Most Important Passing Stat

I'm working on some stuff for the site so it's time to get the opinions of the membership to help me make some decisions.

What do you consider the single most important stat to evaluate a players passing career?

You may make two selections if you like (I know some people prefer multiple categories).

 

I'm struggling between "Percentage" and "Touchdowns". Ideally, it'd be TD:INT ratio, but even then... the top veteran QB's win because they take what the defense gives them, and they can almost always get 10 yards out of the downs they have. As long as the ball isn't touching the ground, the offense is moving. So I guess I convinced myself into "Percentage".

 

If there was an 'other' option, I would have chosen 'wins', lol.

 

And you posted this right when I was getting ready to edit that in, lol.

 

lol

I'm out of room for 'other', but if the crowd backs you I will put 'W's up on the board. <in my best Richard Dawson voice>

 

I reset the votes so that dline could get his proper choice in.

 

I appreciate that, Tim. I ended up convincing myself into %, so I took the easy way out and voted for both. I had never thought about it until you posed the question. I think that's an interesting conversation, primarily between the two stats. I have to imagine they go pretty hand in hand.

 

If your completion percentage is high, more than likely you are succeeding offensively with the football, not considering fumbles, of course. The team may have other weapons for TDs, etc., but when you look at the “elites” (aka the successful QBs), the comp% is pretty high for the most part. The primary exception I can think of off the top of my head is Brett Favre.

Percentage

 

Percentage is a tough one for me. It's like a cutoff stat -- you must be this tall to ride. After that mark the actual percentage is going to depend on a ton of different things. Obviously a higher percentage is better but does the QB run a vertical offense? If so you can expect a lower completion percentage than a WCO QB based on the number of low percentage passes they may take. What stats a QB has are really going to be reflective of a lot of different things. I ultimately went TD:Int ratio (To me a formula that basically reads successes divided by decision making) as well as percentage.

 

Yards per attempt is one that I value. TD/Int is another. I wish delay of game penalties was on the chart or maybe clock management.

 

Wins was what I was looking for too. Especially multiple SB victories.

 

I guess after some consideration, W's are a result, not a stat.

I was also thinking of high percentage QB's that really didn't win much and came up with Chad Pennington. Just some tid-bits for conversation sake. When Bridgewater was healthy and starting for the Vikings, he had a really good completion-percentage, but he sure wasn't putting up fantasy numbers or any other major stats... he was just efficient, especially in pass/intercept ratio.

Sometimes I think stats are skewed and get in the way or even paint a false picture, but they sure are interesting and a necessity to have, especially for evaluation.

Im done rambling now. Well, for the time being anyways, lol.

 

I took TDs and TD:INT ratio...

Simple enough if you have a QB that has a high number of touchdowns and also has a 2 to 1 or better ratio....you probably aren't losing a lot of games. And generally it would mean that other things....yards, percentage, completions, and rating are also pretty healthy.

 

It was either % or TD:INT ratio for me; I went TD:INT.

 

TD% is probably a good one too....but I wouldn't use it to judge QB's before the passing revolution came about.

 

Here's how the scoring worked out when adjusted for weighting the factors that were suggested (minimum 400 passing attempts) -

Player Team L4SN
Alex Smith KC 136
Tom Brady NE 118
Jared Goff LA 94
Carson Wentz PHI 92
Drew Brees NO 86
Matthew Stafford DET 85
Philip Rivers LAC 82
Russell Wilson SEA 79
Case Keenum MIN 77
Tyrod Taylor BUF 69
Kirk Cousins WAS 58
Ben Roethlisberger PIT 58
Matt Ryan ATL 48
Andy Dalton CIN 48
Derek Carr OAK 43
Blake Bortles JAX 42
Jameis Winston TB 42
Jacoby Brissett IND 41
Dak Prescott DAL 41
Joe Flacco BAL 35
Cam Newton CAR 33
Jay Cutler MIA 28

 

Sam metric applied to 2016 -

Player Team L4SN
Tom Brady NE 299
Aaron Rodgers GB 160
Matt Ryan ATL 160
Dak Prescott DAL 136
Derek Carr OAK 121
Sam Bradford MIN 112
Drew Brees NO 88
Matthew Stafford DET 73
Kirk Cousins WAS 71
Andy Dalton CIN 67
Andrew Luck IND 67
Marcus Mariota TEN 63
Tyrod Taylor BUF 59
Ben Roethlisberger PIT 58
Russell Wilson SEA 56
Carson Palmer ARI 55
Alex Smith KC 48
Eli Manning NYG 48
Philip Rivers SD 47
Joe Flacco BAL 45
Jameis Winston TB 45
Blake Bortles JAX 42
Trevor Siemian DEN 43
Carson Wentz PHI 34
Cam Newton CAR 33
Brock Osweiler HOU 23
Ryan Fitzpatrick NYJ 16

 

2015 -

Player Team L4SN
Tom Brady NE 155
Russell Wilson SEA 106
Aaron Rodgers GB 97
Drew Brees NO 96
Carson Palmer ARI 91
Cam Newton CAR 81
Philip Rivers SD 75
Kirk Cousins WAS 75
Eli Manning NYG 74
Matthew Stafford DET 73
Alex Smith KC 68
Derek Carr OAK 66
Ryan Tannehill MIA 59
Blake Bortles JAX 57
Ryan Fitzpatrick NYJ 55
Jay Cutler CHI 49
Matt Ryan ATL 45
Josh McCown CLE 43
Jameis Winston TB 41
Sam Bradford PHI 38
Teddy Bridgewater MIN 37
Ben Roethlisberger PIT 37
Joe Flacco BAL 25

 

2014 -

Player Team L4SN
Aaron Rodgers GB 195
Ben Roethlisberger PIT 114
Tom Brady NE 99
Tony Romo DAL 86
Peyton Manning DEN 80
Andrew Luck IND 76
Drew Brees NO 69
Alex Smith KC 68
Matt Ryan ATL 66
Russell Wilson SEA 66
Ryan Tannehill MIA 65
Eli Manning NYG 65
Joe Flacco BAL 61
Matthew Stafford DET 55
Philip Rivers SD 52
Colin Kaepernick SF 45
Jay Cutler CHI 44
Derek Carr OAK 43
Kyle Orton BUF 40
Cam Newton CAR 33
Andy Dalton CIN 29
Teddy Bridgewater MIN 26
Brian Hoyer CLE 22
Blake Bortles JAX 16

 

Interesting. Some QB's are all over the board from 1 season to the next, but there sure are some consistent ones for the good and the bad and the ugly year after year too.