The following post attributes authorship to Bryan Frye, but everything under the line comes from the mind of Adam Steele. We thank him for his contributions to the site and to football discussion.
With Chase being such a busy man, I have taken over posting weekly passing reviews during the 2021 season. While the classic ANY/A formula has served its purpose over the years, I’m going to tap into a couple of more advanced metrics to rank quarterbacks on a weekly basis.
Each week, qualifying QB’s will be scored using Football Outsiders’ DYAR and ESPN’s QBR metrics. I think this will give us a nice balance between play-by-play and charting stats, as well as a balance between counting stats and pure efficiency. The qualifying players will have their z-score calculated for DYAR and QBR then averaged to create their overall score.
Here are the week 1 results:
| # | QB Week 1 | DYAR | QBR | zDYAR | zQBR | zAvg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jameis Winston | 138 | 92.5 | 1.30 | 1.54 | 1.42 |
| 2 | Patrick Mahomes | 148 | 88.0 | 1.41 | 1.36 | 1.39 |
| 3 | Matthew Stafford | 132 | 89.9 | 1.22 | 1.44 | 1.33 |
| 4 | Teddy Bridgewater | 86 | 95.7 | 0.67 | 1.67 | 1.17 |
| 5 | Russell Wilson | 102 | 84.6 | 0.86 | 1.22 | 1.04 |
| 6 | Jalen Hurts | 137 | 72.8 | 1.28 | 0.75 | 1.02 |
| 7 | Dak Prescott | 124 | 74.3 | 1.13 | 0.81 | 0.97 |
| 8 | Kyler Murray | 100 | 79.5 | 0.84 | 1.02 | 0.93 |
| 9 | Jimmy Garoppolo | 107 | 74.6 | 0.92 | 0.82 | 0.87 |
| 10 | Tyrod Taylor | 93 | 76.1 | 0.76 | 0.88 | 0.82 |
| 11 | Tom Brady | 96 | 65.3 | 0.79 | 0.45 | 0.62 |
| 12 | Mac Jones | 62 | 75.1 | 0.39 | 0.84 | 0.61 |
| 13 | Baker Mayfield | 73 | 68.3 | 0.52 | 0.57 | 0.54 |
| 14 | Joe Burrow | 46 | 60.2 | 0.19 | 0.24 | 0.22 |
| 15 | Derek Carr | 54 | 52.8 | 0.29 | -0.06 | 0.12 |
| 16 | Justin Herbert | 26 | 61.1 | -0.05 | 0.28 | 0.12 |
| 17 | Kirk Cousins | 60 | 46.7 | 0.36 | -0.30 | 0.03 |
| 18 | Daniel Jones | 47 | 49.0 | 0.21 | -0.21 | 0.00 |
| 19 | Sam Darnold | 33 | 47.1 | 0.04 | -0.29 | -0.12 |
| 20 | Taylor Heinicke | 59 | 38.1 | 0.35 | -0.65 | -0.15 |
| 21 | Lamar Jackson | -23 | 57.7 | -0.63 | 0.14 | -0.25 |
| 22 | Tua Tagovailoa | -13 | 39.8 | -0.51 | -0.58 | -0.55 |
| 23 | Carson Wentz | 20 | 26.3 | -0.12 | -1.13 | -0.62 |
| 24 | Ben Roethlisberger | -7 | 28.5 | -0.44 | -1.04 | -0.74 |
| 25 | Josh Allen | -83 | 40.7 | -1.35 | -0.55 | -0.95 |
| 26 | Jared Goff | -32 | 24.8 | -0.74 | -1.19 | -0.96 |
| 27 | Andy Dalton | -80 | 34.9 | -1.31 | -0.78 | -1.05 |
| 28 | Zach Wilson | -107 | 28.7 | -1.64 | -1.03 | -1.33 |
| 29 | Matt Ryan | -105 | 17.6 | -1.61 | -1.48 | -1.54 |
| 30 | Trevor Lawrence | -95 | 14.2 | -1.49 | -1.61 | -1.55 |
| 31 | Aaron Rodgers | -114 | 13.4 | -1.72 | -1.64 | -1.68 |
| 32 | Ryan Tannehill | -130 | 17.5 | -1.91 | -1.48 | -1.70 |
The clear top three using this formula are Jameis Winston, Patrick Mahomes, and Matthew Stafford. This trio scored very high in both metrics as well as traditional stats. Below them it gets a bit more interesting.
Teddy Bridgewater ranked 11th in DYAR but led the league in QBR. Why such a big difference? If I had to guess, it’s because Bridgewater was robbed of a long TD pass when K.J. Hamler dropped an easy completion in the endzone, and also because Bridgwater’s receivers generated hardly any YAC vs the Giants. These contextual elements are accounted for in QBR but not in DYAR.
On the flip side, Jalen Hurts and Carson Wentz graded much better in DYAR than QBR (or in Wentz’s case, less bad). Hurts had the shortest completions of any passer this week as measured by air yards, while Wentz took some horrible sacks and padded his numbers in garbage time.
Two of last season’s best passers had terrible performances to start the season. Reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers and post breakout Ryan Tannehill each scored in the bottom three in both metrics. It seems highly likely that regression will lift them up in the coming weeks.
There was speculation that the return of crowd noise would disrupt offenses and drag them back to pre-2020 efficiency, but that was not the case in week one. The league registered a 99.6 passer rating with 61 touchdowns and just 17 interceptions. To put into perspective how insane that is, only one QB in NFL history has a career TD/INT ratio better than the 3.58/1 compiled by the league this past week.
I hope you guys enjoy the new format, and please let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see added or changed!