Yesterday, Bill Barnwell of ESPN wrote an article asking whether the Detroit Lions should pay the going rate for franchise quarterbacks to retain Matthew Stafford when he hits free agency next year. It’s an interesting question.
In the article, one of the stats he used was Pro Football Reference’s indexing data, which compares quarterbacks to the league average in a number of stats:
- Completion percentage
- TD percentage (passing TD)/(passing attempts)
- Interception percentage (interceptions)/(passing attempts)
- Quarterback rating (the traditional one, not QBR)
- Sack percentage (times sacked)/(passing attempts + times sacked)
In addition to these five, they also track several yards per attempt numbers:
- Yards per attempt
- Adjusted yards per attempt (Passing Yards + 20 * Passing TD - 45 * Interceptions) / (Passes Attempted) — Note: counts TDs and interceptions, but not sacks
- Net yards per attempt (pass yards - sack yards)/(passing attempts + sacks) — Note: doesn’t count TDs or interceptions, but does count sacks.