Ramsey ranked 30th last year in "Decision Making..."

http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=joyner_kc&id=2153038


Vick was the worst...

For the non-insiders among us:



One of the most controversial and misunderstood of my metrics is the bad decision metric for quarterbacks. Bad decisions might be better termed "quarterback mistakes," as the idea behind this metric was to better quantify which quarterbacks made mistakes and which ones didn't. I received a lot of e-mails asking for additional details into what constitutes a bad decision, so I thought I might take this opportunity to explain this metric in greater detail, while addressing some of the worst decision makers in the NFL.

One of the questions I received was, "Is the bad decision metric a subjective or objective metric?" Is it more like the error in baseball, which is really a scorer's subjective opinion of a play, or is there an objective basis to it? I think the best way to explain it is to break it down into its components and show some examples of each.


First, let me go over the nature of the metric. The bad decision metric basically revolves around two things: field vision and judgment. Field vision is simply the ability of the quarterback to spot an open receiver. One of the metrics I track on every attempted pass is how open the receiver was on the play. I find that the best quarterbacks throw to open receivers while the worst throw to covered receivers, even when the relative talent levels of their receiving corps are taken into account. As long as a quarterback is throwing to an open receiver, he isn't penalized for a field vision-type bad decision, no matter the result of the play. It is when a quarterback doesn't throw to an obviously open receiver that the bad decision metric starts coming into play.

A good example of a field vision-type bad decision has to do with how well a quarterback reads a defensive coverage. Defenses are always trying to disguise their coverages and it is fairly obvious when they are successful. If a quarterback doesn't see a linebacker in a short zone and forces the pass right to him, then that is obviously a bad decision. If a quarterback reads the defense as playing in zone coverage when is actually in man, that also is a bad decision.

Another example of a field vision-type bad decision is when a quarterback stares at a receiver. The Peyton Mannings, Steve McNairs and Tom Bradys of the world simply don't stare at receivers very often, while the lower echelon quarterbacks do.

A third example would be forcing a pass into coverage. It is one thing when there is a small window and a Brett Favre tries to force the ball in for the completion. That might not be seen as a bad decision. But if a quarterback forces a pass into obvious double coverage or to a place with no apparent window in the zone, that would qualify as a bad decision.

That also leads me to a question I received via e-mail. A few people wrote in and asked me how it was that David Carr had only 10 bad decisions in 2004, yet he threw 14 interceptions. There were actually a couple of reasons for that. One is that I was missing a few plays from Carr's 2004 season, two of which were interception plays.

The second and more important point is that not all interceptions are the result of bad decisions. Two of David Carr's 2004 interceptions came from passes that were tipped at the line of scrimmage by defensive linemen. That type of play would not be listed as a bad decision because Carr didn't make a field vision or judgment error. That same type of reasoning is used on a jump ball. If Daunte Culpepper threw a fade pattern to Randy Moss last year, and the cornerback outjumped Moss for an interception. Is it right to charge Culpepper with a bad decision? In that case, the interception would have come more from the cornerback's good play than anything Culpepper did wrong.

The second and far more costly type of bad decision is the judgment bad decision. The judgment bad decisions are the ones that often cost teams ball games and cost quarterbacks their jobs. I think the best way to illustrate these is to use examples from two of the NFL's worst decisions makers.

Let's start with Trent Dilfer. In 2004, Dilfer had to fill in as the starting QB in two games for Seattle. Dilfer had 66 total pass plays during those games. Total pass plays include every attempted pass play that occurred, so they include sack plays and plays that were nullified by a penalty. My reasoning for tracking all of the plays is that a quarterback can make a mistake on a sack or on a penalty nullified play, and that for the most accurate mistake tracking, we should include these plays.

Of those 66 pass plays, Dilfer made mistakes on five, and almost all of them were of the judgment type. Let me give you some examples:

• In the Miami-Seattle week 11 game, Dilfer was under an intense pass rush on a drive late in the second quarter and lobbed a pass into double coverage that was intercepted by Arturo Freeman.

• On the first drive in the second quarter of the Arizona-Seattle game, Dilfer was nearly sacked and forced a well underthrown pass that was nearly intercepted by Kyle Vanden Bosch. Because he was being tackled, Dilfer couldn't set his feet to throw and probably should have thrown the pass away.

• On that very same drive two plays later, Dilfer was again being sacked and forced a pass. This one wasn't nearly intercepted, but he had little control of the pass when he threw it. He avoided the sack, but was lucky the pass didn't float toward a defender.

• On the second drive of the third quarter of the Arizona-Seattle game, Dilfer was again under a pass rush and scrambled out of the pocket. He then forced a pass while under pressure and threw it right to Ifeanyi Ohalete of the Cardinals. Ohalete dropped the interception, but it was still a horrible decision by Dilfer.

One of the most surprising things I found with bad decisions is that it doesn't take many bad decisions on a percentage basis to separate the best QBs in the league from the worst. Peyton Manning was one of the best decision makers last year, ranking third in the league, averaging only two bad decisions per 100 passes. Patrick Ramsey was one of the worst, ranking 30th in the league, yet he averaged only about five bad decisions per 100 passes.

The other thing I found is that most coaches pay as much attention to the number of bad decisions as they do anything else. Josh McCown was benched in Arizona, despite winning two games in a row, in large part because of his bad decision percentages. McCown ended the season ranked 29th in that category at 4.7 percent, which is why Dennis Green called in Kurt Warner this offseason.

Those percentages should quickly put Dilfer's performance into perspective. The four mistakes listed above turned into only one interception, but they were all mistakes nonetheless. Dilfer ended the season with a 7.6 percent bad decision rate, which is 1½ times higher than Ramsey's. Dilfer didn't win the distinction of having the worst bad decision percentage in 2004, though, as he didn't throw enough passes to qualify.

You might be surprised to find out who the leader in bad decisions was in 2004. It was Michael Vick and it wasn't even close. Vick's bad decision rate was 6.1 percent, or 20 percent higher than Ramsey's rate. Vick's list of bad decisions is quite similar to Dilfer's. He quite often threw the ball while being sacked, forced passes into coverage and didn't see defenders in the short zones. Vick threw only 12 interceptions last year, but there were eight bad decision passes that could have been intercepted and were either dropped by the defenders or broken up by Atlanta's receivers. When you consider that Vick ranked 26th in pass attempts in 2004, it becomes clear that the Falcons knew this as well and tried to limit his passing opportunities accordingly.

The benefit of the bad decision metric is that it doesn't rely on the result of the play to debit the quarterback. For instance, when a quarterback makes a field vision or judgment error that should have led to an interception but the pass was dropped, under the NFL's standard statistical system, it would count only as an incomplete pass. Tracking that play as a bad decision will at least give you the knowledge that the quarterback made a mistake.

Can't view the article cause it's an Insider article.

[edit] thanks.

That's why BleedBurgundy posted it above

Your title is a bit deceptive.

"One of the most surprising things I found with bad decisions is that it doesn't take many bad decisions on a percentage basis to separate the best QBs in the league from the worst. Peyton Manning was one of the best decision makers last year, ranking third in the league, averaging only two bad decisions per 100 passes. Patrick Ramsey was one of the worst, ranking 30th in the league, yet he averaged only about five bad decisions per 100 passes."

I liked this guy's stuff, he really breaks things down and gives interesting perspectives.

[QUOTE=cpayne5]Your title is a bit deceptive. [QUOTE]


Yeah, I see what you mean. I thought about that after I posted it. I was just surprised that he was that far down the list, even if there isn't that much seperation between good and bad... Hopefully our line does a better job this year to help him improve...

I wonder if the numbers are just as a starter, or if the factor in his relief appearance with the Giants. Ramsey was trying to throw his way out of a hole that game, and the numbers were dreadful.

I wonder if the numbers are just as a starter, or if the factor in his relief appearance with the Giants. Ramsey was trying to throw his way out of a hole that game, and the numbers were dreadful.
Yeah, good point.

Patrick Ramsey throws the ball first and foremost. That's a Spurrier thing that he is having to outgrow.

He made better decisions at the end of last year, but he is still more like a 2nd year QB with 6 years of college football experience.