QB THREAD - 2x quarterbacky award winner: Lamar Jackson

[S4L]

Feel free to present,

I've already done my presenting of facts and stats. Let take a look at someone else presenting though....

128.3: Tony Romo's passer rating in the eleven Cowboys wins for which he has been at the helm. In those eleven games, Romo has a staggering total of 30 TD passes, 3 interceptions, and a 73% completion percentage. Some more Romo-centric numbers:

-Romo now leads the NFL in completion percentage this season (70.3 percent), passing Drew Brees on Sunday.
-He also leads the league in touchdown percentage (touchdowns divided by pass attempts) and first-down -percentage (first downs divided by pass attempts).
-He has 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions, a 4-to-1 ratio that has been bettered only by Aaron Rodgers this season.
-He has a passer rating of 129.0 or above in five of the last six games - all wins.
-Romo moved to the top of the leaderboard in Total QBR. He's at 82.3, just ahead of - guess who? - Rodgers (81.2) and Peyton Manning (80.8 ).
-He has an 84.4 Total QBR in the fourth quarter of games where the score is within seven points, with 70 percent completions, six touchdowns and two interceptions. Rodgers' Total QBR in those situations is 69.5. Manning's is 60.2.

You going to present some stats or anything? Or just keep talking out of your ***? Which you're so consistent at doing...

 

[CP1708]

After the Dallas Cowboys clinched the NFC East crown with a dominating 42-7 victory over the Indianapolis Colts Sunday, there was plenty of talk that Tony Romo, a quarterback by turns revered and maligned over his career in Dallas, should be a frontrunner for the NFL’s most valuable player award this season.

“He is certainly [the MVP] in my book,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told reporters Sunday.

That Romo’s candidacy would even be a valid topic of conversation seemed unlikely before the season. He was coming off the worst two seasons of his career and turned 34 in April (statistical declines tend to hasten in a quarterback’s mid-30s). And yet, Romo has rebounded this year to post the best completion percentage, touchdown percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating in the NFL.

Since the passing game really started to take off in the late 1990s, the MVP has gone to a quarterback about three-quarters of the time (and six times in the last seven seasons). That’s justifiable given the position’s importance in the modern game (sorry, J.J. Watt), and Romo has been the league’s top QB this season by conventional measures.

But we can dig deeper into Romo’s statistical resume to see if he’s truly deserving.

According to adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A), which tries to synthesize conventional stats (including sacks) in a more rigorous way than the NFL’s outmoded passer rating formula, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers has easily been the most effective passer in football this year (Romo is third behind Rodgers and football god Peyton Manning). As far as team stats go, ANY/A is a pretty reliable indicator of how efficient a passing offense has performed. Although it uses the same batch of QB stats the NFL’s been tracking since the late 1960s, ANY/A corresponds extremely well to team scoring (it has a correlation of 0.85 with points per game this season) and tracks even better (correlation: 0.89) with expected points, which attempts to filter out the effects of defense, special teams and field position on an offense’s scoring output.

The close correlation between ANY/A and team scoring explains why Romo’s Cowboys also trail Rodgers’s Packers in points per game, points per drive and expected points. And while some of those offensive differences may also be explained by disparities in rushing quality, Dallas’s running game has actually had a higher success rate — that is, the share of running plays that generate positive expected points — than Green Bay’s. As coaches intuited long ago, a running game’s most important characteristic is its consistency, both in putting the offense in more favorable down-and-distance situations and in chewing up the clock late in games. That’s why a rushing attack’s success rate correlates better with overall team offense than the number of yards or expected points generated on runs (either in total or on a per-play basis).

So it’s fair to say the Cowboys’ offense performed worse than the Packers’ despite the Cowboys’ running game providing more production behind Romo than Green Bay’s did for Rodgers. Plus, the Packers’ offense has produced better numbers despite facing tougher defenses. Green Bay has faced the league’s 14th-easiest slate of opposing defenses this season, according to the strength-of-schedule component of Pro Football Reference’s Simple Rating System. But the Cowboys have faced the fourth-easiest. PFR’s numbers imply that an average team would score about 0.9 more points per game against Dallas’s schedule than against Green Bay’s (yet the Packers have outscored Dallas by 2.2 PPG).

We can further unpack the Romo-versus-Rodgers debate by looking at play-by-play grading services such as Pro Football Focus (PFF). PFF grades Rodgers as the best quarterback in football so far this season by a comfortable margin, over No. 2 Drew Brees (Romo ranks sixth). PFF also grades Dallas’s offense as providing more support in the running game, both among its ball-carriers and its run-blockers (and this is without accounting for the fact that Rodgers himself graded better as a rushing QB than Romo). And since PFF attempts to hand out credit to receivers on passing plays independent of the quarterback himself, we also have evidence that Romo’s targets contributed more in the passing game (a cumulative +22.1 in PFF’s grading parlance) than Rodgers’s did (+12.6), despite Rodgers dropping back to pass nearly 100 more times than Romo.

The only real factors that might mitigate a landslide Rodgers MVP victory over Romo, then, are in the benefits each QB received from his pass protection and differences in — gulp! — clutch play. According to PFF, the Packers are by far the best pass-blocking team in the NFL; Romo’s Cowboys rank third, but have provided nowhere near the safety offered by Green Bay’s blockers. How much of an edge is this for Rodgers, though? A regression says that each point of PFF’s pass-blocking score has been worth about 0.007 adjusted net yards per attempt this season; that means Green Bay’s 31.2-point pass-blocking advantage over Dallas has really only contributed to 0.21 of Rodgers’s 0.44-ANY/A advantage over Romo in the passing efficiency department.

The clutch question leads to a similar conclusion, with one caveat. There’s no question that Romo has performed better than Rodgers in high-leverage moments. Romo’s win probability added (WPA, or the amount by which his team’s win probability increased on plays in which he passed the ball) is about 0.4 wins higher than what we’d expect from his expected points added (EPA), meaning he produced a greater share of his EPA in moments that had more bearing on the final outcome of the game. Meanwhile, Rodgers’s WPA is 0.25 wins lower than we’d expect from his EPA. But even after acknowledging that difference, Rodgers still crushes Romo on WPA — the clutch difference took a 1.5-win Rodgers edge and shrunk it to 0.8 wins.

Romo has ramped up his play in Dallas’s crucial December games, completing 79.2 percent of his passes for 688 yards and a 10-0 touchdown-to-interception ratio, so surely he would receive a boost if we weighted his stats by the playoff implications of each game. But in the end, both Rodgers’s Packers and Romo’s Cowboys have clinched playoff spots — so all those presumed swings in playoff probability just led to the same place.

All of this is why it’s very difficult to argue that Romo (or anyone else, for that matter) deserves the MVP over Rodgers. Individual football stats are inherently suspect because parsing credit among 11 players with varying responsibilities is extraordinarily difficult. But to the extent that we have evidence about individual quarterbacking performances, all signs point to Rodgers being more valuable than Romo this season.

 

[dland24]

Russell dominated in the playoffs and SB last year.

 

***EDIT***

My bad....didnt keep reading.  Didn't realize you were being sarcastic.

 

[CP1708]

128.3: Tony Romo's passer rating in the eleven Cowboys wins for which he has been at the helm. In those eleven games, Romo has a staggering total of 30 TD passes, 3 interceptions, and a 73% completion percentage.

Rodgers
126.3
33 TD
0 INT
67.2 %
11 Wins

Staggering


(I won't mention Rodgers also has 255 yards rushing and a TD vs Romo having 61 yards and no TD's, with 21 of those yards coming on one carry, yesterday. )

(Ok, I did mention it. Sue me. )

 

[nepats617]

i hope (one of them will) either one of them wins MVP because without looking; when was the last time league MVP won the super bowl- Kurt warner? nothx... as much i'd like thomas to win it, he's not the most deserving nor do i think he deserves it (self explanatory considering other candidates' performances) and I'd rather him to win SB MVP anyways.

 

[nepats617]

IMO i think if the season ended today, rodgers is the MVP but there's another week to go so... when was the last time that the MVP wasn't as clear cut?

 

[pacificnorsewst]

JJ Watt deserves it, bit I digress...


I haven't watched a lot of the Bengals this year. Watching to see if Dalton can maybe find a groove. Bengals seem like that team that we're not talking about right now that's a Dalton hot streat away from going all the way.

 

[100027]

 
IMO i think if the season ended today, rodgers is the MVP but there's another week to go so... when was the last time that the MVP wasn't as clear cut?

Most years that Peyton has won it.

 

[pacificnorsewst]

McNair/Peyton. Glad my dude Steve got that recognition. One of my fave 5's.

 

[100027]

McNair/Peyton. Glad my dude Steve got that recognition. One of my fave 5's.

McNair was my favorite player BY FAR growing up.

And yes, he clearly deserved to win that award solo.

 

[mez 0ne]

JJ Watt deserves it, bit I digress...

Don't understand the love fest for this. He doesn't lead the league in sacks or tackles. Hell of a player and should win DPOY, but just because he caught a few touchdowns from the goal line doesn't mean he's the MVP of the league.

 

[DeadsetAce]

the MVP award is more about stats rather than an actual assessment about true value...which is why JJ will not win


i think most would agree that the QB position is pretty damn essential to be successful in this league, at least 95% of the time. well the texans won 8 games without having a QB. and it's not because of arian foster

 

[T0INE]

McNair/Peyton. Glad my dude Steve got that recognition. One of my fave 5's.

Steve McNair was that dude.

 

[SneakerProSr.]

Any Steve McNair praise gets repped.

 

[illoquent aka dsk]

Elway loads up on weapons and Father Time finally comes knocking at the door. I genuinely feel sad about what's going on with Peyton.

Well...right now I am. Let's see how these playoffs go first before we write his obituary.

 

[illoquent aka dsk]

 

Footwork all ****** up.

 

[mister friendly]

Don't understand the love fest for this. He doesn't lead the league in sacks or tackles. Hell of a player and should win DPOY, but just because he caught a few touchdowns from the goal line doesn't mean he's the MVP of the league.

So if he lead the league in sacks or tackles he would win it?

That logic is flawed.

JJ watt is currently the best defensive player in the NFL. His impact on a game is unmatched.

The only defensive play I might add to that is Sherman or Earl but if one goes down you still have the other.

He destroys offensive game plans, he has to be double or tripled teamed throughout the game and he still makes his presence felt.

Offensive TDs while great and fun to watch don't mean anything towards his value in my eyes.

His defensive TDs matter more.

Now, as for the MVP discussion, as much as I want him to win it, he still isn't as valuable as a QB in today's NFL. ( I would trade him for Rodgers and maybe luck ).

The overall defensive unit around him is average.

If the team was a 11-12-13 win team and the defensive unit was great (maybe historically great) then I would be upset if he didn't win it.

But it is what it is, DPOY is his, some MVP votes.

JJ Watt is most dominant Front 7 defender since Reggie White

He's having a season up there with LT's 1986 MVP season

I don't think some of yall realize how great of a player he is

 

[DeadsetAce]

Elway loads up on weapons and Father Time finally comes knocking at the door. I genuinely feel sad about what's going on with Peyton.

Well...right now I am. Let's see how these playoffs go first before we write his obituary.

don't go sobbing just yet, fam. his season isn't done just yet

 

[fraij da 5 11]

Brady was supposedly too old at the beginning of this season too.

 

[SneakerProSr.]

The Seahawks, Lions and Bills have three of the top four defenses in the NFL through 16 weeks. Rodgers has played against all three. In those games, the Packers are 0-3 and Rodgers is a combined 56 for 102 for 532 yards with two touchdowns and three picks. He may be the best quarterback in football and the 2014 MVP. But put him up against a good to great defense, and he'll have a hard time just like anyone else.

Phil Rivers washed Seattle

Tom Brady washed Detroit

More teams washed the Bills than I can count.

Put some heat on Shaky with your front 4 and its a wrap.

 

[DeadsetAce]

The Seahawks, Lions and Bills have three of the top four defenses in the NFL through 16 weeks. Rodgers has played against all three. In those games, the Packers are 0-3 and Rodgers is a combined 56 for 102 for 532 yards with two touchdowns and three picks. He may be the best quarterback in football and the 2014 MVP. But put him up against a good to great defense, and he'll have a hard time just like anyone else.

Phil Rivers washed Seattle

Tom Brady washed Detroit

More teams washed the Bills than I can count.

Put some heat on Shaky with your front 4 and its a wrap.

Pretty Jimmy G about to wash the Bills this Sunday, too

 

[CP1708]

NFL Philosophy ‏@NFLosophy 25m25 minutes ago
Can't tell you how many times I've heard "Drew Brees is done/awful," this year. @PFF has him graded #2, @fboutsiders has him 4th.

Ehhhhhhh, yeesh. Iono about this one. :\

 

[Chester McFloppy]

I wouldn't say Drew is done/awful, but some of the throws he's made this year are downright atrocious. The hell does PFF use for grading? He's ahead of Tom/Tony/Luck/Ben?

Don't see it.

 

[100027]

PFF's QB ratings are always wacky.  Wasn't Ryan Tannehill their #1 last year?

I know they said Russell Wilson's game against Philly was the worst of his career when he had 311 total yards, 3TDs no picks.

 

[va757va]

Drew isn't done.

His accuracy was still there. ints were up, decision making wasnt always there, forced it alot.

Still showed enough imo to be considered a top qb. He has set the bar so high for himself when he has a down year it looks even worse.

Because of his track record I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. And once more, his season wasn't THAT bad, exaggerated decline.