Statistical Analysis: Projecting NFL QB Failure Using College Stats

[The Franchise]

Bump for the night crew.

[KurtCobain]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

Bump for the night crew.

My stomach is a little upset.

[cdcox]

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.

[Sorter]

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

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

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Sorter

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

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

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.

[Dante84]

Originally Posted by cdcox

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.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Dante84

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.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by cdcox

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.

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.

Originally Posted by cdcox

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.

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.

[Chiefshrink]

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" ??

[Dante84]

Thanks for the insight, though!

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

[htismaqe]

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.

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

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.

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.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by SNR

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.

Somebody gets it.

[MagicHef]

Originally Posted by SNR

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.

Absolutely. He's right there below Tebow.

[MagicHef]

EJ Manuel is going to be awesome.