Passer rating


Passer rating is a measure of the performance of passers, primarily quarterbacks, in gridiron football. There are two formulas currently in use: one used by both the National Football League and Canadian Football League, and the other used in NCAA football. Passer rating is calculated using a player's passing attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns, and interceptions. Passer rating in the NFL is on a scale from 0 to 158.3. Passing efficiency in college football is on a scale from −731.6 to 1261.6.
Since 1973, passer rating has been the official formula used by the NFL to determine its passing leader.

History

Before the development of the passer rating, the NFL struggled with how to crown a passing leader. In the mid-1930s, it was the quarterback with the most passing yardage. From 1938 to 1940, it was the quarterback with the highest completion percentage. In 1941, a system was created that ranked the league's quarterbacks relative to their peers' performance. Over the next thirty years the criteria used to crown a passing leader changed several times, but the ranking system made it impossible to determine a quarterback's rank until all the other quarterbacks were done playing that week, or to compare quarterback performances across multiple seasons. In 1971, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle asked the league's statistical committee to develop a better system. The committee was headed by Don Smith of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Seymour Siwoff of the Elias Sports Bureau, and NFL executive Don Weiss. Smith and Siwoff established passing performance standards based on data from all qualified pro football passers between 1960 and 1970, and used those data to create the passer rating. The formula was adopted by the NFL in 1973.

NFL and CFL formula

The NFL passer rating formula includes four variables: completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt, and interceptions per attempt. Each of those variables is scaled to a value between 0 and 2.375, with 1.0 being statistically average. When the formula was first created, a 66.7 rating indicated an average performance, and a 100+ rating indicated an excellent performance. However, passing performance has improved steadily since then and in 2017 the league average rating was 88.6.
The four separate calculations can be expressed in the following equations:
where
If the result of any calculation is greater than 2.375, it is set to 2.375. If the result is a negative number, it is set to zero.
Then, the above calculations are used to complete the passer rating:
A perfect passer rating requires at least:A minimum rating requires at best:

77.5% completion percentage

12.5 yards per attempt

11.875% TD/ATT

No interceptions
30.0% completion percentage

3.0 yards per attempt

No touchdowns

9.5% INT/ATT

NCAA formula

The NCAA passing efficiency formula is similar to that of the NFL passer rating, but does not impose limits on the four components:
where
The NCAA passer rating has an upper limit of 1,261.6, and a lower limit of −731.6. A passer who throws only interceptions will have a −200 rating, as would a passer who only throws completed passes losing an average of 35.714 yards.

Advantages

In 2011, Sports Illustrated published an article by Kerry Byrne of Cold Hard Football Facts highlighting the importance of passer rating in determining a team's success. "Put most simply," the article states, "you cannot be a smart football analyst and dismiss passer rating. In fact, it's impossible to look at the incredible correlation of victory to passer rating and then dismiss it. You might as well dismiss the score of a game when determining a winner. Few, if any, are more indicative of wins and losses than passer rating. Teams that posted a higher passer rating went 203–53 in 2010 and an incredible 151–29 after Week 5." Byrne made an expanded defense of the passer rating and its importance for the Pro Football Researchers Association in 2012. The study showed that all of the eight teams since 1940 that led the league in both offensive passer rating and defensive passer rating won championships.

Records

NFL

Wide receiver Antwaan Randle El, with a passer rating of 157.5 from 21 completed passes of a possible 26, has the highest career rating of any non-QB with more than twenty attempts. Ben Roethlisberger and Peyton Manning hold the record for the most games with a perfect passer rating. As of 2019, 74 NFL quarterbacks have completed a game with a perfect passer rating of 158.3, and seven have done so multiple times. Phil Simms holds the record for the highest passer rating in a Super Bowl, at 150.92 in Super Bowl XXI.

NCAA