take on the QBR

All summer we have been hearing about this new ESPN creation called the Ultimate QB Rating (QBR) as its final answer to the very flawed passer-rating stat which has been around for about 4 decades.

The issues with the passer rating has always been a combination of

·         Like its name implies, it's really a passer rating which does not accurately reflect the total value of a quarterback since it doesn't take into account a ton of things including fumbles and weighs other items like  hail-mary INT's as too heavily

·         nobody quite understands the math to it, I looked it up again today and felt like I was trying to do quantum physics

·         anything where a perfect rating is a 158.3, does not fit in our perfectly square society.  

Obviously these are all valid arguments but mostly they are all because for 40 years we've been trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole.   What is good about passer rating is because it's been around forever everybody knows that hitting 100 is good, hitting 120 is great and hitting 150 is phenomenal.     The math is completely impossible to understand but so is the BSC ranking and people can live with that and although the perfect score is quirky, we are a society which still hasn't adopted the metric system so really it's never going to be a huge issue

Well ESPN comes back with their answer to the passer rating with this QBR and today I looked over the list of week 1 QB's to see how accurate the list seems relative to the way the QB's played

No.	Name	Total QBR
1	Ryan Fitzpatrick	91.2
2	Aaron Rodgers	91.1
3	Tom Brady	88.6
4	Matthew Stafford	87.4
5	Joe Flacco	79.6
6	Cam Newton	75.7
7	Rex Grossman	75.0
8	Drew Brees	71.6
9	Matt Schaub	71.0
10	Chad Henne	70.7
11	Michael Vick	68.4
12	Alex Smith	66.2
13	Tony Romo	62.9
14	Matt Hasselbeck	62.1
15	Jay Cutler	60.4
16	Eli Manning	53.6
17	Philip Rivers	52.8
18	Kevin Kolb	44.0
19	Luke McCown	43.0
20	Josh Freeman	34.7
21	Kyle Orton	33.0
22	Bruce Gradkowski	32.7
23	Sam Bradford	28.7
24	Matt Ryan	27.7
25	Andy Dalton	27.0
26	Jason Campbell	22.8
27	Tarvaris Jackson	21.1
28	Donovan McNabb	20.7
29	Colt McCoy	17.6
30	Mark Sanchez	17.6
31	Matt Cassel	11.2
32	Ben Roethlisberger	10.8
33	Kerry Collins	2.3

The top 5 seem pretty accurate as they were all QB's who not only had great NFL weeks but they all won their games pretty decisively.      Can't complain about Cam Newton high on the list because he had a great game too.

But here are some issues:  

Alex Smith at 12.      He threw for a total of 124 yards with exactly 4 passes for first downs.  He was efficient 15 for 20 but threw no TD's and basically was asked not to lose the game.. yet this new perfect system has him basically in the top 3^rd of QB's???

Tony Romo at 13..   He put up stats but was terrible when it counted.. he had two turnovers that are unforgivable including fumbling on third and goal within the 5 and throwing a pick into double coverage when one of those covering him is Darrell Revis.     There is no way he was the 13^th best QB out there this week if you watched the game

Eli Manning  at 16..  didn't see this game but I hear he was very up-and-down including the pick 6 in the shadow of his own end-zone.. I guess middle of the pack is right but there were guys behind him who were better including Kevin Kolb who actually led his team to a tight win.

Josh Freeman at 20.   I guess the ranking isn't bad but he got all his yards and his TD in total garbage time

Matt Ryan at 24..   he threw for about 120 yards up until he started to pat his stats in complete garbage time..   he threw a bad INT and fumbled a ball that was returned for a TD..both in critical parts of the game. 

Mark Sanchez  (full disclosure is that I'm a Jet fan)..   he wasn't perfect but he threw for 300 yards at a 59% clip including two TD's.   He had a stupid INT and held onto the ball too long for the fumble but he was surely not the 30^th best QB in week 1.   

So explain to me how Mark Sanchez who wins his game is ranked 30^th, Josh Freeman and Matt Ryan who both patted their stats in garbage time of a loss are ranked 10 and 6 slots ahead of him.   But the most striking thing is that on the exact same field in the exact same game he played against Tony Romo and their stats were basically even.    Both made mistakes although Sanchez played better as the game got close while Romo played worse.  Sanchez made throws to help win the game while Romo for all intents and purposes lost the game on his own. 

Maybe it's time for Trent Dilfer, Gruden and the rest of the boys go back to the drawing board