Aaron Rodgers Is Just As Good Under The New Ratings As The Old

ESPN has been mentioning their new quarterback rating, the Total QBR, for the past couple of weeks, and now they have a full slate of regular season games to measure. I was curious how Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers came out on both rankings: the new QBR vs. the old passer rating. Though I wonder if ESPN should leave advanced stat analysis to the experts.

The top five quarterbacks under both statistical analysis are almost the same. Under QBR: Ryan Fitzpatrick, Rodgers, and Matthew Stafford are clearly the top three while Joe Flacco is a strong 4th rated. Under the passer rating: Fitzpatrick, Rodgers, Stafford, and Flacco remain at the top alongside Cardinals QB Kevin Kolb, who was rated as below average by QBR. How'd that happen?

As far as I can tell, QBR takes into account how much credit should go to the receiver. So when TE Jeff King runs without a defender in sight for over half the field, QBR gives more credit to the receiver and less to the quarterback. I'm not sure that's fair for Kolb, who had to run for his life in order to find King open, but that's the way it appears to work.

My whole point is that it was a great game from Rodgers no matter which stats you're looking at.