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It is so amusing to see Sparty try desperately to relive the QB arguments of a decade ago.
Simple stats that don't tell anywhere close to the full picture of a QB's worth are cherry picked to fit a favorite narrative. Orson sucks. He has always sucked. This elevation of this mediocre second string level QB is as destructive as it is amusing.
Pick a few stats and say that Orton is a "top 10" QB.
He's not even close.
The Passer rating is not an accurate measure of a QB's contribution to wins or his consistent quality play. There is a metric that has been developed expressly to measure the true worth of a QB's play.
It's called Total QB Rating, or QBR. Here is an explanation of what it means...
Guide to the Total Quarter Back Rating
This seems like a very accurate and reliable metric. It has been in place since 2006, and looking at each regular season, it does indeed, measure the true and realistic performance level of the NFL QB.
Orton's 2014 rating?
At the bottom of the league....#26.
Interesting too is looking back at every year. Buffalo QB's have ALL sucked since then. All below average. Losman, Edwards, Fitzpatrick, EJ and now Orton have ALL been at the bottom of the league. Orton has NEVER risen higher than #15 (in Denver 2011).
Highest Buffalo QB since 2006? Fitz, #18, 50.5. Every single Buffalo QB in the bottom half of the league. Many, like Orton, are in the bottom 25% of the league.
If Orton raises himself according to this metric and rating system, I will gladly eat my words.
Orton sucks. Any attempt to over state his quality is nonsense. Is he better than EJ? Well, slightly.
Orton is #26 with a rating of 46.1. Last year, EJ was ranked #23 with a rating of 42.3.
Go ahead and entertain your dreams of Orton making the Bills better. I don't buy it, and his true rating reflect that reality.
Simple stats that don't tell anywhere close to the full picture of a QB's worth are cherry picked to fit a favorite narrative. Orson sucks. He has always sucked. This elevation of this mediocre second string level QB is as destructive as it is amusing.
Pick a few stats and say that Orton is a "top 10" QB.
He's not even close.
The Passer rating is not an accurate measure of a QB's contribution to wins or his consistent quality play. There is a metric that has been developed expressly to measure the true worth of a QB's play.
It's called Total QB Rating, or QBR. Here is an explanation of what it means...
Guide to the Total Quarter Back Rating
The Total Quarterback Rating is a statistical measure that incorporates the contexts and details of those throws and what they mean for wins. It's built from the team level down to the quarterback, where we understand first what each play means to the team, then give credit to the quarterback for what happened on that play based on what he contributed.
At the team level, identifying what wins games is not revolutionary: scoring points and not allowing points. Back in the 1980s, "The Hidden Game of Football" did some pioneering work on that topic and on how yardage relates to points. We went back and updated what that book did … then we went further. At the individual level, more detailed information about what quarterbacks do is really necessary. Brian Burke at AdvancedNFLStats.com has done very good work in advancing that effort, and FootballOutsiders.com has done some of this by charting data, but, for the past three years, ESPN has charted football games in immense detail. By putting all these ideas together and incorporating division of credit, we have built a metric of quarterback value, the Total Quarterback Rating, Total QBR or QBR for short.
What follows is a summary of what goes into QBR. It took several thousand lines of code to implement, but we'll keep this shorter.
...snip...
Total QBR Basics
A quick primer on the fundamentals of Total Quarterback Rating:
Scoring: 0-100, from low to high. An average QB would be at 50.
Win Probability: All QB plays are scored based on how much they contribute to a win. By determining expected point totals for almost any situation, Total QBR is able to apply points to a quarterback based on every type of play he would be involved in.
Dividing Credit: Total QBR factors in such things as overthrows, underthrows, yards after the catch and more to accurately determine how much a QB contributes to each play.
Clutch Index: How critical a certain play is based on when it happens in a game is factored into the score.
At the team level, identifying what wins games is not revolutionary: scoring points and not allowing points. Back in the 1980s, "The Hidden Game of Football" did some pioneering work on that topic and on how yardage relates to points. We went back and updated what that book did … then we went further. At the individual level, more detailed information about what quarterbacks do is really necessary. Brian Burke at AdvancedNFLStats.com has done very good work in advancing that effort, and FootballOutsiders.com has done some of this by charting data, but, for the past three years, ESPN has charted football games in immense detail. By putting all these ideas together and incorporating division of credit, we have built a metric of quarterback value, the Total Quarterback Rating, Total QBR or QBR for short.
What follows is a summary of what goes into QBR. It took several thousand lines of code to implement, but we'll keep this shorter.
...snip...
Total QBR Basics
A quick primer on the fundamentals of Total Quarterback Rating:
Scoring: 0-100, from low to high. An average QB would be at 50.
Win Probability: All QB plays are scored based on how much they contribute to a win. By determining expected point totals for almost any situation, Total QBR is able to apply points to a quarterback based on every type of play he would be involved in.
Dividing Credit: Total QBR factors in such things as overthrows, underthrows, yards after the catch and more to accurately determine how much a QB contributes to each play.
Clutch Index: How critical a certain play is based on when it happens in a game is factored into the score.
Orton's 2014 rating?
At the bottom of the league....#26.
Interesting too is looking back at every year. Buffalo QB's have ALL sucked since then. All below average. Losman, Edwards, Fitzpatrick, EJ and now Orton have ALL been at the bottom of the league. Orton has NEVER risen higher than #15 (in Denver 2011).
Highest Buffalo QB since 2006? Fitz, #18, 50.5. Every single Buffalo QB in the bottom half of the league. Many, like Orton, are in the bottom 25% of the league.
If Orton raises himself according to this metric and rating system, I will gladly eat my words.
Orton sucks. Any attempt to over state his quality is nonsense. Is he better than EJ? Well, slightly.
Orton is #26 with a rating of 46.1. Last year, EJ was ranked #23 with a rating of 42.3.
Go ahead and entertain your dreams of Orton making the Bills better. I don't buy it, and his true rating reflect that reality.
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