It's that time of year again, when sports media outlets try to fill the time between the draft and training camp with anything that might draw in a reader -- no matter how inane, subjective or -- in some cases -- outright wrong the information may be.
One sure-fire way to draw readers, though is by ranking players. For instance, Pro Football Focus has just finished releasing their Top 101 of 2014 list -- in ten parts, no less. While their list attempts to aggregate players from all positions to a single list of the top 101 players from 2014, it has two enormous flaws: 1) it still uses largely subjective measurement to determine whether or not a single player was successful on a given play, and 2) attempting to please everyone by creating a universal grading system will have the exact opposite effect: it will please no one.
Case in point: Ben Roethlisberger tied Drew Brees last year for the league lead in passing yards with 4,952. Tom Brady was tenth on that list. Brady threw for one more touchdown than Roethlisberger (33 to 32) and they both threw nine interceptions. Roethlisberger had more first downs, plays of both 20-plus yards and 40-plus yards, a higher completion percentage and a full yard more per attempt. Roethlisberger's rating was also nearly six points higher.
PFF ranked Brady 27th and Roethlisbereger 36th.
And let's not talk about how arbitrary that passer rating is, either. With a range from 0.0 to 158.3, the upper bound would make no less sense if it was 91.8, the color red or Daffy Duck. The best part of the system: if a quarterback throws every single pass incomplete, his rating will be 39.6. It's Fahrenheit on LSD.
So, in an effort to simplify rankings while keeping them scientific, I created the Simplified QB Metrics (SQM) Score -- a simple, weighted scale, placing emphasis on that which truly matters: points. First, I must make a few things clear:
- I created the system before applying it; the scale was defined without pre-comparing players, to eliminate personal bias.
- It could easily be expanded to take into account strength of defense. I don't have that kind of time.
- Touchdowns Over Average (TDOA): (Player Touchdowns) - (League Average Touchdowns). Higher is better.
- Interceptions Under Average (INTUA): (League Average Interceptions) - (Player Interceptions). Lower is better.
- Credited Points Over Average (CPOA): ((Touchdowns * 6) - (Interceptions * 6)). Higher is better.
- Yardage Score: Yards * 0.1
- Sacks Score: (Sacks * (Sack Yards / Sacks)) * -0.25. Lower is better.
- Success Rate: Completions / (Attempts + Sacks)
- SQM Score: (TDs - INTs + CPOA + Yards Score + Sacks Score) * Success Rate
- Adjusted SQM Score: (SQM Score / Games Played) * 16