Tag: QBR

Teddy Bridgewater’s high completion percentage puts him in good company

Teddy Bridgewater’s completion percentage (77.8%) ranks No. 1 among Broncos QBs in their debut, even better than Peyton Manning (73.1%).

Teddy Bridgewater looked sharp in his Denver Broncos debut on Sunday, completing 28 of his 36 passes for 264 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Bridgewater’s 77.8% completion mark was the best percentage by a Broncos quarterback in his debut in franchise history, even better than when Peyton Manning completed 73.1% of his passes in 2012.

“He did an incredible job,” outside linebacker Von Miller said following a 27-13 win over the New York Giants. “He was poised back there, he got out of some big-time sacks early in the game and he converted off of those scrambles. Just a great day from Teddy.”

Bridgewater bought time and made plays throughout the game while also protecting the football, finishing the day with a 115.7 passer rating, the sixth-best passer rating in Broncos history.

“I saw a guy in total control and when he had the improvise, he did, and some of those were on big, big plays,” coach Vic Fangio said on Sunday evening. “He’s been doing that his entire career when he’s been a player and he showed it today.”

ESPN gave Bridgewater a QBR rating of 95.7. At the time of his writing — before Monday Night Football — that’s the highest QBR for Week 1. As DNVR’s Andrew Mason pointed out on Twitter, that also marks the best QBR of Bridgewater’s career.

Next week, Bridgewater will face a Jacksonville Jaguars defense that surrendered 291 passing yards and two touchdowns to Tyrod Taylor in a 37-21 loss to the Houston Texans in Week 1.

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Baker Mayfield’s QBR helps tell the story of his great 2020 season

ESPN’s Total QBR is a data point to help quantify quarterback play. In 2020, Cleveland Browns Baker Mayfield’s QBR was impressive at times.

Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns had a great 2020 and there are multiple stats and data points that can be used to prove it.

The team’s record, the playoff victory and the building cohesion on offense as the season went on give context to Mayfield’s success. Credit isn’t limited to the quarterback. Head coach Kevin Stefanski, who installed his offense last season, received coach of the year honors for his part while the team’s offensive line was lauded for their improvement under Bill Callahan.

A team’s record is always the product of a team effort and there is plenty of praise to go around for the Browns last season.

There are also data points that help provide context for individual play. Pro Football Focus grades are one data point used to help understand the context of individual play that helps create comparisons as well.

For years, quarterback ratings were another data point often used to evaluate the play of that specific position. In 2011, ESPN created their own quarterback metric (Total QBR) in which they believed they could better ascertain a quarterbacks play. They describe their data point as such:

ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating (Total QBR), which was released in 2011, has never claimed to be perfect, but unlike other measures of quarterback performance, it incorporates all of a quarterback’s contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers and penalties.

ESPN acknowledges that QBR is not a perfect data point but can be useful. In 2020, Mayfield’s QBR put him in very high level company:

 

Not surprisingly, when Mayfield plays well, the Browns play well. That also, often, means his teammates played good also.

For the season, Mayfield was ranked tenth in the league in QBR at 72.2 just behind Tom Brady (72.5). Not surprisingly, Rodgers (84.4) and Mahomes (82.9) were the two top QBRs in 2020.

Outside of the game against the New York Jets, when he had none of his receivers active due to COVID-19 contact tracing, Mayfield finished the 2020 season with great QBRs. In five of the last six weeks of the season, Mayfield had QBR scores over 82 topping out with games of 98.3 and 90.3.

The lone loss Trotter references in his tweet came against the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football where Mayfield posted an 83.6 QBR.

If trends continue, Mayfield could be looking to challenge Rodgers and Mahomes at the top of the QBR list next season.

Dolphins QB Ryan Fitzpatrick has a preferred quarterback metric

Dolphins QB Ryan Fitzpatrick has a preferred quarterback metric

The Miami Dolphins have a unique quarterback conflict on their hands. The team has drafted Tua Tagovailoa with the No. 5 overall pick to be the quarterback of the future — but veteran passer Ryan Fitzpatrick refuses to cooperate with the succession plan: he’s generally playing good football and has Miami on one of their best scoring stretches in recent memory. Miami’s last four games? 28 points, 31 points, 23 points and 43 points. All the while, Fitzpatrick is currently ranked 5th in ESPN’s QBR metric, designed to offer a contextualized look and which passers are playing the best ball on any given Sunday.

And while Ryan Fitzpatrick will be the first to tell you he’s not super dialed in to the metric outlook of his season, he does feel as though QBR offers him a fair shake versus the standard quarterback rating measurement.

“I think you don’t really pay too much attention to any of that stuff, but I think that (QBR) is probably a better metric of overall quarterback play than just the regular QB rating. That one, to me, matters more than the blanket quarterback rating one,” said Fitzpatrick.

That’s a wise answer, given that Fitzpatrick currently ranks higher than Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson and nearly every other passer in the league. Who ranks ahead of Ryan Fitzpatrick as of the start of Week 6?

  1. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay
  2. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City
  3. Josh Allen, Buffalo
  4. Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee
  5. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Miami

That’s it. That’s the entire list. And Fitzpatrick’s 82.6 QBR ranks just three tenths of a point behind Ryan Tannehill for fourth in the league. Why does it matter? And how can that be such a significant deviation from the traditional passer rating, which ranks Fitzpatrick 17th in the NFL (95.3)? Fitzpatrick himself was able to explain why that metric matters more to him.

 “I’m definitely not an expert, but I think if you throw an interception down three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, it probably shouldn’t weigh as much as throwing an interception up a score or in the first quarter with the game on the line,” said Fitzpatrick.

“All the stats that you can kind of accumulate when you’re behind – some meaningless stats – I think being able to avoid negative plays, sacks and those type of things are important for a quarterback. I think it’s a – even just the running and the scrambles and things like that – there are just a lot of things that it takes into account that aren’t necessarily, that either don’t show up on a stat sheet or they weight stats based on how important it is in the game. I think that is a lot of the reason for me as to why that one carries much greater weight for me.”

And if Fitzpatrick is to be believed, you’ll have a hard time finding more clear evidence that Miami is right to hold off on the Tagovailoa era at quarterback.