Statistical Analysis: Projecting NFL QB Failure Using College Stats
 

I originally posted this in the Official Geno Smith thread.....but I was told that this needed it's own thread.

It was brought up a while ago that Matt Stafford was a lock for the Lions at #1 back in 2009 from the very beginning. I didn't think that was true....so I did some research to see what the "experts" were saying about Stafford in advance of the draft. And I found this article (http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/pos...tafford-debate).

This is from the 1st half of the article.

So....typical bullshit that we're hearing right now. Not worth the #1 overall pick....blah blah blah.

What I found really interesting was the 2nd half of the article....which is this.

I decided to do some research and throw together the college stats of the QBs drafted since 2009 and see where they fall.

Keep in mind these things when comparing those numbers to the list from 2009.

1. How much do you knock down the numbers of QBs that come from a "spread offense"?

2. These numbers aren't 100% cut and dry on whether those players will succeed or fail. I mean ****....is Locker worse than Leaf? Probably not. Is Alex Smith better than Aaron Rodgers? No way. But it's basing everything off of the number of starts, the completion percentage and the TD/INT ratio they had during college.

3. These numbers ONLY factor in passing stats. They do not include rushing statistics.

4. These numbers don't factor in extenuating circumstances or outside factors that they can't account for (David Carr having no offensive line or Matt Leinart being a playboy that didn't care about football). This is only based on stats.

What about Flacco?

So, basically it's too risky NOT to take Geno.

Considering he was drafted in 2008.....he's already in the first list.

I'll be the first to admit two things....

1. My math sucks.
2. You may find more concrete stats than I did. This was over the course of my lunch hour and it was a pain in the ass to find the games started stats for everyone.

Cool

Should have attached a diaper to this thread for True Fans.

Interesting.

Joe Flacco comes out to 24.15. Still safely above the "iffy" threshold.

Playing at an FCS school hammered him.

Same numbers with FBS formular works out to 34.8.

Interesting. Matt Barkley is the best QB ever to come out of school running a pro-style offense.

Considering that he has 47 starts under his belt....

Yep.

This is for the first person that points out Matt Leinart and/or Tim Couch:

rochambeau

It appears we should sign Leinart immediately.

;)

I think a metric that should be included would be quality of opponents. He slightly accounts for that with a broad stroke of "BCS or Non-BCS." They should look at the teams they played against and calculate those opponents win/loss percentage over the course of the respective QB's starts.

Also, you could take that one step further and take into account the quality of the defenses they played against over the course of their starts.

This way it would better categorize those shitty ass QB's from USC and the rest of the lame ass PAC 10/12.

EDIT: Additional thoughts -

ALSO

You should take into account the quality of the QB's own Defense, Special Teams, Running game, and WR dropped balls. This way you know what kind of support they had.

If they have a ton of support, it might ding them. If they performed well in spite of shitty support (Geno) it would be a credit to them.

It wouldn't change much really. For instance, one of the most glaring examples at the top of the list is Tim Couch, who played in the SEC.

Kidding or not: rochambeau

This isn't a predictor of success. It's a predictor failure. As you near the top of that list (working up from the bottom), the presence of Tim Couch indicates that your chance of being a complete bust is decreasing into the sub-20% range.

ALSO

You should take into account the quality of the QB's own Defense, Special Teams, Running game, and WR dropped balls. This way you know what kind of support they had.

If they have a ton of support, it might ding them. If they performed well in spite of shitty support (Geno) it would be a credit to them.

Look at Peyton Manning compared to Ryan Leaf just based on college stats...

Quarterback Rating
The NCAA formula is: [ { (8.4 * yards) + (330 * touchdowns) - (200 * interceptions) + (100 * completions) } / attempts ].

lets remember one thing

Flacco is a recent phenomenon.

if Rahim Moore didn't exist the majority would still consider him an inconsistent, non-franchise QB

I don't think you're going to appreciably alter the results, you're just making the calculation more difficult.

This is precisely why I made the post I did.

This isn't an indicator of SUCCESS, it's an indicator of FAILURE.

Flacco is clearly NOT a failure and his number would put him at the very bottom of the "strong likelihood of success" category. That means he might have a 30 or 40% chance of sucess if he's at the bottom of that group.

But it also means he has a near zero chance of being a COMPLETE BUST.

Maybe. I'm just throwing shit out there.

Maybe CDCOX wants to get all nasty with it.

You're missing the point. This is ESPN's formula. ESPN is telling us there are no good QB options. According to THEIR formula, Geno is about as can't miss as you can get.

Keep in mind......from 2009.

True, but that's a few seasons, not a decade or anything.

You should send this in and ask them if their research team's formulas are bullshit, or if their current analyst predictions are bullshit. One way or the other, that's pretty blatant hypocrisy.

anybody who puts Flacco in the top 10 is CRAZY

he had a postseason of a lifetime...he also got a 1% on par with the Music City Miracle to have said postseason

PERHAPS NEXT YEAR if he parlays this Super Bowl into an actual regular season where he doesn't have 4 Tom Brady games, 4 Matt Schaub games, 2 Andy Dalton games and 6 Mark Sanchez games I'll be willing to reconsider.

As of right now, Flacco is who he is...a SUPREMELY talented INCONSISTENT QB who sometimes looks like the best in the league but often looks like Mark Sanchez as well.

He is the most confusing QB I've ever watched in my life. Maybe it really was Cam Cameron holding him back...I don't know.

but there is no way that, because of one Rahim Moore I'd take Joe Flacco over:

Aaron Rodgers
Tom Brady
Peyton Manning
Eli Manning
Drew Brees
Colin Kaepernick
Russel Wilson
Andrew Luck
RGIII
Matt Ryan
Ben Roethlisberger
Cam Newton (I admit I appear to be higher on him than most)

but again...I'm not ruling out this Super Bowl elevating Flacco to 'swagger mode' where he finally stops with the inconsistency and becomes a true franchise QB.

Until then, no way. He still has something to prove in my eyes.

Andy maybe copy Bill Williamson's fat ass.

Still pissed about that Revis bullshit. :mad:

Dude, don't derail this thread with your Flacco hate.

He's not in the top 10. Your whole rant is silly. He's 14th.

And that list doesn't include ANY QBs drafted earlier than 1998 nor does it include anybody that wasn't drafted in the 1st round.

it's not Flacco hate and I won't derail this thread but I just want everyone to relax and calm down with this whole idea "Joe Flacco is an elite NFL QB"

Then start your own damned thread. No one has stated that in this thread.

Channeling your inner mememe?

Nobody said he was. Get a grip.

relax LMAO

it was someone in a different thread the other day

I'm sorry for talking about an NFL QB in a QB thread. ROFL

my fault carry on everyone

I'm just giving you shit man.

Take a look at the formula, apply it to Flacco, and then you'll get it.

Just for those who wanted to know......

Matt Cassel -27.5

Actually, I really don't think I did. But thanks anyway.

ROFL

ROFL

I remember that, I remember when they picked him everyone was saying how its just their luck that the best option the year they had the first pick and desperately needed a QB was Matt Stafford, who most didn't think was all that great including myself. I dont think Stafford was any higher regarded then than Geno is now, people just cant seem to get past Luck, Wilson, and RG3 and cant comprehend that a QB draft class like that is rare and probably wont happen again anytime soon.

He's only a success on that list because of the number he generates in the formula, for crying out loud.

You're still free to think Flacco is mediocre.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr...hybuo1_500.gif

Have that on my desk by 9am sharp.

Well put together Pest.

heh....

I am the king of floating out assignments in hopes that someone picks them up and runs with them. I am occasionally lucky. Most of the time not.

I'm sure someone like CD or InDigestion would be happy to dedicate an hour or two to something like that.

A "NEW QB FORMULA" that they can call their own.

I would be the first to read that thread and provide copious amounts of pos rep.

Bump for the night crew.

My stomach is a little upset.

To develop an objective formua to assess which QBs are likely to thrive or fail at the NFL level is challenging.

The first challenge is to quantify a rating for each player in the pros. Phillip Rivers would have been rated higher 2 years ago than he is now. Daute Culpepper would have had a high rating his first couple years, but probably should be considered a bust. NFL QB rating doesn't cover it all. I consider QB outcomes to be binary (is he a franchise QB, yes or no) while others might prefer a more nuanced approach. For example if you look at a binary outcome, I would assign Chad Pennington a 0, but someone else might think he was worth a first round pick because he played OK for a couple of seasons before injuries and his obvious physical limitations caught up with him.

The second challenge is to gather all of the college level data that you want to throw into the formula. This could take hours, especially if you want to do things like include the strength of their competition.

Once all that is done, you can start the data analysis and probably account for a large part of the variance. It won't be perfect. Even with the best model you are going have some variance that isn't accounted for. My guess is that the ESPN model probably gets you 70 to 90% of what is possible in terms of accounting for the variance.

Right now I'm too busy at work to spend meaningful time on Sandbox, so I can't make time for something like this, as interesting as it would be.

Pennington played more than "Ok" before his shoulder was destroyed IIRC.

Also Culpepper had his knee destroyed after he put up solid seasons.

Thanks for the insight, though!

Now, why aren't you Saber-metricsing your way onto the Chiefs staff?

At his peak, Pennington could not make all the throws due to lack of arm strength. That limits the amount of field that needs to be defended and makes the defenses job a lot easier. He wasn't going to take a team deep in the playoffs using his arm especially after the Raiders exposed him in the playoffs after the 2002 season. I called it then, and 2002 turned out to be the high water mark of his career.

Culpepper is an interesting case. We don't really know how his career would have panned out if he had stayed healthy. A lot of people think whatever success Culpepper had was largely due to Randy Moss. So assigning a rating to his pro career is very difficult.

Not to question the master, but couldn't you apply similar metrics (quality of defensive opponents, amount of support from various positions, completion percentage, td:int, clutch-ness, redzone efficiency, YPP, etc...) to the pro career and then see what the variance is between the college/pro, and then set the bar from there?

Yes, yes.... information gathering would take years. You need minions.

This is essentially what I am trying to do through Sandbox: develop a set of metrics that quantify a player's contribution isolated from his opponents and team mates. It takes a lot of data and a lot of analysis. Several years from now, I'll have a decent data set on the pro-side. It's hard to go back in time due to: my time available and some of the data I use has only been collected for a few years.

Minions would be nice, but for most of the work I do, I don't know how to do it until I've done it. So it's hard to delegate.

That doesn't make him a ZERO. A guy that never contributed at all is a ZERO.

Basically everybody on the bust list minus Stafford and Vick.

It seems to me this formula easily, and quite accurately, predicts failure.

Assigning a rating to anyone, as I explained earlier, is extremely difficult, if not impossible. It's too subjective.

But assigning them a binary value - "bust or no bust" - is actually pretty easy and this formula seems to accomplish it with repeatability.

Still can't measure the 'intangibles' other than what you see on film and who the QB played against(competition as some of you have said)

The question I would have in measuring a QB other than all the stats would be "Did he play big in big games and WIN most of the time" ??

It's hilarious seeing people wanting to add and subtract from the formula.

What's the matter, not happy with the results?

The simple fact is that it's pretty damn accurate when it comes to predicting failure.

Stop trying to alter it so that it says what you want.

EJ Manuel is going to be awesome.

great thread

pretty much confirms the idea that there is a threshold above which QBs are simple worth the 'risk'...

Geno is obviously above the threshold, ditto for barkley

Huh. For some reason he got left off the list.

Tim Tebow: 85

Everybody but the Doncos realized he's not a QB, so that wasn't a mistake at all.

That's what stuck out to me too...

He's not a starting QB. Clausen got left off as well.

Sure deal Skippy...

That's stupid. This is trying to predict NFL success using college stats. Only college stats should matter.

Also, he has started more games than Kaepernick, Weeden, or any of the 2013 QBs.

This includes several QB busts in the high numbers so I don't like it.

I prefer the simpler rule of 26-27-60.

http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/2/1...erback-success

Geno Smith scored in the 80s. No amount of fuxing around with the formula is going to put him below 20, which is technically all that matters.

Jimmy wasn't a 1st round pick. This only includes 1st rounders.

Somebody gets it.

:thumb:

You're looking at it incorrectly.

Start with the low numbers first.

Absolutely. He's right there below Tebow.

i wish there was a way to adjust the formula for QBs that played in spread offenses so their stats are inflated

I don't like using the Wonderlic as an indicator because we have to assume players are taking it seriously, and didn't Dan Marino get like a 10?