You're at the bar, you're having a drink and really enjoying yourself, and then it happens -- you hear the excruciating drone of a 49er fan at the other end of the bar extolling the virtues of the great Joe.
"Montana was the Best Quarterback Ever," fills your ears, even though the buffoon is yards away, and against what you know to be good common sense, you grab your beer and decide to engage him in what is sure to be dead-end dialogue.
"What makes Montana the best?" you ask, bracing yourself for the obvious answer.
The Whiner fan belches. "He won four Super Bowls, for crying out loud."
"So did Bradshaw with the Steelers ... why isn't he the best?" you ask.
"Montana won three Super Bowl MVPs," comes the reply.
"Football is a team game," you counter. "How can you dock Bradshaw just because someone else stepped it up for the Steelers? They were a great team."
The Whiner fan thinks for a moment -- you can see the gears turning in his head; in fact, you can even hear them spinning -- and then it comes.
"Well, Montana's rated higher on the Passer Rating System."
And there it is. The NFL passer rating system has become a tool for 49er fans worldwide in their quest to show the Joe was the Best Ever, and that Steve Young is right behind him, and that Steve Bono was the Best Third-String QB ever, and that Jeff Kemp and Matt Cavanaugh were pretty darned good too.
Well, we're here to tell you: it's all bunk.
The Passer Rating System, that is. We're not saying Montana wasn't good. Obviously his many accomplishments indicate that he was a highly skilled quarterback. So is Young. But the fact of the matter is, the Passer Rating System (PRS) is heavily slanted towards QBs with a high completion percentage, and both Montana and Young fit this bill. In actuality, the PRS is a woefully inadequate measuring stick for determining who is a great QB and who isn't.
Let us show you. Bear with us here -- it will all be worth your while in the end.
The PRS is determined by four different statistical categories: completion percentage, average gain per pass, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage. The numbers are then crunched through a formula and a final rating is spit out: a number between 0.0 (the worst passer in history) and 158.3, which is the highest possible rating. The theoretical average is supposed to be around 66.0, though most rate higher these days, and anything above 90.0 is supposed to be excellent. If you've exceeded 100, you've had an amazing year.
Over the past several years, 49er QBs have come out with some pretty gaudy ratings. Most NFL fans take the ratings numbers as gospel without looking behind the scenes. That's where we come in.
Think about it: we all know that the 49ers' "West Coast Offense" is a system based on short, high-percentage passes to move the ball down the field slowly but surely. The 49ers often use the swing pass to a running back in lieu of the actual handoff. Under the terms of the PRS, any completed pass to a RB is just as important as a 53-yard pass to a wide receiver.
If we really consider the issue, we realize that a completion, in and of itself, means nothing. The point of any offensive play is to move the ball down the field. However, in the current PRS, if Steve Young completes a swing pass to Adam Walker, and Walker loses two yards on the play (assuming he doesn't fumble the ball), Young still gets positive points in the rating system.
That's silly. What is even sillier is this scenario: let's say the 49ers are playing the Dolphins. On the 49ers' first drive, Steve Young completes three 3-yard slant passes to Jerry Rice, who miraculously is not able to break a tackle on any one of them. Therefore, the 49ers have to punt on fourth-and-one. The Dolphins get the ball and Dan Marino misses two long bombs, but on third down he completes a 48-yard toss to O.J. McDuffie. First down, Dolphins ...
...but stop the game and look at the passer ratings. Young, 3-3 for 9 yards, QB rating of 69. Marino, 1-3 for 48 yards (he's moved his team over FIVE TIMES as far as Young!), QB rating of 68.
Obviously this makes no sense. Completion percentage should have nothing to do with any QB rating system. What is mostly important is the average gain, and touchdown and interception percentage should be considered as well. The NFL Passer Rating System has a long way to go before it can be considered a true benchmark of quarterback excellence.
To illustrate: 49er QBs have long had good ratings -- not just the starters, but the backups as well. Not too long ago, there was one season in which Montana, Young and Bono all rated above 90.0 (the benchmark for greatness) in the same season for the 49ers. More recently, the much-maligned Elvis Grbac rated above 90 this year for the 49ers, and we can't find too many people putting him on a level with Elway, Aikman, Marino and the other greats. However, if you went solely by the PRS, Grbac belongs at that level.
The fact of the matter is, until a statistical system is created that can measure a quarterback's toughness, his scrambling ability, his aptitude at reading defenses, and how much the offensive line and receivers contribute to his success (how many times has Taylor or Rice taken a four-yard Montana pass, skirted a couple of inept tacklers and rambled 60 yards untouched?), we will never be able to truly rank quarterbacks. Sadly, the RAC (a receiver's Run After Catch) isn't considered in the ratings, because it would be statistically illuminating to see how many yards racked up by a QB can be attributed to events that happen after the catch.
Basically, however, this all goes to show that the Passer Rating System is quite flawed. So next time you hear some boorish Whiner fan talking about how great the Niner QBs are because they are at the top of the rankings, just smile and keep drinking your beer, safe in the knowledge that the Passer Rating System is about as useful as the 49ers' running game.
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http://www.49erhaters.com/prs.html -- Revised: May 5, 1996
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