Pro Football Focus has been one of Mitchell Trubisky’s biggest critics for the past few years, but on Thursday the site’s Twitter team reached a new low. On Trubisky’s birthday every day, PFF decided to tweet a disparaging stat using its own proprietary “rating” stat. Worst of all were that they did not even use a sound statistical analysis when criticizing him.
Most games with a passing class below 60.0 since 2018:
🔹 Mitch Trubisky – 14
🔹 Case Keenum – 12
🔹 Josh Allen – 12
🔹 Josh Rosen – 12
🔹 Jameis Winston – 11
🔹 Sam Darnold – 10 pic.twitter.com/Ng5t2nl2Vm– PFF (@PFF) August 20, 2020
So how did PFF get it wrong? To begin with, the site unfairly uses the total number of games under a given rating, because Trubisky has started more games since 2018 than any other QB mentioned in the PFF tweet. Of course, this gives Trubisky more chances to have a bad game. A better way to rate these quarterbacks would be to look at the percentage of below-average performance.
Click to download the MyTeams app for the latest Bears news and analysis.
Since we do not have access to the data that passes into PFF’s super secret formula from grading players, let’s just use the NFL’s standard passer rating. The average passer rating in 2018 was 94.1, and in 2019 it was 96.1, so let’s add up all the games that each QB earned a passer rating below that mark, while also taking into account the total amount of games played by each QB. I have also removed all games with five or fewer attempts to eliminate outliers. In addition, I added one quarterback that many Bears fans want to buy on the team, instead of Nick Foles: Andy Dalton.
2018: Trubisky: 8/14, Allen: 10/12, Keenum: 12/16, Rosen: 14/14, Darnold: 8/13, Winston: 5/11, Dalton: 7/11
2019: Trubisky 10/14, Allen: 8/15, Keenum: 4/9, Rosen: 4/4, Darnold: 9/13, Winston: 8/16, Dalton: 10/13
Total games below the average passer rating: Trubisky: 18, Allen: 18, Rosen: 18, Darnold: 17, Dalton: 17, Keenum: 16, Winston: 13
If you just look at overall games below the average passer rating, it’s not good for Trubisky because he’s still on top. This time, however, he is joined by Allen and Rosen. But again, this is not a proportionate assessment, as Trubisky played more games than any other QB. So let’s calculate the percentage of below average games, and reprint that list.
Percentage below average games: Rosen: 100, Dalton: 70.8, Allen: 66.7, Trubisky: 64.2, Darnold: 65.4 Keenum: 64.0, Winston: 48.1
Here we get a much clearer picture of all the quarterbacks’ performances. Should anyone be under the impression of Trubisky, as 64% of his games fall below the league average? Of course not. But it’s not fair to say he performed worse than Josh Rosen, who ** never ** finished a game above the league’s average passer rating.
While it’s Trubisky’s birthday, let’s flip the script and cherry pick a nice stat of him, just like PFF cherries picked that bad pick. How about this: In 2018, Trubisky set the Bears’ one-season record for completion percentage, at 66.6%.
Happy birthday, Trubisky. Let the haters not bring you.
RELATED: Bears QB peloton would be ‘stupidest’ answer for Mitch Trubisky vs. Nick Foles
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE FROM THE UNDER CENTER PODCAST.
