Rearview SOS - Quarterbacks 2008

  Posted 6/5 by Chase Stuart, Exclusive to Footballguys.com

The last three years, I advocated using a different starting point for your quarterback projections/rankings than regular end of year data. If you're a first time reader, I hope I can convince you to use it this year. It's simple to start with a player's total FPs (or FP/G) from last year, and then make some tweaks based on offseason changes and personal preferences. But a more accurate starting point for your projections is a normalized version of the raw stats.

First, we should use adjusted games (and not total games) to give a more precise picture of how often the quarterback played. Second, we must adjust for strength of schedule, because a QB that plays a really hard schedule should get a boost relative to those playing easy opponents most weeks.

Let me be clear on something: this should be merely the starting point for your QB projections. If you think a particular player carries significant an injury risk, or is going to be playing a hard schedule again, feel free to downgrade him after making these adjustments. (And of course, if you think a QB will improve or decline, or his supporting case will improve or decline, you must factor that in as well.) But those are all subjective questions that everyone answers differently; this analysis is meant to be objective. The point isn't to ignore whether a QB is injury prone or has a really hard or easy SOS; the point is to simply delay that analysis. First we see how the QB actually performed when he played last year, ignoring strength of schedule and missed partial or full games; then you could factor in those things when projecting the 2008 season.

Adjusted games are calculated by taking each QB's pass plus rush attempts in a game and dividing them by all of the team's passing and rushing attempts by quarterbacks in that game. Below is a list of how each QB ranked in fantasy points per adjusted game, minimum eight adjusted games. (Note: Chicago, San Francisco, Carolina and Oakland did not have any one QB play in at least eight adjusted games; their top QB in FP/adjG is listed at the end of the table) The league average QB scored 18.9 FP/G.

• Warner and Leinart split time last year, so it's difficult to see using raw stats just how good Warner was last year. When he played, he was pretty much the equal of every QB in the league not named Tom Brady. He's definitely worth grabbing late in your draft just for his potential if he gets the starting job back.
• David Garrard was excellent last year, too. He missed a bunch of time and had some partial games, but when he played he was very good. More on him after the next table.
• Vince Young has a lot of fans, but he was downright pathetic last year.
• Guys like Eli Manning, Philip Rivers and Jon Kitna ranked high in FPs last year, but they were actually below average on a points-per-game basis. They were classic compilers.
• Carson Palmer and Drew Brees took almost every snap, which in some sense inflates their fantasy value. Brees actually ranked ninth behind a group of players with some missed time last year; Palmer was 13th. Sure they're good QBs and definitely above average, but they weren't really different makers on the field in the way that Brady, Romo, Manning and Roethlisberger were.

With a partial games analysis out of the way, we need to take a look at each quarterback's strength of schedule. A positive number indicates a hard schedule.

• Cutler and Garrard stand out here. Both were second year starters, so we don't have a lot of historical data for them. But consider that their numbers were almost certainly deflated by having very tough fantasy schedules. In Cutler's case, however, he projects to have an extremely difficult fantasy schedule this year again. Garrard does not. (Full analysis of SOS will be in my QBBC article this year.)
• Brady and Brees had big years despite having tough schedules. For Brees especially, an easier schedule could pay big dividends.
• I would say we should cut Rex Grossman some slack, but it's Rex Grossman. But when you notice that Kyle Orton's schedule was so easy, it helps to explain why they had almost the same non-adjusted fantasy points per adjusted game last year (check the next table).
• On the other side, Kurt Warner had a very easy schedule, which helps to explain a little bit why he had such huge per game numbers. More worrisome is someone like Bulger, who had a down year against an easy schedule.
• Roethlisberger, Hasselbeck and Garcia all had nice years, but thanks in part to cupcake schedules.
• Matt Leinart, J.P. Losman, Tarvaris Jackson and Matt Schaub underwhelmed last year, but neither can blame their SOS. Although in Losman's case, he was still better than Trent Edwards.

If we put those two lists together, we now get what I consider to be the most accurate starting point for your projections. AdjFP/AdjG shows how many FP each QB scored when adjusting for SOS and partial games. The first column shows the players rank (minimum eight adjusted games), the third column their adjusted fantasy points per adjusted games, the fourth column their number of adjusted games, the fifth column their strength of schedule rating (positive = hard), the sixth column their raw fantasy points number from last year, and the last column their fantasy points rank from last year.

That helps you to get a sense of who might be underrated. For my money, it's David Garrard, who ranked 16th in FP, but after adjusting for strength of schedule and missed games, he was really the fourth-best fantasy QB last year. In other words, if Garrard played a league average schedule and didn't miss any time, he probably would have ranked fourth in FP last year. And then his average draft position this year would be a whole lot higher.

• As for Garrard, you're free to think that he'll have a really hard schedule again this year, or he'll miss some games with injury or because the Jags have locked up a playoff spot, but that's a risky bet. The most important fact, in my opinion, is when Garrard was playing, against a neutral opponent, he was lights out last year.
• Similarly, look how bad Marc Bulger was last year. Just awful. Guys like Jackson and Edwards have an excuse because of inexperience, and Harrington's awful, but Bulger was just horrific last year. Things look a lot better in STL this year, but that team is going to need to improve a lot for Bulger to have fantasy value.
• Drew Brees, Carson Palmer, Derek Anderson, Eli Manning and Philip Rivers all look a lot worse once you adjust for games played. Those guys may be great at staying healthy, and if they do it again; great. But a good chunk of their value from last year was because they didn't miss any starts.
• If you combine Matt Schaub's stats with those of teammate Sage Rosenfels, you get a pretty good QB. Schaub actually was less effective than Rosenfels last year, but I think Schaub's a decent sleeper this season. Last year was just his first year starting. Going off the stats, though, Schaub was unimpressive, but:
  • Huge caveat with these numbers. Schaub had Andre Johnson for just 4.14 of his 8.5 games played. Rosenfels had Johnson for 4.86 of his 7.5 games played. So while Schaub had Johnson for just 48.7% of his games, Rosenfels had him for 64.8% of his games played. In the 4.14 "Andre Johnson" games, Schaub averaged 19.63 adjFP/adjG.
• Chad Pennington was actually a decent fantasy QB last year. Depending on who wins the job, the Jets QB could be a nice sleeper. The additions of LG Alan Faneca, RT Damien Woody, and TE Dustin Keller (and a full season out of Coles) should make the offense a bit better. And contrary to what we would have thought, Pennington's numbers don't need to go up that much to be a valuable fantasy player.

Team Defense Rankings

For those curious, I've included a table showing how the defenses ranked last year; i.e., which were the "hard" fantasy defenses to play against and which were the easy ones. Just like when we rank the QBs, you have to adjust for SOS when you rank the defenses. Last year, Buffalo's pass defense looked just about average. But the Bills played by far the hardest slate of QBs in the league. Brady twice, Romo, Garrard, Roethlisberger, Derek Anderson, Jay Cutler and Donovan McNabb were all solid fantasy QBs last year. You know your schedule is tough when Carson Palmer is the ninth-best fantasy QB you face in a season. Listed below are all the team defenses, ranked by their adjusted fantasy points allowed value, which is how many FPs per game less you would expect the league average QB to score against them than against a league average defense. The raw fantasy point allowed column does not adjust for strength of schedule, and the SOS shows each defense's strength of opposing QBs, where a positive number indicates playing lots of good QBs.

Note: All data reflect the following scoring system: 6 points for TD pass and -2 points for each INT, while still giving 1 point for 20 yards passing, 1 point for 10 yards rushing, and 6 points for a rushing TD.