QB who can pass to victory - a myth?

oldmanfan · November 13, 2019

8 minutes ago, Jerome007 said:

A great offensive line makes both suddenly look way better. A lot of pieces matter in the puzzle. Yet all teams have string and weak points. Good coaches adjust to their own and their opponents'. Once in a while, a team is stacked at some positions, but even then, it's most often close fights, and Any Given Sunday applies.

Well stated

dubs · November 13, 2019

3 hours ago, MAJBobby said:

you mean a 30 ranked run defense that was playing cover 1 all game to stop the run?

this is what saw time after time. Single high safety, tight bump off the LOS. That just screams go deep, which we couldn’t hit.

SinceThe70s · November 13, 2019

On 11/2/2019 at 5:59 PM, SinceThe70s said:

I thought it would be interesting to extend this to rushing yards. I didn't bother with points scored - because the easiest way I found to get the wins/losses didn't include it. I'm not sure why you got 55% for 300+ whereas I got around 54%, but close enough. Also, there are only 256 games in a regular season so I'm not sure where you came up with 2370 games over 4 1/2 years. My total games (without ties) came to 1141. I also used more granular intervals to see if there were trends: 25 for rushing and 40 for passing.

It appears to me that there's a more direct correlation between rushing yards and winning than passing yards and winning. Whether this is cause or effect is either debatable or beyond my ability to determine through stats. Anyway, what jumps out for me is that the winning percentage for passing yards plateaus and even at the 240-280 range for passing yards the percentage is favorable. So far this year the Bills average 215 passing yards and 130 rushing yards per game which puts them at 51% and 66% on the passing and rushing chart below respectively. They're actual winning percentage is 71%. Here's the data I pulled using the same site:

Rushing Yds W L Win % Passing Yds W L Win %
>275 10 0 100% >440 10 10 50%
250-275 19 2 90% 400-440 17 14 55%
225-250 30 6 83% 360-400 43 40 52%
200-225 45 10 82% 320-360 106 89 54%
175-200 92 31 75% 280-320 178 153 54%
150-175 153 64 71% 240-280 223 191 54%
125-150 203 104 66% 200-240 230 225 51%
100-125 239 211 53% 160-200 190 209 48%
75-100 208 280 43% 120-160 98 129 43%
50-75 107 272 28% 80-120 40 54 43%
25-50 32 141 18% 40-80 6 24 20%
0-25 3 20 13% 0-40 0 3 0%

3 hours ago, MAJBobby said:

What is a better game in terms of trying to get to points often?

a RB going for 120

or a QB going for 320

Disclosure: I'll admit that quoting myself is bad form AND I'm not clear on your 'better game' criteria. To me a better game is winning. Caveats out of the way:

In another thread I pulled the stats above which to me shows a clear correlation between winning and rushing yards and a not so clear correlation between winning and passing yards.

The stats above would suggest that a RB going for 120 is comparable to a a QB throwing for 320. However, make it 125 on the ground and things look differently. Make it 400 in the air and nothing changes.

Hapless Bills Fan · November 13, 2019

1 hour ago, dubs said:

this is what saw time after time. Single high safety, tight bump off the LOS. That just screams go deep, which we couldn’t hit.

It does. But an OC has to adjust to the strengths and limitations of his actual Jimmies and Joes.

7 minutes ago, SinceThe70s said:

Disclosure: I'll admit that quoting myself is bad form AND I'm not clear on your 'better game' criteria. To me a better game is winning. Caveats out of the way:

In another thread I pulled the stats above which to me shows a clear correlation between winning and rushing yards and a not so clear correlation between winning and passing yards.

The stats above would suggest that a RB going for 120 is comparable to a a QB throwing for 320. However, make it 125 on the ground and things look differently. Make it 400 in the air and nothing changes.

I'm glad you quoted yourself. Wish you added the link. That looks like interesting stuff. Mango's thread, is it?
Fundamentally, it confirms something I found empirically when I was rummaging around with QB quality vs draft position: that a QB has to generate around 220 ypg to be a guy the team can win with consistently (your brackets are 200-240/240-260 - so somewhere between 200-260). But then more yards don't really correlate with more wins. Interesting.

Search function...*rummage rummage*

(you can click on the posting date under your screen name to get the direct link to the post, FYI)

Reed83HOF · November 13, 2019

4 hours ago, Augie said:

Down 3 TD’s in the second half? Or down more like, 3-6 points with plenty of time left in the game?

Your “end thread” doesn’t even make sense.

.

OK boomer

Not really and I agree, just wanted to try that out :nana:

4 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

The one that lets you move the ball and score points?

You must know that's a false dichotomy. No one is saying it should be all run. But I found it very interesting that the results were so poor when the QB is passing the majority of the plays.

Not a lot of great QBs and great QB play LOL

You can go back to Marino, if he had a balanced running game - they would have been a lot tougher

Reed83HOF · November 13, 2019

4 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I don't find this too surprising.

I think most fans are selective listeners. They are overly impressed by - and remember - when Rodgers or Wilson or Mahomes has some monster game, like 32 for 42, 410 yards and 4 TDs, but they forget all the times when the broadcasters tell us that Ryan was 33 for 48 for 380 yards in a losing effort. Most of the games, as your analysis makes clear, that QBs are throwing the ball a lot, the QB is trying to come from behind. He may be posting big numbers, but he's posting them chasing the lead.

Granted, it's become more of a passing league, but even so, if you pass too much, your offense becomes predictable and easier to stop. There's always been a very simple formula: If your opponent can run and can't pass, you put 8 in the box and stop the run. That's what Seattle did last night. If your opponent can pass but can't run, you rush 3 and drop 8 into a zone. You may give up yardage in the middle of the field, but your opponent will struggle in the red zone, and you'll get the occasional coverage sack.

The offensive theory that has the best sustained success (and it's the theory that McDermott often talks about) is forcing the defense to defend the entire field.   Eight in the box only defends the line of scrimmage, because the defense knows it doesn't have to defend downfield. Rush 3 drop 8 defends downfield and disregards the LOS. Only by having an offense that can attack everywhere, vertically and horizontally, can you force the defense to defend the entire field. That spreads out the defense and creates gaps you can attack. Even better, if you can run effectively, you get the benefit of play action, which creates momentary gaps you can attack.

People misinterpret HOW the NFL has become a passing league. It's not so much that teams are passing MORE. It's that teams are MORE EFFECTIVE passing. In the 50s, the measure of a good QB was if he could complete 50% of his passes. Now a good QB is completing 65%. - 14 QBS are over 65% this season, and 3 are over 70% The announcers always tell you when a QB is on a run - he has 8 or 10 or 12 completions in a row. That never happened in earlier eras. When you complete a higher percentage of passes, your yards per attempt go up. As has become clear, if you can get 8 yards per attempt passing and 4 yards per rush, passing becomes very attractive. But the REASON you can get 8 yards per attempt is because you force the defense to respect the run, which gives you one on one matchups and allows you to create openings with play action. Once you stop running, the defense can play more zone and can ignore the play action, completions go down, and yards per attempt go down. And that's what happens to most QBs chasing a lead in the second half. They pass more, the defense sits on the pass, yards per attempt go down, and the QB loses.

That's exactly why the people here who are complaining about the run-pass ratio against the Browns are right. As we saw with Allen, when pass attempts go up, completion percentage generally goes down, and once that happens yards per attempt drop and drives stall. You have to be able to run. Either the Bills can't because the line still isn't good enough, or they won't, which is bad coaching. I think it's the line. We need to remember that the Bills couldn't run at all last season, except for the fact that Allen was on the move so much. This year the Bills are prudently limiting Allen's rushing attempts, and they're having trouble getting consistent yardage on the ground. We all got excited about the free agent acquisitions and Ford, but other than Morse, none of the newcomers had had any great success in the NFL.

I'm always using Belichick as an example, because he does so much right. His philosophy is that his teams will be able to do everything. They'll run inside, run outside, play a possession passing game and play a deep passing game. A reporter asked him once what style he prefers to play. Belichick looked at the guy like he was idiot, paused, and said "we like to play the style that wins the game we're playing." The lesson for Daboll and Allen is simple: If the Browns are going to blitz a lot, you have to have the plays to counter the blitz and have to make the reads and make the plays. Some of those plays are going to be running plays that attack the gaps the blitzing linebackers have abandoned. Allen has to check into those plays, and he has to execute them.

Best post I have seen here in awhile!

Thurman#1 · November 13, 2019

I'm

6 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

There's a lot of talk about needing to find a QB who can win the game with his arm.

Now some would say I'm a football Australopithecine. I love to watch a good defensive battle. And I think nothing helps a young QB more than the knowldge his team can get a first down with their feet any time. I think a balanced run-pass attack is critical for most QB's success. But I'm told I should get with the era of Modern Football where passing must predominate.

Being a simple Hapless Fan, it occurred to me to ask a simple question: What is the W-L outcome, actually, when a team's QB passes for most of the plays in a game?

I'll put the bottom line right up front here, then give you the details: 62% of the time, You Lose. 2% of the time, you Tie.

Smoke That, Sports Fans: When the QB is slinging the rock a lot, almost 2/3 of the time your team ain't gonna win.

Now I know what some of you are probably thinking. If I looked at most of the QB in the league, maybe that skewed the data. The top passers win more, the bottom passers lose more. But that isn't what I saw. It was pretty consistent through ALL the QB. Exceptions were Mr GOAT Tom Brady (7W, 1L). Other exceptions who won 2x as much as they lost were Aaron Rodgers, Russ Wilson, Drew Brees. Limited data on some positive newbies who won more than L but didn't have many high passing attempt games were Josh Allen, Jacoby Brisset, Mason Rudolph and Desean Watson. Mahomes and LJax even split.

So, Cro Magnon Football Fans: the Australopithecine here wants to raise the question, is the QB who can carry the team to victory with a blistering passing attack a myth? There seem to be about 4 of 'em in the league right now.

OK, here's what I done:

Criterion: The league average #plays per PFR is 63. So I defined "most of the plays" as "more than half" and chose >= 55% of the ave. # of plays as my cutoff. That is 35 or more passes per game.

Method: I looked at the top 34 QB based on passing attempts as of Week 10, then excluded the best (Tom Brady, 7-1) and the worst (Andy Dalton, 0-8) [that's a common statistical practice, to prevent outliers from skewing the data set]. I used the QB game stats in Pro Football Reference, sorted by pass attempts, and tallyed W-L-T. Total games were 105.

Didn't want to read through the whole thread. And I assume somebody already said this, but maybe it's worth repeating.

Most QBs who throw a lot do so because their team is already well behind. So of course you're going to see most QBs who throw a lot lose. And teams that are well ahead are going to want to burn time so they will run more.

So the problem isn't that teams that pass a lot lose. It's that teams that are losing pass a lot.

It would be interesting (but a squatload of work) to look at win-loss records of teams with QBs who throw a high percentage of the time without being, for example, more than six points behind. I suspect that win-loss record would be a ton better.