and rushing, which is going to hurt these guys a lot.

And then, of course, we get to Eli Manning. He was the inspiration for this post three years ago, and not much has changed since.  Manning has a a 5th-place finish from 2011 (+6.1), and three 10th place finishes (2009, 2012, and 2015, each worth 1 point).  He also has a 12th (2014) and a 13th (2010) place finish, but those are his only other top-15 seasons.  Manning performs horribly in the ANY/A Gray Ink test for HOFers.  He’s far behind Blanda, let alone the Stabler/Waterfield floor of quarterbacks.

The graph below shows the data data but with color-coded labels: black for HOF or future HOFer,red for not in, orange for not eligible, and large green dots for the borderline guys.  The running quarterbacks (McNair, McNabb, Cunningham, and Newton) are at the back of the pack with Manning (the second farthest dot to the right); the three “stats stars” are to the left, and then you have Ryan who currently ranks just outside of the top 40 (the X-Axis is rank; the Y-Axis is prorated value).

What do you guys think?

On Saturday, I noted that Matt Ryan and Tom Brady were the top two quarterbacks in ANY/A in 2016, setting up a rare Super Bowl matchup of the two leaders in that metric. The Falcons and Patriots offenses as a whole also rank 1st and 2nd in ANY/A: Matt Ryan averaged 9.03 ANY/A, and since he handled all but 3 of the Falcons pass attempts this year, you won’t be surprised to know that the Falcons offense averaged 9.01 ANY/A. Brady averaged 8.81 ANY/A, but of course missed four games due to a suspension; the Patriots team ANY/A was 8.46, still good enough for second-best in the NFL.

But as regular readers will remember, the Falcons and Patriots don’t just rank 1-2 in ANY/A; they rank first and second in ANY/A differential, too. Atlanta’s ANY/A differential was 2.70 (9.01 on offense, 6.31 on defense), just a hair ahead of New England (8.46, 5.78, net of 2.68). No other team was within 1 ANY/A of those two, making them the clear best teams in the NFL in ANY/A differential. [continue reading…]

Matt Ryan is having a career year, in a not disimilar way from what Carson Palmer did last season. Thanks to a superstar receiver and an offensive coaching staff that is drawing rave reviews, Ryan is having the sort of once-in-a-career year expected from a top-3 pick.  In fact, Ryan is even ahead of Palmer’s pace from last year:

The Falcons ranked 17th in ANY/A last year, and 1st this year; Atlanta’s offensive ANY/A has jumped by 3.34 ANY/A, the biggest leap in the league. You might think the Jets — 14th in ANY/A last year, 32nd this year — would have the biggest decline, but New York’s dip is only the second worst. That’s because Palmer, who had a very lofty perch from which to fall, has been far below-average this season: [continue reading…]

Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt is my preferred basic measurement of quarterback play. ANY/A is simply yards per attempt, but includes sacks and sack yardage lost, and provides a 20-yard bonus for touchdowns and a 45-yard penalty for interceptions.

RANY/A, or Relative ANY/A, measures a quarterback’s ANY/A average to league average. Let’s use Aaron Rodgers as an example. This past season, he threw 520 passes and gained 4,381 yards and 38 touchdowns, while throwing five interceptions and being sacked 28 times for 174 yards. That translates to an 8.65 ANY/A average, best in the NFL in 2014.

The league average rate in 2014 was a record-high 6.14 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt; as a result, this means that Rodgers averaged 2.52 ANY/A above average, or had a RANY/A of +2.52. ^[1]Difference due to rounding. But that is just for one season. To measure Rodgers’ career RANY/A, we need to do that for every season of his career, and weight his RANY/A in each season by his number of dropbacks.

For example, Rodgers had 14.7% of his career dropbacks come in 2014, which means 14.7% of his career RANY/A is based off of the number +2.52. During his other MVP season in 2011, Rodgers had a RANY/A of 3.49 on just 10 fewer dropbacks; as a result, 14.4% of his career RANY/A is based off of +3.49. If you multiply his RANY/A in each year by the percentage of dropbacks he had in that season relative to his entire career, and sum those results, you will get a player’s career RANY/A. Here, take a look: [continue reading…]

Let’s get something out of the way.

In the final minute of the game, the Seahawks had an 88% of winning Super Bowl XLIX. To make grandiose statements about the Patriots passing attack and football analytics based on New England winning the Super Bowl would be silly given the way the game ended.

Okay, whew.  But I do want to talk about the Patriots offense, and more specifically, ANY/A.  As regular readers know, Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt is calculated as follows:

(Gross Passing Yards + 20*PassTDs – 45*INTs -SkYdsLost) / (Pass Attempts + Sacks)

ANY/A correlates very well with winning, and it’s my favorite basic metric of passing play.  But ANY/A, based around yards per attempt, is not perfect.  And I think SB XLIX provides a good example of that.  Tom Brady finished the day with 320 net passing yards, 4 TDs, and 2 INTs on 51 dropbacks, which translates to an ANY/A of 6.08.  Russell Wilson had 234 net passing yards, 2 TDs, and 1 very fateful INT on his 24 dropbacks; that translates to an ANY/A of 9.54. [continue reading…]

Nine days ago, I looked at the leaders in passing value, measured as the difference between each quarterback’s ANY/A average and league average, multiplied by such passer’s number of dropbacks. This is the conventional method I have used to measure passing value, but that doesn’t make it the best.

Over the summer, Brian Burke of Advanced Football Analytics fame, helped me determine the value of first down. His research concluded that a first down was worth about 9 marginal yards. I was short on time, so I didn’t have the chance to incorporate that into my formula last week. But I will rectify that today.

In addition, I will provide -30 yards for each “net fumble” — defined as fumbles minus fumbles recovered. And since last week I calculated the numbers relative to average, this time around I will compare player production to replacement value, defined as 80% of league average. ^[1]Customarily, I use 75%, but I think with the first down bonus, 80% makes more sense here.

Let’s use Aaron Rodgers as an example. The Packers star has thrown 458 times for 3,837 yards, 35 touchdowns (+700), with 5 interceptions (-225), 9 fumbles, and 5 fumble recoveries (-120). He has also been sacked 27 times and lost 166 yards on those plays. Finally, Rodgers has picked up 188 first downs (+1692), which means he has a total of 5,718 adjusted net yards. Over his 485 dropbacks, that gives him an average of 11.79 “ANY/A”, while the league average is 8.91. That means Rodgers has produced 1,397 yards of value over average, and 2,261 yards of value over replacement. [continue reading…]

Jets second-year quarterback Geno Smith has averaged 3.88 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt this year, which has resulted in him being benched for Michael Vick. That 3.88 ANY/A average is the worst of the 34 qualifying quarterbacks this season. In fact, only three other quarterbacks have averaged fewer than five Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt this year: Derek Carr (4.93), Teddy Bridgewater (4.75), and Blake Bortles (4.16). Those three, along with Johnny Manziel, were selected in the top 40 of the 2014 Draft. Since Manziel has been on the bench most of the season, and Zach Mettenberger does not yet have enough attempts to qualify, this means the only three rookie quarterbacks in the NFL this season have been terrible. With a capital T.

Which maybe isn’t too surprising. But it is a bit different. In 2008, Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco played well as rookies, with Ryan posting outstanding numbers and Flacco making it to the AFC Championship Game. In 2009, Mark Sanchez made it to the AFC Championship Game, too. In 2010, Sam Bradford set some volume-based passing records, and helped St. Louis go from 1-15 to 7-9. In 2011, Cam Newton and Andy Dalton had varying degrees of success, and generally exceeded expectations. [continue reading…]

Ryan Fitzpatrick averaged 9.61 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt in week 1, good enough for the 4th best grade of the week. But the Houston signal caller — who went 14/22 for 206 yards with 1 touchdown, no interceptions, and 1 sack — was not a very good fantasy quarterback. Using the Footballguys.com standard scoring system of 1 point per 20 yards passing, 1 point per 10 yards rushing, 4 points per touchdown pass, and -1 point per interception, Fitzpatrick had just 15.3 fantasy points (he rushed for 10 yards). That tied him for only the 25th best performance by a quarterback in week one.

Obviously there’s a big difference between ANY/A and fantasy points.  But while we use ANY/A as our main metric for lots of reasons, it’s always helpful to compare it to other statistics.  For example, RG3 ranked 17th in ANY/A in week 1, but only 27th in ESPN’s Total QBR. Why is that? Well, Griffin fumbled twice (losing one), and he completed a lot of very short throws (he had the third lowest air yards per throw and air yards per completion).  But another factor is that his third down performance was a bit misleading using conventional metrics, which is something Total QBR is good at identifying.

Griffin gained 75 net yards on 10 third down dropbacks in the game: that’s pretty good, but he only picked up first downs on 3 of 10 opportunities.   He had a 48-yard completion on a 3rd-and-7, which is great, but it also inflates his average gain; he also had a pair of 9 yard completions on third and very long that added little value.

We can also look at Football Outsiders’ main efficiency metric, DVOA, and compare that to other statistics.  Matt Cassel is an interesting player to analyze.  In DVOA, he ranked 5th.  In ANY/A, he ranked 10th.  In Total QBR, he was 15th, and in fantasy points, he was 21st!   So what gives?

As noted by Vince Verhei, Cassel’s “average pass traveled just 4.8 yards past the line of scrimmage, nearly a full yard shorter than the next shortest quarterback (Derek Carr, 5.6).” That would explain why QBR would be less high on Cassel than other statistics.  And since Cassel threw just 25 passes for only 170 yards, his fantasy value won’t be very high. Football Outsiders, on the other hand, gives Cassel credit for things like his a 9-yard pass on third-and-10 that created better field goal range.  Overall, comparing what Cassel did to the baseline, he looks really good according to FO, and just pretty good according to QBR.  As for ANY/A, it’s impressed by his 2 TD/0 INT ratio, but it’s hard to get a great ANY/A grade when you are averaging just 10.0 yards per completion.

The table below shows each quarterback’s stats in each metric.  For example, Matthew Stafford averaged 11.55 ANY/A in week 1, scored 31.5 fantasy points, had a Total QBR of 97.5, and a DVOA of 90.3%.  Those ratings, among the 33 quarterbacks in week 1 (curses, Rams!), ranked him 1st in ANY/A, 3rd in fantasy points, 1st in QBR, and 1st in DVOA, for an average rank of 1.5. [continue reading…]

On Friday, the Jets released Mark Sanchez. I don’t have much in the way of a post mortem, but it felt odd not to have at least some post on the subject. And despite watching every Sanchez start for four years, it still takes me by surprise when I see that his career record is 33-29. That winning record came despite Sanchez being one of the worst starters in the league for most of his career. Through five seasons, he has a career Relative Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt average of -1.03. Among the 140 quarterbacks to enter the NFL since 1970 who have started 40 games, only one other passer (who will remain nameless for now) had a winning record with a worse RANY/A than Sanchez; the next worst quarterback with a winning record over that time frame is Trent Dilfer, who finished 58-55 with a career -0.85 RANY/A.

If you grade quarterbacks by #Winz, Sanchez is above-average. If you look at passing statistics — i.e., ANY/A — he’s one of the worst in the league. So I thought I would quantify that gulf and see if Sanchez was the quarterback with the largest disparity between winning percentage and passing statistics.

First, I ran a regression on team wins (pro-rated to 16 games) and Relative ANY/A for every year since 1970. The best fit formula was 8.00 + 1.756 * RANY/A. In other words, for every 1.00 ANY/A above league average, a team should expect to win 1.756 more games. For a team to expect to win 11 games, they need to finish 1.71 ANY/A better than average.

Next, I calculated the career RANY/A — i.e., the ANY/A relative to league average — for every quarterback to enter the league since 1970. For example, Sanchez has a RANY/A of -1.03. This means you would expect his teams to win 6.19 games every season, for a 0.387 winning percentage. In reality, Sanchez’s Jets have a 0.632 winning percentage, which means he has an actual winning percentage that is 0.146 higher than his expected winning percentage. As it turns out, that differential puts him in the top ten, but it is not the best mark.

That honor belongs to Mike Phipps. Here’s how to read the table below, which shows all 140 quarterbacks to enter the league since 1970 and start at least 40 games. Phipps entered the league in 1970 and last played in 1981, starting 71 games in his career. He finished with a career RANY/A of -1.52; as a result, he “should have” won only 23.6 games. In reality, he won 39 games, meaning he won 15.4 more games than expected. On a percentage basis, his RANY/A would imply a .333 expected winning percentage; his actual winning percentage was 0.549, and that difference of +0.216 is the highest in our sample. [continue reading…]

While working on a different post, I needed to derive a quick-and-dirty formula to identify the top 100 or so quarterbacks in NFL history. Here is how I went about doing that:

1) Calculate the Relative ANY/A of each quarterback in every season since 1950. ANY/A, of course, is Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, defined as (Gross Pass Yards + 20*Pass_TDs – 45*INTs – Sack Yards Lost) divided by (Pass Attempts + Sacks). For quarterback seasons before 1969, we do not have sack data, so that part of the analysis is ignored (I could have used estimated sack data, but I being lazy).

2) For each quarterback season, multiply each quarterback’s number of dropbacks by his Relative ANY/A to derive a Passing Value over Average metric.

3) Pro-rate non-16 game seasons to 16 games.

4) Calculate a career grade for each quarterback based on the sum of his best five seasons.

Then I realized that this data, while background material for a separate post, was probably interesting to folks in its own right.  Hence today’s post. You should not be surprised to see that Peyton Manning is number one on this list. Here’s how to read his line. His best year came in 2004, when he produced 2113 Adjusted Net Yards over Average. Last year was his second best season — his gross numbers were more impressive, of course, but he produced “only” 2,031 ANY over average. Manning’s other three best years came in ’06, ’05, and ’03. Overall, he produced 8,115 Adjusted Net Yards over Average over his five best seasons, the best of any quarterback in this study (by a large margin). The table below shows the top 100 passers since 1950 (you can change the number of quarterbacks displayed in the dropdown box). [continue reading…]

Kansas City/Indianapolis Preview

New Orleans Saints (11-5) (+2.5) at Philadelphia Eagles (10-6), Saturday 8:10 PM ET

We’re fully immune to the Saints offense at this point. Drew Brees just threw for for 5,162 yards and 39 touchdowns and it didn’t even register on most radars. One reason for that: both of those numbers represent three-year lows for the Saints star. Jimmy Graham shook off early-season leg injuries to lead the league with 16 touchdowns, and rookie Kenny Stills led the NFL in yards per target. Both Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles topped 70 receptions — two of just five running backs this year to do so — and I didn’t even know that until five seconds ago. Pinball numbers are the expectation when dealing with the Saints offense.

But the real change is on defense, as the team just finished one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NFL history. Did you know that the Saints finished fourth in points allowed this year? That’s only the fourth time New Orleans has ranked in the top five in that statistic in franchise history, with the other three occurrences all coming during the Dome Patrol era. What makes New Orleans’ success even more remarkable is that the team ranked last in points allowed in 2012. New Orleans is the first team in NFL history to jump 27 spots in the points allowed rankings. Prior to this year, the 2011 Houston Texans (4th after ranking 29th) and 1993 New York Giants (1st after ranking 26th) had been the most improved defenses with 25-slot jumps. Now the Saints probably aren’t as good as their points allowed rank would imply (Football Outsiders has them 9th, Advanced NFL Stats ranks the unit 10th), but unparalleled feats remain astounding.

The main reason for the team’s improvement is the pass defense. The Saints ranked last in Net Yards per Attempt allowed last year, but 7th this season, another remarkable jump. In fact, only 10 teams have ever made a jump of 25 spots in the NY/A allowed rankings: [continue reading…]

Back in March, Chase wrote a post investigating how quarterbacks age, finding that they peak at age 29 (with a generalized peak from 26-30) in terms of value over average. Today, I thought I’d quickly look at how quarterbacks age in terms of their performance rate — specifically, their Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (ANY/A). For newer readers, ANY/A is based on the following formula: (Passing Yards + 20 * Passing TDs – 45 * INTs – Sack Yards Lost) / (Pass Attempts + Sacks).

First, I need to introduce a way of adjusting ANY/A for era: Relative ANY/A. Relative ANY/A is simply equal to:

QB_ANY/A – LgAvg_ANY/A

The table below lists the 30 single-season leaders in Relative ANY/A since the merger. You won’t be too surprised to see the 2004 version of Peyton Manning at the top. That year, Manning averaged 9.8 ANY/A, while the league average was just 5.6 ANY/A. That means Manning gets a Relative ANY/A grade of +4.1 (with the difference due to rounding).
[continue reading…]