Bradford throws short, and Bradford also plays in a dome, as does Brees (the previous completion percentage recordholder), as does Ryan. I don't know whether that fully explains the completion percentage difference or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if it does, considering the much less optimal environments Rodgers and Brady play in.
I think it's going to be Ryan too actually – and probably by a not insignificant margin. There are some powerful statistical arguments here – doing anything better than any other QB since the merger is pretty impressive. My biggest issues with his candidacy are anecdotal – losing a game with a pick-six feels to me like it should, if not be disqualifying on an 11-5 team, at a bare minimum take some of the bite out of his YPC consistency no matter how historic it was.
Ryan did not have much of an indoor/outdoor split this year. He had 9 indoor starts and 7 outdoor starts, and his QB rating was 118.5 indoors and 115.3 outdoors. He had a slightly higher completion percentage indoors, but a higher Y/C outdoors.
Maybe we need a YPC-Net which includes compensation for the negative yards of the non-special teams interceptions? That pick 6 was 42-43 yards the wrong way. That might take some of the luster off the YPC. Maybe it exists and I don't know about it.
FO's DYAR stat essentially does that. And it gives Brady a huge advantage over most guys - but it isn't enough for how good Ryan was.
Agreed on Ryan's defense being terrible, but your raw point totals ignore that the Falcons scored five defensive touchdowns, the Patriots zero. That explains about half the gap once you add in Bryant having a better year than Gostkowski.
PFF also gave Rodgers a negative grade last year in a game where he averaged 9.5 YPA while throwing five touchdowns and no interceptions. Their QB grading is broken at best.
Thank you for DYAR info.
True, but defensive touchdowns are a flaky thing - the Patriots offense got credit for a touchdown after Shea McClellin's 70 yard fumble return this week largely because McClellin is slow as dirt.
how much of this would have to do with Atlanta having to score? The Pats in the second half/ fourth quarter of many games have played a very vanilla offense since they were already way ahead. Guess it's kind of a way of saying that Atlanta's defense was a lot worse than the Pats' while also saying that Atlanta's offense was also better. Can't help Brady, stat wise, that he's basically only played 3/4 of the last two games.
2016 Average Team Rush Per Carry: Pat's - 3.9, Falcons - 4.6. That's more than 'about the same'. If you are getting 4.6 per carry, teams can't defend the pass the same way. And you can run the ball and keep your poor defense off the field. Manage the game a bit, instead of throwing the ball down the field all the time... lol
True, but that 18-yard TD drive was New England's shortest all season; the Falcons had three shorter than that. OTOH, Atlanta didn't have any other drives shorter than 42 yards, while the Patriots had six. FWIW, the Patriots had the third-best average starting field position at 30.5; the Falcons were 10th at 29.3.
The Patriots had 19 drives starting with a turnover, average starting field position at the opponents' 46. OTOH, six of those were in Weeks 2 and 3. The Falcons had 13 such drives, average starting position at the opponent's 44.
This is where DVOA fails us, because "V" isn't anything. I have no idea whether 5 percent apart by DVOA is significant or not, or whether we're meant to understand a linear relationship, or whether the fact that New England's rushing DVOA is negative while Atlanta's is positive is meaningful. Interestingly, LeGarrette Blount's VOA (unadjusted) is -2.3%, while his DVOA (adjusted) is +1.5%, while Freeman's VOA (+9.4%) drops to 6.3% DVOA after adjustments. Does that mean the Patriots faced better rushing defenses?
Only once - one fumble was Edelman's. As for the second part of your sentence, that is straining the definition of "directly."
That's fair.
This doesn't really hold up. Atlanta has 31 first-half TDs, 24 punts; since Brady returned, the Pats have 24 first-half TDs, 27 punts.
Interesting. I do think Ryan has had the better year and prob. deserves it.
In addition to what SN just said, by my count the Falcons played eight games in which they went vanilla in exactly the way described in the bolded comment above - Ryan having been pulled in the fourth quarter of two of them (against the Rams and 49ers).
I would, easily. It's not even a close call.
Try harder. It might help if you take off your Patriots-colored glasses for few seconds.
Who would you pick to lead team in playoffs, all else being equal? Your answer, whichever it is, is the most valuable player.
I guess my problem with that statement is, they lost less because Brady's replacements went 3-1, which doesn't really help Brady's argument that his team went 3-1 without him.
Except it's not. The MVP is not a predictive award, it's based only on past performance. Going forward for the playoffs I'd pick Brady, because Brady has been playing consistently at a MVP or close to it level since 2004 or so, while Ryan's only done it for this year, so there's some chance Ryan reverts to his career mean, which is a lot lower than Brady's. But that doesn't change the fact that Ryan has been more valuable during the 2016 regular season.
Ok I'll bite: why? Because the Pats would've gotten more YPC? Because our running backs would have gained more YPC? I'm honestly struggling to understand how the Pats would have been better this year with Ryan instead of Brady.
Let's start with that they would have had an MVP-quality QB for 16 games rather than 12.
A quarterback who had never started in the NFL before, and another quarterback who was a rookie and had limited use of his throwing hand in one start went 3-1 in the 4 games that Brady missed. And it seems logical/reasonable to assign Brady 4 losses in those games to flesh out his won/loss record? 3-1 without him and you think if Brady was playing he wouldn't likely have gotten to 3-1?
I'm with coremiller on this one. Its very hard to make up for missing a quarter of the season in terms of value created for your team. The obvious analogy for this board is a baseball player winning MVP after playing only 120 games. Mike Trout might be the best player in baseball in a given season but if he only plays 120 games and somebody else produces at a similar or even somewhat lower rate stat level (OPS+ or whatever you want to pick) for 160 games, its really hard to make the argument for Trout. The same is true of Brady.
Actually the Patriots did just trade 12 games of Brady versus 16 of any other teams QB in the league... and ended up with a record of 14-2. So unless I'm misunderstanding the question - everyone in Foxboro would. And if you checked with a bunch of other teams in the league - they'd likely be on board with having Brady for 12 games versus what they are fielding.
Ugh, this is dumb. A good way to close the gap in opposing view points would be less motivated reasoning by Pats fans.
If you have to caveat your post with the bolded, you probably should re-think your post.
The bolded is my point - the argument that Brady is so good and so important to the team that he should be the MVP despite only playing 12 games is weakened when his team went 3-1 with effectively nothing at QB. If they went 0-4, it's a better argument.
It's conservative, but it's a reasonable way to allow someone to win the award without benefitting from missed time
Why clearly? How do you know he doesn't produce a game like he did against Philadelphia, in the Buffalo game, or worse, one of the 14 games the the Patriots actually won?
1) I agree, it doesn't help. But it was addressing an asked question.
You also have to assume that a guy with a career winning percentage of 60% also would have won every one of the 14 games. There's no real way of knowing what Matt Ryan would have done with this team, but we know the guys who did play went 14-2. It's certainly not disingenuous to prefer that bird in hand, You can disagree, but it's kind of obnoxious to accuse the other guy of being disingenuous (or stupid) for seeing it otherwise.
Next you'll be suggesting the D will intercept the ball on the goal line with only seconds left in the game... that only happens in the movies.
Re 2- Brady's season was almost as good as Ryan's on a pure rate basis, in fact the differences were nearly de minimus. But there are two caveats. One is that Ryan played a much harder schedule. The other is that he played four more games. Those both matter.
Based on what? Again, based on what happened, I'll take the 32 TD, 2 INT group. Based on the assumption that Matt Ryan would repeat his performance but the Patriots wouldn't? Or are we eliminating all knowledge of what happened this year, and going back to a scenario where the Patriots get the GOAT for 12 games or a guy coming off a 21 TD, 16 INT season?
Don't understand the point of this post
I'll end with this: You are more interested in being insulting than listening. I'm not talking about judging by Wins and Losses. I'm saying that I have an issue with Ryan's LOSSES. In the context that a QB gets too much credit/blame in general, which is why only QBs win this award... then I am saying Ryan is responsible for more LOSSES due to his play than Brady is (albeit in more 4 more games). I'm only judging LOSSES - because I think each in their own way had a damn good/great season. What separates them are the mistakes/losses.
It was in response to a question above.
I guess you think Jack Morris was a no-doubt, should-have-been-first-ballot Hall of Famer, then? "Pitching to the scoreboard" and all that.I'll end with this: You are more interested in being insulting than listening. I'm not talking about judging by Wins and Losses. I'm saying that I have an issue with Ryan's LOSSES. In the context that a QB gets too much credit/blame in general, which is why only QBs win this award... then I am saying Ryan is responsible for more LOSSES due to his play than Brady is (albeit in more 4 more games). I'm only judging LOSSES - because I think each in their own way had a damn good/great season. What separates them are the mistakes/losses.
Want a baseball analogy... you are talking up the pitcher with 21 strikeouts in the game but lost the game 1-0 in the 9th by giving up a home run. Great performance? Sure, but better than the opposing pitcher who scattered a bunch of hits and spun a shutout? Yep, it's a bad analogy... but it's good enough.
I'm done... have fun
