Everyone loves talking about quarterbacks. The main reason for that is that they are among the most critical positions in an NFL team, not to mention that they usually start great plays in the field. However, what is the difference between a great quarterback from an average one? Simple, you look at their metrics.
There are a lot of metrics being thrown around these days. This is because new metrics usually surface every year and offer accurate ratings and win ratios in quarterback performance. However, statistics can be deceiving and can throw off your betting win streak.
However, if you cherry-pick them and use them to their full potential, you can make a sound argument with yourself whether a particular team or player will perform well. In American sports, these numbers can be used in different ways to predict a team or quarterback’s performance and the outcome of a specific game. That said, here are some quarterback metrics you can use to win your next bet.
Player ratings exist for one aim: to rank their efficiency in helping their teams win games. That said, there are data out there that provide information on play-by-play data in previous seasons and the current one. These offer valuable insight on a player’s down, distance, clock time, home field, etc. All of these factors ultimately boil down to one single result; win probability.
However, win probability treats every win the same, which means it doesn’t count how a game is won like the score differential or the difference in performance. Let’s look at these two examples: 45-3 and 24-23.
The first example is a team winning with score domination, while the other is a pretty even game between the two teams. However, win probability doesn’t care how much the score differential is, as long as a team won. It misses many aspects of the outcome, which makes it not entirely useful in most analyses.
If you look at the QBR, it is mostly derived from the win probability and how clutch a game was, but it also includes expected points to accurately rank the quarterbacks. That said, QBR has more details and is explained by numbers while still strongly relating to general wins.
Expected points added per play or EPA Per Play is pretty straightforward. It evaluates a quarterback based on his down, distance, and his field location when making his play. It also includes his rushing contributions, sacks, and turnovers.
Most people debate a quarterback’s performance using his weighting plays and other specific plays when rating a quarterback. However, with EPA per play, you can rate a quarterback without involving individual plays. That said, its effect on expected points can determine every play’s value.
This is especially true if you have play-by-play data. With the right information, you can filter any play by any criteria you want and still evaluate a quarterback’s performance and win contribution.
Yards per attempt is many people’s go-to metric when evaluating a quarterback’s performance. It has its flaws, but it accurately calculates how many yards a quarterback has in his throws. Although it is a good stat to start with quarterback evaluations, it’s still useless as yards and yards per game. It still takes completion percentage and downfield passing to be more useful in evaluation.
The metric itself is pretty useless, and it also neglects sacks, but if you were looking to be at least very close in value compared to win-loss records or passer rating, yards per attempt is a good starting point.
Yards per completion is also a good starting point to evaluate a quarterback’s performance. For example, several people excelled in this category, like Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, and Josh Freeman. But then you should ask yourself if they can be considered elite nowadays. No.
Interestingly, four of the top quarterbacks with the most yards per attempt are also included in the top five quarterbacks in terms of touchdown-to-interception ratio. These are Manning, Griffin, Wilson, and Rodgers.
However, this stat doesn’t differentiate a pass that’s incomplete or intercepted, even though these two are vastly different. However, you can see data online with an adjusted yard per attempt, but these are far from being foolproof. The main reason is that they can’t distinguish touchdowns and picks in different situations.
Also, this stat severely underrated quarterbacks that play with defensive game plans. This means that the quarterbacks that don’t take risky plays can be pretty far down the line in ranking them with yards per attempt.
The quarterback is an essential position in an NFL team, making it an exciting position to evaluate and apply metrics to. However, the right metric to accurately predict their performance can be pretty hard to find, not to mention that there are no stats out there that can evaluate them precisely.
It’s better to study these stats yourself and make your game plan. That said, with these stats, you can check out the latest odds in different platforms to test your metrics.