Rating Quarterbacks: The Complexities of Player Statistics
A Brief Explication of 2018 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Quarterback Statistics and What to Be Cognizant of…
Like most sports, football is inundated with statistics. Statistics about players, games, coaches, leagues, geographical areas, arenas, trends and so on; if it can be tracked, enthusiasts will track it. With all this number crunching there is bound to be some confusion, and, at times, what appears to be contradictions. For instance, how can someone excel at passing but also claim a superfluity of interceptions? Records like these have a way of depicting multiple sets of information that, sometimes, appear to be contradictory. However, once the onion is peeled back a bit, these figured begin to sharpen into a more palatable focus.
In the accompanying images, quarterbacks of the 2018 Southeastern Conference (SEC) and their corresponding performances records are examined for likenesses and contrasts to better understand which players operated at outstanding levels. Each quarterback’s performance was broken down to include pass competition percentage, yards attained per game, overall touchdowns, overall interceptions, and the overall quarterback rating. These totals are meant to paint a picture of what kind of player each quarterback is and how they performed in juxtaposition to their counterparts on various teams in the conference.
What is interesting is that, without context, some of these conveyances may seem a bit conflicting. In the below graphics, the reader will note that the quarterbacks with the higher quarterback ratings have lower number of yards garnered per game. At face value, that would seem to be confusing as many would assume that higher rated quarterbacks should yield the most yards per game. However, that thinking would be a bit flawed without first understanding the mechanics of the quarterback rating statistic.
The rating of a quarterback, also referred to as a passer rating, is a metric that includes calculations that stem from a player’s passing attempts, pass completions, yards achieved, touchdowns scored, and interceptions thrown. Thus, the composition of a rating contains a myriad of variables that, together, may alter other statistics within a quarterback’s repertoire. Those players with high ratings may also host a lower number of yards per game for a variety of reasons that are not necessarily negative. For example, the circumstances of field positioning in a game could yield less yardage but more touchdowns for a quarterback. This will obviously increase the overall quarterback rating while stymieing the number of yards attained.
Thus, it is imperative that statistics be ingested and digested contextually. At times, a brief glance at the numbers may appear to be conveying certain aspects of performance while, perhaps unintentionally, obscuring other features of a player.
