I’ve never been satisfied (even remotely) with the NFL’s Passer Rating and I’ll explain why. I decided, therefore, to create my own formula for rating NFL Quarterbacks because I knew I could do a far better job – and I have. It's called Quarterback Performance rating (QBP).

I should mention that in 2010 ESPN came out with their own very sophisticated QB rating that evaluates every QB in every passing situation with all the variables that exist at that moment and ends up  with a number for each game. I’m not going to try to argue that QBP is better than ESPN’s version, but since nobody alive who isn’t in the bowels of ESPN’s NFL stats department has any clue about how it really is done, it’s unsatisfactory to me. We are just left to accept that whatever they are doing is fine – or good – or great. Who really knows?

The other problem with it is that when it came out, they had gone back and done the work for 2008, 2009 and 2010. They've since added 2011 and 2012. But, the problem is... that's it. In order for ESPN to do any previous season, they have to WATCH every game. They can't just take the game's stats and go from there. The reason is because watching enables them to make subjective determinations that the final stats don't include. Because of that, I seriously doubt if it will ever be done for any season prior to 2008. If you want to use it as a yardstick for any QB in any of the decades before 2008, you're just out of luck. On the other hand, the NFL's PR has been retroactively applied as far back as you want and my QBP can be also be calculated for any time period as well.

So, I’m only going to comment on the NFL’s PR as well as my own QBP.

The NFL’s Passer Rating (PR) sucks! And, it sucks for many reasons. I just want to review them quickly. Passer Rating has been in use since 1971, so although I consider it fundamentally flawed, I won’t be the first person to criticize it, not by a long shot.

The formula was created by a panel of three people – including Seymour Siwoff who is associated with Elias Sports Bureau – the official bible of most professional sports statistics. Don’t misunderstand me, I love me some Elias, but this formula is bad and when something is bad, I’m going to comment on it and I don’t care who I criticize or what they think.

PR doesn’t pass the smell test no matter how you sniff it. Here is the calculator if you want to use it.

Suppose you have two quarterbacks with the following stats in a game.

As you look at these two quarterbacks and the games they had, which would you consider was superior? They both completed 67% of their passes and no interceptions, but Smith had 290 more yards and three more TDs. Now, take a look at the same two QBs with their PR shown.

It’s inconceivable to me that any rating system invented anywhere this side of the known universe would have Jones higher than Smith, but … there it is in black and white.

The entire reason for that miscarriage of justice is that Jones had more yards per completion than Smith (15.0 to 14.7) and more TD’s per completion (.20 to .17). The fact that Smith had so many more completions and yards and touchdown passes is lost on the formula. It doesn’t care. It’s 100% a ratio formula. Because of that, the following example is also true.

Let’s face it, there have been thousands of NFL games in which a quarterback has had better numbers (the way 99% of us think of as "better") than Jones. On the other hand, Smith’s numbers would have their own little end cap in Canton, Ohio! Yet, Jones has the higher PR for the game?!

Here is another example. Suppose a starting QB missed a play. Because of that, the substitute QB came in for one play and went 1/1 for 20 yards… The starter received every other hike and was 18-20 for 350 yards. But, here’s the kicker… both had identical PRs of 118.8. Knowing that, how could you ever trust the formula again as long as you lived? Obviously, you couldn’t – or shouldn’t.

The NFL’s Passer Rating is of value ONLY if it is looked at over the course of a season and even then ONLY if it is used for quarterbacks with a minimum of X number of pass attempts. Otherwise, it is a joke.

Here is a real life example. Steve DeBerg has the third highest Passer Rating in Kansas City Chiefs history for a game (minimum of five pass attempts). Take a look at his stats in a 1991 game versus Miami compared to Trent Green’s stats in a 2002 game versus Miami.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is going to accept that DeBerg had a better passing game than Green, yet the NFL’s Passer Rating – the same rating that is referred to a thousand times by the non ESPN sheep every NFL weekend – says he did - and by quite a bit!

Consequently, it’s a waste of further 1’s and 0’s to analyze PR. Just consider it junk science (GIGO).

Because of that, I invented Quarterback Performance rating (QBP). While blogging on Upon Further Review at the Kansas City Star, I ran a series of articles to explain what it meant, how I arrived at it, etc. But, suffice it to say it’s kind of like the NBA’s Efficiency Rating which I invented or Bill James’ Game Score (for MLB pitchers) or my own Plate Production (for MLB hitters). In all four cases there are good stats that a player accumulates in a game and bad stats that he accumulates in a game. The more good he does, the higher his score. The more bad he does, the lower the number - maybe even negative. In QBP, EFF and PP, you start with zero. Most players accumulate positive data and so the end result is usually positive, but not always.

In Game Score, Bill James opted to begin with 50. Thus most all games are between 0-100. If I were inventing GmSc, I might have started with zero so that you could instantaneously look and see how good a pitcher was by whether he was above or below zero. Since he didn’t, we almost always have a positive number for Game Score, with 50 being average. We usually have positive numbers for QBP and EFF as well. Plate Production (PP) is roughly positive 50% of the time.

In any event, all these are whole numbers. No dividing. No ratios. You just add positive integers and subtract negative integers. It couldn’t be simpler.

QBP is superior to the NFL's Passer Rating for the simple fact that it gives value for accumulation of stats. It’s not just a ratio formula. But, QBP improves on PR in more ways than just that. Passer Rating couldn’t care less about how often a QB was sacked, how often he fumbled or how many yards he had rushing the football. QBP does!

Say two quarterbacks both went 15-20 for 150 yards. And, both had 2 TD passes and one INT. They would both have the same Passer Rating. But suppose Jones got sacked five times and had two fumbles. Smith wasn’t sacked and didn’t fumble the ball. And, Smith also rushed for 100 yards to none for Jones. Which of the two is more valuable – or which had the superior game?

Passer Rating says they both had a PR of 108.3, but you and I know Smith had a wildly superior game! According to my QBP rating and assuming 10 rushes for Smith, he had a QBP of +100. On the other hand, Jones was -90. Clearly, Smith had a far better than average game, while Jones had a far worse than average game. Yet PR says they were equal. And, this is the formula the NFL uses? Incredible!

Admittedly, “Passer Rating” is about measuring passing, not sacks, fumbles or rushes. But there is a major problem with that. Sacks are a function of passing. Most fumbles occur by a QB when back in the pocket preparing to pass. Most rushing yards by a QB come from running out of the pocket when he can’t find anyone to pass to. So, of course, they are all functions of the pass. To ignore them is just plain stupidity.

But even so, in a world that no longer settles for black and white TV and no longer settles for phones attached to cords and no longer settles for ice trays, it’s about time to include other important aspects of rating the performance of the most important players in the most popular sport in the greatest country in the world!

As I said before, even IF you were only looking at passing and ignore sacks, fumbles and rushing, the fact that PR fails to account for cumulative stats essentially makes the formula null and void as far as I’m concerned.

Here is the breakdown of how to calculate QBP.

QBP = Good Yardage minus Bad Yardage

Good Yardage = (Total Passing Yardage) + (Total Rushing Yardage) + (20 x Passing Touchdowns) + (20 x Rushing Touchdowns).

Bad Yardage = (Attempted Passes x 5) + (Attempted Rushes x 5) + (40 x Interceptions) + (40 x Lost Fumbles) + (12 x Sacks).

Here it is as a formula…

QBP = (PY + RY + (20 x TD)) – (((ATTP + ATTR) x 5) + (TO x 40) + (SK x 12))

I want to comment briefly on the makeup of QBP. Yardage is yardage and the idea is to convert touchdowns, turnovers and sacks into yardage. This is somewhat subjective, but I spent a lot of hours trying to determine just how many yards a turnover represented and ultimately came to the conclusion that it was about -40.

You might wonder why interceptions and lost fumbles would be equivalent when a fumble is often near the line of scrimmage while an interception is usually downfield. The reason is because very few fumbles are returned, but the majority of interceptions are returned. Consequently, I felt the negative value was pretty close.

As to sacks, I realize that -12 yards is worse than the typical sack. Most are about -7 yards. But, it is also true that sacks are extremely damaging for more reasons than just the yardage loss. They represent the loss of a down, increase the odds of a fumble and they happen more often than not on third down. I felt that simply applying the negative yardage of -7 to a sack undervalued its negativity, so I equated it to -12 yards.

I made the yardage value of a touchdown equal to +20. There are a number of reasons for that, but again, some of it is subjective. If someone did an analysis and decided that the TD should be worth +15 or +25 instead of +20, I wouldn’t have a complaint if it the assumptions were correct and the analysis valid. Nevertheless, I’m pretty content with +20.

When I created QBP, I didn’t realize that on pro-football-reference.com they had something called “Adjusted Yards per Attempt” (AYA) where they give +20 for a touchdown and -45 for an interception. So, great minds think (almost) alike. However, keep in mind that AYA is not a total QB rating. There isn’t anything there for cumulative stats or for fumbles or rushing yards or rushing TDs or sacks. It’s just a simple ratio for yard per attempt which factors in passing TDs and passing INTs. But, it uses the same positive value for TDs (+20) as I came up with and the negative value for an interceptions is very close to mine (-45 versus -40).

The other item in the QBP formula that you may be wondering about is why I subtract five yards for every passing and every rushing play. The reason is because five yards is expected. In the NFL, over the last 40 years (1973-2012), the average yard per play is +5.03. It’s gone up a little over the last 10 years to +5.25 because of more passing and pass-friendly rule changes. But, clearly five is good enough for the formula.

The other issue you might have with the five yards is that the average pass play is more than five while the average rush is less than five, but I’m using five for both. If someone wanted to use four for rushing and six for passing, I wouldn’t have a heart-attack… well, of course I wouldn’t… I’m dead. But, you know what I mean.

Here’s why I like five for both. First of all, it’s simple and symmetric – much like +20 for both passing and rushing TDs and much like -40 for both passing and rushing turnovers. But, there is one other reason. It is the decision by the QB in most cases whether or not he’s going to rush or pass the ball. If he thinks he can get six yards passing and only four rushing, he will pass. The point is that every play in which the QB passes or decides to run should yield five yards no matter what it is. And, since all rushing plays by the QB are either the result of a choice or else desperation because a passing play doesn’t work, in either event, he should be held to the standard of five yards. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

If you’ve read this in its entirety and understand it, I can’t imagine how you could not agree that QBP is exceptionally good for evaluating a QB performance for any given game, season or career and how PR should be put out to pasture!