SB Nation User Blog: Cow of Pain

Cassel vs. Thigpen

Cow of Pain — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:33:04 -0000

For another forum I made a stats-based comparison of Cassel and Thigpen, which I thougt you might enjoy here. Basically the conclusion is that based on last years stats, Cassel really isn't any improvement, but probably not worse either. Obviously with having taken over his franchise tag, the new contract makes sense, but whether it was a good idea to get him in the first place remains to be seen.

Disclaimer: I am a Colts fan. As a Dane I've liked the Chiefs ever since Morten Andersen played there, though, so this is in no way meant as Chiefs bashing.

First up the basic stats:

Cassel: 3693 yards, 21 TD's, 11 ints, completion % 63.4

Thigpen: 2603 yards, 18 TD's, 12 ints,completion % 54.8

So far Cassel looks a lot better. Now let's disect those stats.

First up yardage: Matt Cassel was league leader in YAC percentage with 57. That is more than half his yards were after the catch. Thigpen had a YAC percentage of only 42. If we take away YAC, Cassel is down to 1577, while Thigpen has 1507. If we further take away sack yardage, Cassel is at 1358 and Thigpen 1345.

Touchdowns: Nothing to say there. Cassel had more.

Interceptions: Thigpen had more interceptions in fewer games. However Cassel got sacked a lot more than Thigpen and lost 5 fumbles, whereas Thigpen only lost 2. So in total turnovers Cassel actually has 2 more.

Completion percentage: Cassel's best stat compared to Thigpen. However a slight modification is still in place here. Many incompletions occur because the ball is thrown away to avoid a sack, and so if we should look at completion/(pass+sack), giving Cassel a percentage of 58.0 and Thigpen 51.6.

Now let's finally look at the adjusted stats per passing down:

Cassel: 2.4 yards, 0.58 completion, 0.037 TD, 0.030 turnover

Thigpen: 3.0 yards, 0.516 completion, 0.040 TD, 0.034 turnover

Basically it's quite even. Thigpen takes more chances, but that is probably mostly because of the system.

QB overrate index (well, almost)

Cow of Pain — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:12:50 -0000

Inspired by shake n bake's look at ANAY/A as a measure of actual QB efficiency, I decided it would be interesting to look at something in the opposite end of the spectrum, namely how much of a QB's production is due to YAC production by the recievers, rather than the QB's own throwing ability.

The result can, in a way, be viewed as a measure of how overrated a QB is. If a large amount of the production is due to YAC, rather than air yards, the QB will most likely look better than he actually is. However some systems are heavy on short passes and YAC production, whereas others are more vertical, and so this should not be considered the final say.

In the table below I have YAC, total yards (TY), the quotient, and percentage above average (PAA) for this quotient. So if someone (say, Matt Cassel...) has a PAA of 25, that means the part of his TY accounted for by YAC is more than one fourth more than what could be expected from an average passing offence.

QB	YAC	TY	YAC/TY	PAA
Cassel	2116	3693	0,57	25,5
O'Sullivan	887	1678	0,53	15,8
Campbell	1686	3245	0,52	13,8
Favre	1779	3472	0,51	12,2
Losman	294	584	0,5	10,3
Wallace	755	1532	0,49	8
Bulger	1336	2720	0,49	7,6
Palmer	358	731	0,49	7,3
Orton	1450	2972	0,49	6,9
Collins	1292	2676	0,48	5,8
Schaub	1470	3043	0,48	5,8
Flacco	1433	2971	0,48	5,7
Jackson	502	1056	0,48	4,1
Frerotte	1023	2157	0,47	3,9
Warner	2173	4583	0,47	3,9
Brees	2398	5069	0,47	3,6
Russell	1143	2423	0,47	3,3
Edwards	1266	2699	0,47	2,7
Rosenfels	664	1431	0,46	1,6
McNabb	1805	3916	0,46	1
Garcia	1248	2712	0,46	0,8
Rivers	1840	4009	0,46	0,5
Romo	1578	3448	0,46	0,3
Griese	488	1073	0,45	-0,4
Anderson	724	1615	0,45	-1,8
Fitzpatrick	848	1905	0,45	-2,5
Quinn	230	518	0,44	-2,7
Hill	895	2046	0,44	-4,2
Pennington	1546	3653	0,42	-7,3
Thigpen	1101	2608	0,42	-7,5
Cutler	1881	4526	0,42	-9
Roethlisberger	1368	3301	0,41	-9,2
Garrard	1494	3620	0,41	-9,6
Ryan	1404	3440	0,41	-10,6
Manning, P	1627	4002	0,41	-10,9
Rodgers	1652	4083	0,4	-11,4
Orlovsky	652	1616	0,4	-11,6
Delhomme	1269	3288	0,39	-15,5
Manning, E	1220	3238	0,38	-17,5
Hasselbeck	451	1216	0,37	-18,8

The conclusion seems to be that Matt Cassel indeed - as most of us probably expected - is way overrated, while Manning (choose one) is actually a better QB than his stats claim. Oh, and the Seahawks had no WR's worth anything.

Now as I suggested, it could easily be claimed that Cassel plays in a system heavy on the YAC, and that this is the only reason his YAC/TY is so high. However the system is the same system in which Tom Brady last year had a YAC/TY quotient of .42, which would have placed him in the bottom third this year.

Manning vs. Brady - on the same team

Cow of Pain — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:46:50 -0000

When comparing Manning and Brady (as many seem to enjoy doing these days) you often come across the problem that they are playing for different teams, with different coaches, and that kind of makes it difficult to actually saying anything. However at one occasion they did play for the exact same team. At the 2005 Pro Bowl (following the 2004 season, that is), both Manning and Brady played (at two other Pro Bowls they were both selected, but only Manning actually attended) for the AFC team. So this should be the best basis for any comparison.

Now for the actual stats. Brady completed 4 of 9 passes for 48 yards and an interception. That's a rating of a whopping 21.8. At the same time Manning completed 6 of 10 for 130 yards and 3 touchdowns (yes, that's a touchdown for every 2 completions). His rating was 143.8, and he was the game MVP.