- Joined
- Jun 20, 2010
- Messages
- 35,576
- Name
- The Dude
by Vince Verhei | Football Outsiders
http://footballoutsiders.com/quick-read ... 012-review
The 2012 season in a nutshell: Calvin Johnson broke Jerry Rice's record. Adrian Peterson threatened Eric Dickerson's. The league was overtaken by a rookie class likes of which we may never see again. And the best four quarterbacks in football now are the same guys who have been the best four quarterbacks over the last half-decade or so, especially when viewed through Football Outsiders' exclusive statistical lens.
Using our core advanced metrics -- DYAR and DVOA -- we've gone through the full-season totals at each position and identified the best and worst quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends from this past season. There's also a look at which players have had their performance most drastically different from their conventional statistics, as well as those players who have had the biggest improvement or decline in their performance from a year ago.
Our annual disclaimer: Numbers are never perfect. While we certainly believe that our metrics do a better job of analyzing a player's performance than anything else you'll see, there are some things statistics can't account for. We'll point out where the data needs some missing context as warranted. Also, remember that DYAR is a cumulative stat, so players who miss time (like Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick, who each played very well for San Francisco) will find it harder to make it to these leaderboards.
Quarterbacks
Top 5
1) Tom Brady, New England Patriots: 2,091 DYAR (2,035 passing DYAR, 56 rushing)
2) Peyton Manning: 1,802 DYAR (1,800 passing DYAR, 2 rushing)
3) Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers: 1,488 DYAR (1,395 passing DYAR, 94 rushing)
4) Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints: 1,455 DYAR (1,444 passing DYAR, 11 rushing)
5) Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons: 1,271 DYAR (1,216 passing DYAR, 55 rushing)
Analysis: This is only the eighth time since 1991 (the first year in Football Outsiders' database) that a quarterback has exceeded 2,000 combined DYAR. Brees and Rodgers have done it once each, Manning has done it twice, and Brady has done it four times. Brady ends 2012 with his second-highest DYAR total, and the fifth-highest since 1991. Keep in mind that last season we modified our formula so the league average in any given season always comes out to zero. In other words, even accounting for today's record-setting passing environment, Brady, Manning, Rodgers, and Brees stand out from their peers like nobody else over the past 20-plus years. (Brees, by the way, joins Brian Sipe in 1979 and Lynn Dickey in 1983 as the only quarterbacks to lead the NFL in touchdowns and interceptions in the same season.) Ryan, meanwhile, set career highs in completions, yards, and touchdowns, as Atlanta won the most games in the NFC despite the collapse of their ground attack (which we shall discuss shortly).
Bonus Top 5: Rookie Edition
1) Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks: 1,014 DYAR (867 passing DYAR, 147 rushing)
2) Robert Griffin, Washington Redskins: 838 DYAR (729 passing DYAR, 109 rushing)
3) Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts: 379 DYAR (255 passing DYAR, 124 rushing)
4) Ryan Tannehill, Miami Dolphins: 39 DYAR (37 passing DYAR, 2 rushing)
5) Brandon Weeden, Cleveland Browns: -266 DYAR (-290 passing DYAR, 24 rushing)
Analysis: Wilson surpasses Matt Ryan for the top rookie quarterback season in FO's database, and becomes the first freshman at the position to surpass the 1,000-DYAR barrier. (Ryan actually edged over 1,000 DYAR passing, but negative rushing value dropped him back below the line.) He also tied Peyton Manning's rookie record with 26 touchdown passes, and when you include his four rushing scores, only Cam Newton (21 touchdowns passing, 14 rushing) produced more combined touchdowns in his first year.
Griffin finishes fourth among rookies in DYAR behind Wilson, Ryan, and Ben Roethlisberger, while Luck is 13th. Luck set a rookie record with 4,374 passing yards, but he completed less than 55 percent of his passes with 18 interceptions, more than Griffin (5) and Wilson (10) combined. Tannehill had a pretty typical rookie campaign, but Weeden was a bust in his first season, and given his advanced age (he's a year and a half older than Matt Ryan), he will need to improve radically in his second season to salvage his NFL career.
Bottom 5
1) Mark Sanchez, New York Jets: -663 DYAR (-611 passing DYAR, -52 rushing)
2) Ryan Lindley, Arizona Cardinals: -484 DYAR (-482 passing DYAR, -1 rushing)
3) Brady Quinn, Kansas City Chiefs: -446 DYAR (-442 passing DYAR, -4 rushing)
4) John Skelton, Arizona Cardinals: -325 DYAR (-323 passing DYAR, -2 rushing)
5) Matt Cassel, Kansas City Chiefs: -319 DYAR (-354 passing DYAR, 35 rushing)
Analysis: How bad was Sanchez? He was least valuable among quarterbacks in both passing and rushing value. You'd like to see quarterbacks improving in their fourth season, but Sanchez was worse than ever, and this is a passer who has never ranked higher than 20th at his position, and only once made the top 30. As for the others, well, it's the Chiefs and Cardinals, and they are every bit as bad as you've been led to believe. Skelton deserves special mention: He has now made the bottom six among quarterbacks for three seasons in a row. Obviously, Arizona is desperate for a passer, but it's painfully clear at this point that Skelton does not deserve a spot on an NFL roster.
Better than his standard statistics made him look: Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions
Stafford finished 22nd in passer rating, but 12th in DVOA. (Unlike DYAR, DVOA evaluates players on a per-play basis.) Sometimes these discrepancies can be difficult to explain, but sometimes they're simple: No quarterback faced a more challenging set of pass defenses this season than Stafford, and though passer rating does not account for that, DVOA does. Stafford threw an NFL record 727 passes this season, and 88 of them (more than 12 percent) came against the Chicago Bears, far and away the best defense in the league this year, especially against the pass. He also played the Seahawks, Cardinals, Rams, 49ers, Texans, and Packers (twice), meaning he played more than half his games against teams in the top 10 of Football Outsiders' pass defense ratings.
Worse than his standard statistics made him look: Robert Griffin, Washington Redskins
Griffin led the league in yards per pass with a higher completion rate and half as many interceptions as Wilson, which may have you wondering how on earth Wilson finished higher in our rankings. Strength of schedule is part of it. Wilson had to run the brutal gauntlet of NFC West defenses, while Griffin's schedule was somewhat easier than average. Without opponent adjustments, Griffin's DVOA was five points higher than Wilson's; with them, it was three points lower. Also, Griffin's yardage total was skewed by a small number of very big plays. Many of his completions were actually dink-and-dunk plays. All told, 27 percent of his completions failed to gain meaningful yardage towards a new set of downs. Of the 27 quarterbacks with at least 200 completions, only Jay Cutler, Brandon Weeden, and Christian Ponder had a higher share of dumpoffs and checkdowns.
[textarea]Most improved: Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams
One year ago we listed Bradford in the next section under "biggest decline," but he took many steps forward in his third season. He finished 16th in passing DYAR, after finishing 39th as a rookie and 43rd in 2011. Bradford averaged more yards and touchdowns per pass than he ever had before, and like Wilson, he had to play against the nasty defenses of the NFC West.[/textarea]
Biggest decline: Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers
Rivers ranked in the top 10 in passing DYAR in each of the past four seasons. This year, he was 22nd. He averaged only 6.8 yards per pass, a full yard below his career average, and that's only counting the plays where he was able to pass at all before hitting the turf. Rivers was sacked 49 times in 2012, 11 times more than he had been in any prior season.
http://footballoutsiders.com/quick-read ... 012-review
The 2012 season in a nutshell: Calvin Johnson broke Jerry Rice's record. Adrian Peterson threatened Eric Dickerson's. The league was overtaken by a rookie class likes of which we may never see again. And the best four quarterbacks in football now are the same guys who have been the best four quarterbacks over the last half-decade or so, especially when viewed through Football Outsiders' exclusive statistical lens.
Using our core advanced metrics -- DYAR and DVOA -- we've gone through the full-season totals at each position and identified the best and worst quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends from this past season. There's also a look at which players have had their performance most drastically different from their conventional statistics, as well as those players who have had the biggest improvement or decline in their performance from a year ago.
Our annual disclaimer: Numbers are never perfect. While we certainly believe that our metrics do a better job of analyzing a player's performance than anything else you'll see, there are some things statistics can't account for. We'll point out where the data needs some missing context as warranted. Also, remember that DYAR is a cumulative stat, so players who miss time (like Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick, who each played very well for San Francisco) will find it harder to make it to these leaderboards.
Quarterbacks
Top 5
1) Tom Brady, New England Patriots: 2,091 DYAR (2,035 passing DYAR, 56 rushing)
2) Peyton Manning: 1,802 DYAR (1,800 passing DYAR, 2 rushing)
3) Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers: 1,488 DYAR (1,395 passing DYAR, 94 rushing)
4) Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints: 1,455 DYAR (1,444 passing DYAR, 11 rushing)
5) Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons: 1,271 DYAR (1,216 passing DYAR, 55 rushing)
Analysis: This is only the eighth time since 1991 (the first year in Football Outsiders' database) that a quarterback has exceeded 2,000 combined DYAR. Brees and Rodgers have done it once each, Manning has done it twice, and Brady has done it four times. Brady ends 2012 with his second-highest DYAR total, and the fifth-highest since 1991. Keep in mind that last season we modified our formula so the league average in any given season always comes out to zero. In other words, even accounting for today's record-setting passing environment, Brady, Manning, Rodgers, and Brees stand out from their peers like nobody else over the past 20-plus years. (Brees, by the way, joins Brian Sipe in 1979 and Lynn Dickey in 1983 as the only quarterbacks to lead the NFL in touchdowns and interceptions in the same season.) Ryan, meanwhile, set career highs in completions, yards, and touchdowns, as Atlanta won the most games in the NFC despite the collapse of their ground attack (which we shall discuss shortly).
Bonus Top 5: Rookie Edition
1) Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks: 1,014 DYAR (867 passing DYAR, 147 rushing)
2) Robert Griffin, Washington Redskins: 838 DYAR (729 passing DYAR, 109 rushing)
3) Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts: 379 DYAR (255 passing DYAR, 124 rushing)
4) Ryan Tannehill, Miami Dolphins: 39 DYAR (37 passing DYAR, 2 rushing)
5) Brandon Weeden, Cleveland Browns: -266 DYAR (-290 passing DYAR, 24 rushing)
Analysis: Wilson surpasses Matt Ryan for the top rookie quarterback season in FO's database, and becomes the first freshman at the position to surpass the 1,000-DYAR barrier. (Ryan actually edged over 1,000 DYAR passing, but negative rushing value dropped him back below the line.) He also tied Peyton Manning's rookie record with 26 touchdown passes, and when you include his four rushing scores, only Cam Newton (21 touchdowns passing, 14 rushing) produced more combined touchdowns in his first year.
Griffin finishes fourth among rookies in DYAR behind Wilson, Ryan, and Ben Roethlisberger, while Luck is 13th. Luck set a rookie record with 4,374 passing yards, but he completed less than 55 percent of his passes with 18 interceptions, more than Griffin (5) and Wilson (10) combined. Tannehill had a pretty typical rookie campaign, but Weeden was a bust in his first season, and given his advanced age (he's a year and a half older than Matt Ryan), he will need to improve radically in his second season to salvage his NFL career.
Bottom 5
1) Mark Sanchez, New York Jets: -663 DYAR (-611 passing DYAR, -52 rushing)
2) Ryan Lindley, Arizona Cardinals: -484 DYAR (-482 passing DYAR, -1 rushing)
3) Brady Quinn, Kansas City Chiefs: -446 DYAR (-442 passing DYAR, -4 rushing)
4) John Skelton, Arizona Cardinals: -325 DYAR (-323 passing DYAR, -2 rushing)
5) Matt Cassel, Kansas City Chiefs: -319 DYAR (-354 passing DYAR, 35 rushing)
Analysis: How bad was Sanchez? He was least valuable among quarterbacks in both passing and rushing value. You'd like to see quarterbacks improving in their fourth season, but Sanchez was worse than ever, and this is a passer who has never ranked higher than 20th at his position, and only once made the top 30. As for the others, well, it's the Chiefs and Cardinals, and they are every bit as bad as you've been led to believe. Skelton deserves special mention: He has now made the bottom six among quarterbacks for three seasons in a row. Obviously, Arizona is desperate for a passer, but it's painfully clear at this point that Skelton does not deserve a spot on an NFL roster.
Better than his standard statistics made him look: Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions
Stafford finished 22nd in passer rating, but 12th in DVOA. (Unlike DYAR, DVOA evaluates players on a per-play basis.) Sometimes these discrepancies can be difficult to explain, but sometimes they're simple: No quarterback faced a more challenging set of pass defenses this season than Stafford, and though passer rating does not account for that, DVOA does. Stafford threw an NFL record 727 passes this season, and 88 of them (more than 12 percent) came against the Chicago Bears, far and away the best defense in the league this year, especially against the pass. He also played the Seahawks, Cardinals, Rams, 49ers, Texans, and Packers (twice), meaning he played more than half his games against teams in the top 10 of Football Outsiders' pass defense ratings.
Worse than his standard statistics made him look: Robert Griffin, Washington Redskins
Griffin led the league in yards per pass with a higher completion rate and half as many interceptions as Wilson, which may have you wondering how on earth Wilson finished higher in our rankings. Strength of schedule is part of it. Wilson had to run the brutal gauntlet of NFC West defenses, while Griffin's schedule was somewhat easier than average. Without opponent adjustments, Griffin's DVOA was five points higher than Wilson's; with them, it was three points lower. Also, Griffin's yardage total was skewed by a small number of very big plays. Many of his completions were actually dink-and-dunk plays. All told, 27 percent of his completions failed to gain meaningful yardage towards a new set of downs. Of the 27 quarterbacks with at least 200 completions, only Jay Cutler, Brandon Weeden, and Christian Ponder had a higher share of dumpoffs and checkdowns.
[textarea]Most improved: Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams
One year ago we listed Bradford in the next section under "biggest decline," but he took many steps forward in his third season. He finished 16th in passing DYAR, after finishing 39th as a rookie and 43rd in 2011. Bradford averaged more yards and touchdowns per pass than he ever had before, and like Wilson, he had to play against the nasty defenses of the NFC West.[/textarea]
Biggest decline: Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers
Rivers ranked in the top 10 in passing DYAR in each of the past four seasons. This year, he was 22nd. He averaged only 6.8 yards per pass, a full yard below his career average, and that's only counting the plays where he was able to pass at all before hitting the turf. Rivers was sacked 49 times in 2012, 11 times more than he had been in any prior season.
