Sacks Have No Affect On A QBs Performance: A Statistical Correlation Between S/100 and a QB's Numbers

So I actually did some actual analysis. I've done posts in past showing you loyal viewers what seems to be a strong correlation between how many times a QB gets sacked per every 100 passing attempts and stats like YPA, TD/INT ratio, Completion Percentage, and Passer Rating. However, I actually did a scatter plot to determine what the exact correlation is between S/100 and these stats. First, I decided to study Brett Favre's career. I did this because I thought I would try to leave as many variables out as possible. Brett Favre is a great talent and he's had consistency throughout his entire career. He's also had a great sample size throughout his entire career which makes him, from a quantitative perspective, a great study. So if I wanted to study one individual player to help me with my study, I figured Favre was the best option. So here's data on how S/100 affected Favre's YPA, Comp%, TD/INT ratio, and Passer Rating:



Unfortunately, the correlation is essentially negligible between S/100 and all those stats. The R2 between S/100 and YPA is .002; between S/100 and Comp% is .0008; between S/100 and Passer Rating is .018; and between S/100 and TD/INT ratio is .018. Correlation is between -1 and +1 and is the correlation is 0, that means there is no correlation whatsoever. Very rarely will any number be exactly zero, but the closer the correlation equals zero, the less likely the correlation exists. These numbers are so small, that is laments terms, by looking at Favre's numbers, there is no correlation between S/100 and a QB's performance.

But then I did a quick analysis on Jay Cutler's short career and the numbers looked somewhat different.



Again, there is very little correlation between S/100 and YPA and Passer Rating; however, there is a very strong correlation between S/100 and Comp% and Passer Rating. The R2 for Comp% is very strong for Cutler, being .453 and for TD/INT ratio being .225. There is a strong correlation for Comp% and a slightly strong correlation for TD/INT ratio.

I figured then that maybe studying Favre solely isn't the best idea. Maybe my initial approach was wrong? I want to study the correlation for how S/100 affect ALL QBs, and by just studying one, maybe isn't the best. Maybe one individual QB isn't the best way to determine how often a QB gets sacked affects every other QB. Maybe one QB is better than another when getting sacked. So I decided to look at all QBs last year that had a minimum of 415 passing attempts to see how S/100 affects a QBs performance. This gave me 21 QBs ranging from the great Peyton Manning and Phillips Rivers to the crappy Kerry Collins and Marc Bulger. Here's what I found:



Again, I was disappointed. The R2 between S/100 and YPA is .125; between S/100 and Comp% is .049; between S/100 and Passer Rating is .162; and S/100 and TD/INT ratio is .172. The correlation is slightly stronger when analyzing all QBs as opposed to one, but the correlation is still fairly weak and essentially non-existent.

However, this research is not a total waste of time. Yes, overall, how often a QB gets sacked bears no relevance on how he performs. But that doesn't hold true on every individual QB. Some QBs, like Favre, it does not matter, and even on guys like Aaron Rodgers who gets sacked like crazy. However, on certain guys like Cutler, S/100 does not matter. And sometimes S/100 can show you how crappy certain guys are. Last year, Kerry Collins (min 415 attempts) had the 2nd least S/100, yet put up mediocre to awful numbers. So as a whole, S/100 shows no relevance, but on individual QBs, it may make a difference.

Who Is The Best AFC QB?

Based upon the best statistic ever (hmm, sarcasism don't translate well on a blog) sacks per 100 passing attempts, I've decided to do a brief analysis of the great AFC QBs preemptively for my new poll.

S/100
Big Ben: 8.72
Philip Rivers: 6.23
Matt Schaub: 5.21
Tom Brady: 3.56
Peyton Manning: 2.06

YPA
Big Ben: 8.33
Peyton Manning: 8.17
Philip Rivers: 8.17
Matt Schaub: 8.10
Tom Brady: 7.76

Completion Percentage
Peyton Manning: 69.8
Big Ben: 68.9
Matt Schaub: 67.1
Tom Brady: 66.4
Philip Rivers: 63.2

Passer Rating:
Peyton Manning: 102.7
Tom Brady: 100.4
Matt Schaub: 98.9
Philip Rivers: 98.7
Big Ben: 98.6

TD/INT ratio:
Tom Brady: 3.33
Petyton Manning: 2.33
Philip Rivers: 2.83
Matt Schaub: 2.11
Big Ben: 1.70

So who is the best AFC QB? I don't think this one is clear. Peyton clearly takes advantage of his superior O-line but does the increase in sacks make guys like Rivers and Roethlisberger better than Manning? I don't know. But please, when you vote, take sacks and O-line into account.

How Do Sacks Affect a QBs Performance?

Here's some data I did from a recent post of how Matt Cassel, Jay Cutler, and Kyle Orton have performed on new team with a new offensive line. I talked about the reason for the poor/better performance of these players is because of the new offensive line these players had. Now I would love to to a full on regression analysis/ correlation chart to prove truly how QB performance is based upon the O-line. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the knowhow. However, I thought I'd do some more analysis of players that have switched teams to see if my data still holds a little bit of water. I decided to do analysis on Brett Favre (both this year and last year), Chad Pennington (two years ago he was on the Jets and last year he was on the Dolphins), and Aaron Rodgers (Yes, he's been a Packer both years but is O-line is drastically different this year/ my outlier to again to show how awesome Rodgers is this year).
NOTE: S/100 = how many times the QB has been sacked per every 100 passing attempts and the (+/-) equals how often or how little the QB was sacked per every 100 attempts compared to the previous year. i.e. +2.00 S/100 means that that QB was sacked 2 more times this year than he was in the previous year per 100 passing attempts.

So here's what I did earlier:

Cassel (2009/2008)(+2.66 S/100)
YPA: -1.2
Completion Percentage: -8.4
Passer Rating: -11.5
TD/INT ratio: +.09

Cutler (2009/ 2008)(+1.79 S/100)
YPA: -0.7
Completion Percentage: -0.6
Passer Rating: -11.5
TD/INT ratio: -0.56

Orton (2009/2008)(-1.41 S/100)
YPA: +0.6
Completion Percentage: +3.5
Passer Rating: +8.2
TD/INT ratio: +0.7

And some my new data:

Brett Favre (2008/2007) (+2.94 S/100)
YPA: -1.1
Completion Percentage: -0.8
Passer Rating: -14.7
TD/INT ratio: -0.87

Brett Favre (2009/2008) (-1.03 S/100)
YPA: +1.3
Completion Percentage: +4.0
Passer Rating: +31.1
TD/INT ratio: +6.0

Chad Pennington (2008/2006) (-1.14 S/100)
Pennington only had 260 passing attempts in 2007. He had 450+ in '06
YPA: +0.8
Completion Percentage: +2.9
Passer Rating: +14.8
TD/INT ratio: +1.65

Aaron Rodgers (2009/2008) (+6.27 S/100)
YPA: +0.7
Completion Percentage: +1.2
Passer Rating: +8.8
TD/INT ratio: +1.65

Analysis:
Take out Aaron Rodgers for a moment and what do you consistently notice? When a QB moves to a new team a thus gets sacked more, his major stats go down. When he moves to a new team and he gets sacked less, his major stats go up (the exception being Matt Cassel and his TD/INT ratio). I think this should come as no big surprise. When a QB is getting sacked more, that means the O-line is allowing more defenders to break penetration and getting to the QB more. And when the defense is getting to the QB more often, it makes the QBs job tougher and makes it harder for the QB to complete throws. This is a simple aspect of the game. Defenses tend to be better when they can get to the QB and offenses tend to be better when the O-line has great pass protection. This again just reinforces the extreme importance of an offensive line and how overrated people make out the QB position to be.

Now we move to Aaron Rodgers. He's not only one of the best QBs in the league right now, he's doing it with an AWFUL O-line. I mean they've been dreadful. Yes, they're injured, but awful nonetheless. Yes, despite this and in the face if statistical data, Rodgers puts up great numbers. Look at his S/100 spike. Out of the seven players, no spike has gone above or below 3.00. Yes, Rodgers S/100 has taken a huge hit this year; he's getting sacked over 12 times per every 100 passing attempt and is getting sacked over six times more per every 100 passing attempt than he was last year. But he's STILL improved. I don't think people realize what an amazing feat this is! (as shown by my crude poll ranking NFC QBs, I was the only one to vote for Rodgers).

So when you go talking trash about your QB, please take a look at his O-line before you judge.

Sacks Per 100 Pass Attempts

Unlike the funny Grindiness Per Nine Inning (G/9), I have started using a real statistic. In my extremely recent post analyzing QB that have recently gone to new teams, I started using sacks per 100 pass attempts (S/100) to help me analyze how offensive lines affect QBs on different. Now I admit this is nothing groundbreaking or earth shattering by any stretch of the imagination, but I still feel like this is a useful stat, especially when analyzing QBs who go to different teams. FootballOutsiders does something similar like this when they analyze offensive lines, but I'm applying this to individual QBs. Also, if a stat like this already exists, please tell me so I can delete this post. Thank You.

How Are Cutler, Orton, and Cassel Doing On Their New Teams?

I was watching the video TBO posted where Cutler says "you know" more times than Joe Morgan says something dumb. It got me thinking, the whole reason the Bears got Jay Cutler was because Josh McDaniels was actively seeking to get Matt Cassel in a trade. The Broncos, Chiefs, and Redskins among others also were actively seeking to get Cassel. The Chiefs did end up getting Cassel, but 10 games into the regular season you think to yourself, was it really worth it? Do teams really want Cassel?

Last year, Cassel Randy Moss and Wes Welker to throw to as well as a great O-line. So you knew his numbers were skewed a bit. Even still, Cassel was never that efficient ranking 17th in DYAR and 12th in DVOA. Those who liked him because of his fantasy football production also were misled the same way we were misled my liking Tyler Thigpen- Cassel was able to run the ball pretty well (again, helped by the Pats O-line). Cassel was 10th in passer rating, 10th in YPG, and 15th in YPA with a 1.91 TD/INT ratio. So how's Cassel doing this year?

To start off with, the Chiefs have an awful O-line ranking 27th in pass blocking (and as any Bears fan can tell you now, it's hard as hell for a QB to throw the ball with an awful line) and Dwayne Bowe and um, uh, whoever the Chiefs #2 receiver was before Chambers arrived are much much much worse than Moss and Welker. However, Cassel still took a 11.5 hit in passer rating, 1.2 YPA hit, and is completing 8.4% less passes. Yet despite this, his TD/INT ratio has gone up .09 points.

Normally, I would think that maybe I would start talking about how shitty Cassel is, but I think looking at Kyle Orton and Jay Cutler from this year to last year is a great example of just how important a line and receiving corps can be.

Jay Cutler went for playing for a team that ranked 4th in pass blocking to a team that now ranks 15th (and I think this is an example where stats can lie b/c I feel Cutler being able to scramble and throws the ball before he gets sacked screws this number because no way in hell the Bears are only middle of the pack in pass blocking). Anyway, Cutler is going from a great line to a shitty one. He's going from a 1.39 TD/INT ratio to a .833 ratio. He took a .56 hit in TD/INT ratio, 11.5 hit in passer rating, a .70 hit in YPA (and to put this into perspective, he has a 7.3, 7.5, and 7.3 YPA in Denver. He's down to 6.6 this year), but only a slight hit in completion percentage. .

Compare this now to Kyle Orton who went from a shitty situation to a better one. Last year the Bears ranked 11th in pass blocking and this year the Broncos rank 7th (again, a slight situation where numbers lie because football outsiders rank pass blocking by sacks and Orton also does a fine job alluding sacks). Trust me, I've actually watched football, Orton is in a much better situation and this shows in his numbers. He has increased his passer rating 8.2 points, his YPA by 0.6, is now completing 3.5% more passes, and has increased his TD/INT ratio by 0.7 percent.

Last year Cutler was sacked only 20 times. This year, he's already been sacked 20. Last year Cutler got sacked 1.79 times for every 100 times he's thrown the ball. This year, he's getting sacked a whooping 5.26 times every times per every 100 pass attempt. Compare this to Orton. Last year Orton was sacked 27 times. This year he's only gotten sacked 14. Orton got sacked 5.81 times per every 100 attempts. This year he's getting sacked 4.4 times per every 100 attempts.

I think this Orton/Cutler trade just goes to show you how important a line can be. So with this in mind, let's look to see how sacks per every 100 attempt has affected each players numbers.

Cassel (+2.66 sacks per 100 attempts)
YPA: -1.2
Completion Percentage: -8.4
Passer Rating: -11.5
TD/INT ratio: +.09

Cutler (+1.79 sacks per game)
YPA: -0.7
Completion Percentage: -0.6
Passer Rating: -11.5
TD/INT ratio: -0.56

Orton (-1.41 sacks per 100 attempts)
YPA: +0.6
Completion Percentage: +3.5
Passer Rating: +8.2
TD/INT ratio: +0.7

Statistically speaking, these numbers are pretty close to each other. The sacks per 100 attempts are vastly different, yet the numbers below seem pretty darn close. The most discernible effect S/100 (sacks per 100 pass attempts) seems to have is on YPA. The more a QB has gotten sacked, the more his YPA is hurt.

Obviously, analyzing three players over 1.5 seasons is absolutely not enough to determine 100% conclusive data. But it certainly just reinforces the point that offensive lines are so important to a team.

So to answer my original question, how are the Chiefs liking this Matt Cassel trade now? Maybe if they put a good team around him Cassel would succeed. And to the point that McDaniels was actively trying to trade for Cassel? He should have kept his big mouth shut because his O-line is good enough for any QB whether it be Cassel or Cutler or Orton. However, as a Bears fan, I'm happy as hell McDaniels is dumb.