Brett Favre Vs. Aaron Rodgers: A Statistical Comparison

by 2Slick on Oct 29, 2008 7:05 PM CDT Comment 11 comments

I would like to talk about Aaron Rodgers' incredible performance under difficult circumstances.

His numbers so far this season: 145-221 (.656), 1668 yards, 12 TDs, 4 interceptions; his passer rating based on these numbers is 98.8. The aspects of his play that do not fall under passer rating include being sacked 13 times for 79 yards while rushing 30 times for 113 yards with three TDs and two fumbles lost.

Thus, he has accounted for 1702 yards in 264 plays (6.4 average), with 15 TDs and six turnovers.

So far this season, in the same number of games, Favre is 161-235 (.685), 1611 yards, 15 TDs, 11 interceptions; his passer rating based on this is only 89.5. He also has been sacked 16 times for 126 yards, with 11 rushes for 16 yards and two fumbles lost.

This means he has accounted for 1501 yards on 262 plays (5.7 average), with 15 TDs and 13 turnovers.

In other words, overall Rodgers has 67 more passing yards and seven fewer interceptions on 14 fewer pass attempts; Favre does have three more touchdowns. However, including what Rodgers can do with his feet, he has 201 more yards on two more plays and is averaging 0.7 yards more per play, with the same number of touchdowns and less than half the turnovers.

Through this point last season, Favre was 181-274 (.661), 2046 yards, 11 TDs, 6 interceptions (92.5 rating), with 12 sacks for 79 yards and 14 rushes for -2 yards to go with two fumbles lost. Thus, in 300 plays, he had accounted for 1965 yards (6.6 average), with 11 TDs and eight turnovers.

That means Rodgers has 36 fewer completions and 378 fewer yards but one more touchdown, with two fewer interceptions on 53 fewer attempts, but including other production, he had 263 fewer yards on 36 fewer plays (average 0.15 lower per play), but four more touchdowns and two fewer turnovers.

Finally, let’s look at how Rodgers’ numbers compare through the first 14 games of his career to Favre's. Rodgers is 180-280 (.643), 1997 yards, 13 TDs, and five interceptions (94.3 rating), with 41 rushes for 160 yards with three TDs but 22 sacks totaling 149 yards and three fumbles. Thus, in 343 plays, he has accounted for 2008 yards (5.9/play), 16 TDs, and eight turnovers.

Meanwhile, Favre was 246-387 for 2697 yards, 15 TDs, and 10 interceptions (86.2); he was sacked 26 times for 181 yards and ran 38 times for 160 yards and one TD, with three fumbles. Thus, in 451 plays, he generated 2676 yards (5.9/play—in the interest of full disclosure, this is actually almost 0.08 higher average if carried to another decimal point), with 16 TDs and 13 turnovers.

Thus, Rodgers did account for 700 fewer yards and two fewer TDs, but also five fewer interceptions in 107 fewer attempts. And when you factor in the rest of his production, he accounted for only 668 fewer yards on 108 fewer plays but managed the same number of touchdowns while committing five fewer turnovers.

Note also that Brett did not have to follow a legend. Even the popular player he did follow (Don Majkowski) was hurt, not traded away to make room for him.

No one put the kind of expectations on him that have been put on Rodgers, and he did not have to deal with fans hating on him like they are on Rodgers. Yet Rodgers has clearly outperformed Favre through this point in his career, through this point last season, and even through this point this season.

Whenever I write anything in support of Rodgers, or suggest we made the right move in letting Brett go, I get a plethora of haters who dump on me and accuse me of ignoring Favre’s accomplishments.

So let me make one thing clear: Brett Favre is clearly the greatest Packers quarterback of all-time. He may be the greatest quarterback in NFL history. This does not mean that Rodgers cannot be better eventually, nor that he is not better right now.

But some fans pine after Brett, ignoring all the evidence given that this may be the case. Some are even irrational enough to deify Brett and believe his stories over the organization’sand media reports, which are consistent with each other, at every turn.

I hope these people never sit on juries, ignoring all witnesses whose stories matchup if they judge and accomplished suspect. I can separate Brett the player from Brett the man.

0 recs | Comment 11 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Excellent post

The greatness of Favre on the field cannot be debated, but this does show that while whether or not people want to complain that they feel Favre should be here as our QB, they simply cannot use Rodgers play this year as a reason to prove that. I wondered when the suggestion of an open QB competition came up if it was possible that Rodgers could actually beat out Favre fair and square. Rodgers has shown at least one thing this year, if he had entered a QB competition with Favre there is no way anyone could say that his play demonstrated he wasn’t ready to play now.

Great work 2Slick! Very well done.

Frye is honestly gotta be one of the top 10 3rd Stringers in all of the NFL right now--colbyb

by verno329 on Oct 29, 2008 8:43 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I agree, great post.

I am with you 100% in the Aaron Rodgers support club and I have been since the 2008 Favre drama started.

There are always gonna be the fans that would still take Brett over Rodgers even after seeing what Rodgers can do. Thats their opinion and no amount of facts, logic or reasoning will get them to change.

by juggernaut400 on Oct 29, 2008 9:02 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Favre lover approaching...

I wanted Favre back in 2008, but I never doubted that Rodgers would be good, or that if the team did take a step back, it wouldn’t be Rodgers’ fault. Still, there was a chance Rodgers would be a bust, whereas we knew what we were getting with Favre.

That said, it’s hard to compare the two since they play in different offenses. Favre already has been sacked more in 2008 then in all of 2007, and I doubt that is entirely his fault. Favre has had to play alongside 10 new teammates this season too, which I’m sure hasn’t helped.

Rodgers has clearly been better this season, but even what Favre has accomplished in New York this season, at his age with all new teammates, is incredible. The only QB his age starting this season is Brad Johnson, and he’s been a complete disaster for Dallas.

That said, I’m very glad that Thompson made the right move and that Rodgers has worked out better in 2008 and will certainly work out better in the future as Brett has to finally retire at some point in the next couple of seasons.

by Brandon on Oct 30, 2008 2:33 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I agree that we know what we are getting with Favre and Rodgers was an unknown going into the season. But so far I am thrilled with Rodgers ability to keep the turnovers to a minimum. The 7 less turnovers that Rodgers has committed than Favre is what sticks out the most to me. I do think that Favre has played pretty well for the Jets so far, though I don’t think the new teammates thing is that much of a difference between the two. Rodgers may have been in the locker room with the guys he’s playing with now but I would imagine that his practice time with the first string was extremely limited (except for when Favre didn’t want to show up at camps of course). I think there is more pressure on Rodgers and he is in more of a challenging situation than Favre is. I don’t think many actually doubted that Favre could still play, but I’m overjoyed that we have Rodgers leading us now.

Frye is honestly gotta be one of the top 10 3rd Stringers in all of the NFL right now--colbyb

by verno329 on Oct 30, 2008 11:33 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Brees, Campbell and Rodgers

Those are my three pro bowl quarterbacks in the NFC. I’m so glad the likelihood of a game Favre had against the Chiefs is way down with Rodgers starting.

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words—"mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
-Jack Handey

by jobe on Oct 30, 2008 1:29 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Those are good Pro Bowl choices so far

Even though I’m not a fan of his at all, Jake Delhomme has been pretty good this year too. I live in Charlotte and hear about him all the time but I do have to admit that he has been alright this year. I think if the Panthers keep playing well he may sneak his way onto the squad.

And I echo your sentiment about the likelihood of Rodgers throwing ghastly picks like the ones Favre threw against the Chiefs being pretty slim. As bad as his 3 picks were (and they were terrible) the one that Derrick Johnson dropped that would have put the game away was by far the worst throw he made. I was shocked to see that Favre was totally outplayed by Tyler Thigpen, but he did come out of it with the win somehow.

Frye is honestly gotta be one of the top 10 3rd Stringers in all of the NFL right now--colbyb

by verno329 on Oct 30, 2008 3:17 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Stats are one thing...

a in dept look at both of them is different.
Statistics do not allways show the whole picture of a QB’s play, there are too many other things that factor in.
For one, QB rating, is (in my eyes) total, redicolous BS,why ? take a look at the all-time list (http://www.profootballhof.com/history/story.jsp?story_id=2356) According to this list, Daunte Culpepper, Chad Pennington and Jeff Garcia (to name some) are considered better QBs than Brett Favre, Dan Marino and Johnny Unitas, to anyone who have basic football knowledge, that sounds very, very wrong.

Aaron Rodgers has impressed me so far, he’s done better than what I expected with the pressure of following Favre etc. For the first few games, it was very obvious that he had learned a trick or two from Favre.
His TD / INT ratio is very good, he’s not the gunslinger that Favre is, but he still has a lot to learn.
He needs to see the field better, I’ve seen several occations this year, when there’s been at least one guy wide open, and AR has either taken a sack, thrown the ball away or thorwn a pick. He needs to make quicker decisions, and his release could pe quicker. And as to changing the play (or just one route) at LOS, he’s not even close to Favre, but those, especially the last one, exploting matchups, is something that comes only with real gametime experience, so Favre has a 280 – 7 advantage over Rodgers.

The games that he played really well, were all againt teams with poor pass defending qualities, the Vikings, although they have a good run defense, can’t defend the pass at all, the Lions suck, period! and the Colts pass defense looks bad too, they even gave up big numbers to Kerry Collins, and the Packers also ran the ball well against the Colts which really helps the QB. Against the Seahawks he looked “ok” but no more, his shoulder was sore yes, but the Seahawks are barely better than the Lions this year. In the Cowboys game, he looked like a deer-in-the-headlight, the Cowboys have a weak spot at the corners this year, but they gambled with a lot of blitzing and heavy rush against Packers, and it payed of, I douth they would have had the same success againts a Favre- run Packers (do not compare to last year, as the Cowboys had solid corners then) The games against the Bucs and Falcons, clearly showed Rodgers inexperience as well.
Favre has not done as well as I expected this year, he’s still the same gunslinger, but now he has to do it in a new system, that he’s not a 100% comfortable with yet, and teammates he doesn’t know as well as he knew the Packers, so it’s not as successful as he was.
The part were Rodgers has the HUGE advantage over Favre, he’s in the same system he’s been in for years, so he know it better, he knows his players (especially WR’s) better, and the players are just overall better, the Packers O-line is not exceptionally good, they’re inconsistent in the middle, but both tackles are pretty solid, the Jets O-line is inconsistent all over, and have several communication issues, were sometimes they just break down totally, the Packers have probably the deepest and best overall WR corps in the entire league, the Jets have Coles and Cotcherty, who are average at best, but that’s it, the rest are either rookies or not very good, still, Driver and Jennings are way better than C & C. And when healty, the Packers can field 5 good WRs at the same time.
As for the runningbacks, Packers and Jets are pretty even.
The only part were Rodgers excells over Favre, is his ability to run when the O-line breaks down, but being so many years younger is the reason for that.

So to conclude, in 5 years, Rodgers will most likely be a better QB (since Favre will be retired for good) but one never knows what the future will bring.
But for this year, I think the Packers would have been better of with Favre, his experience alone would have given us a better change.

by Jarlsberg on Oct 31, 2008 4:57 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

What do you think the Packers record would be with #4 behind center?

Frye is honestly gotta be one of the top 10 3rd Stringers in all of the NFL right now--colbyb

by verno329 on Oct 31, 2008 6:55 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

correcting my self

the Colts pass D, didn’t give up big numbers to Collins, but several big plays was what I should have written …..

by Jarlsberg on Oct 31, 2008 6:40 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

What do you think the Packers record would be with #4 behind center?

Frye is honestly gotta be one of the top 10 3rd Stringers in all of the NFL right now—colbyb

by verno329 on Oct 31, 2008 4:55 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

At the worst, 6 – 1

by Jarlsberg on Oct 31, 2008 11:03 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Wow

I fail to see how Favre would translate to two extra wins, but to each his own. I don’t see them being any better with Favre than they are now, but that is a testament to how well Rodgers is playing and not a knock on Favre.

Frye is honestly gotta be one of the top 10 3rd Stringers in all of the NFL right now--colbyb

by verno329 on Oct 31, 2008 11:47 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs