Adjusting Passer Rating for Era: Interception Rate Rankings (Thru 2018)

by Chase Stuart on April 9, 2019

On Saturday, I looked at the era-adjusted leaders in completion percentage. On Sunday, I did the same for yards/attempt, and yesterday, I analyzed the era-adjusted leaders in touchdown rate. Today, we continue the analysis but for interception percentage.

Here’s a look at the interception rate in each year since 1932. As you can see, there is much more variation (and in a much more straightforward manner) than there was with TD rate:

The top quarterbacks in interception rate are two of the best ever in Sammy Baugh and Otto Graham, followed by Roman Gabriel, an interesting player whose defining characteristic was his ability to avoid interceptions. He posted an above-average INT rate every year of his career, with it being well above average most years, and historically good in a few years. Avoiding interceptions was his thing.

The other top QBs at avoiding INTs were players who were arguably the best there ever was during their prime: Sid Luckman, Roger Staubach, and Joe Montana. The full list, below. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes, Mark Sanchez does indeed rank in the bottom 5 of era-adjusted interception rate. But he’s also right next to a HOFer:

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INT% Rk	Player	Att	First Yr	Last Year	EA PR	EA PR Rk	INT %	INT% Other3
1	Sammy Baugh	2995	1937	1952	92	3	1.56	0.24
2	Otto Graham	2626	1946	1955	95.2	1	1.53	0.14
3	Roman Gabriel	4498	1962	1977	73.6	40	1.50	0.53
4	Sid Luckman	1744	1939	1950	93.9	2	1.41	0.00
5	Roger Staubach	2958	1969	1979	84.6	6	1.39	0.16
6	Joe Montana	5391	1979	1994	83.8	7	1.35	0.12
7	Bart Starr	3149	1956	1971	78.7	20	1.33	0.20
8	Ken Anderson	4475	1971	1986	79.8	13	1.33	0.18
9	Neil Lomax	3153	1981	1988	74.9	34	1.32	0.26
10	Fran Tarkenton	6467	1961	1978	79.7	16	1.32	0.16

Showing 1 to 10 of 189 entries

Passer Ratings Dropped By Poor INT Rates

Ken Stabler had to wait so long for the Hall of Fame because of his interception rate. The Raiders great had a 1.30 variable in completion percentage, 1.14 in Yards/Attempt, 1.19 in TD%, but just 0.77 in interception rate. That is why his era-adjusted passer rating ranks just 45th of all time. Stabler would be an all-time great QB if he could have had just an average interception rate.

Eddie LeBaron was above-average in all three of the passer rating stats, too, but then has the worst INT rate of any passer ever.
Steve Grogan, Lynn Dickey, Vince Ferragamo, and Kurt Warner were other passers whose ratings were dragged down significantly because of their interception rates relative to their other stats.

Passer Ratings Boosted By Strong INT Rates

Roman Gabriel is the king of this idea — he has a 1.50 INT rate component, and 1.04 at completion percentage, 0.91 at yards/attempt, and just 0.96 as touchdown rate. Bill Munson, Steve Bono, Neil O’Donnell, Doug Williams, Ken O’Brien, and Bernie Kosar who all rank significantly higher in era-adjusted interception rate than in era-adjusted passer rating. For those guys, avoiding interceptions was their best thing.

What stands out to you? One interesting thing I see: six different HOF quarterbacks have below-average interception rates, compared to just two for completion percentage, one for yards/attempt, and two for touchdown rate.

Tagged as: Passer Rating

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