07-09-2015, 08:35 AM
(07-08-2015, 10:10 PM)SHRacerX Wrote: I'm pretty sure Dalton played two games against the Browns, steelers, and Ravens...Did you take the average? And where did Sir Tom Brady end up? Peyton Manning?
For the division numbers I took the lowest performance since the other QBs did not get a second shot at it. Also, that is the topic of what Dalton has to do to get better: Raise his floor, not his ceiling.
I did look at other QBs' 2014 ratings as well and started compiling cross numbers. It gets tough to have a large sample size because of scheduling but Brady, Manning, Brees, Rivers, Cutler, Tannehill etc. regular season numbers were similar spreads so I stopped because it wasn't anything substantially different*.
*NOTE: In reguards to common opponents, the playoffs were incredibly different. The way the playoff winning QBs play is in the 90s or 100+ almost every game - even with common opponents to Dalton the numbers are grossly different (playoff or regular season). Just looking at playoff performances Dalton mires in the 40s, 50s, and if the Bengals are lucky 60s.
For 2013 I just looked at Tannehill, a 2nd year starter that season, and stopped there because it was no better. I guess that's my point. I can try to find loopholes or exceptions to the rule but they are few and far between because my conclusion is true and there is no legit pattern or reasoning behind it from which to derive any other conclusion: Andy Dalton plays his worst games erratically and more often than nearly any other QB and without any sort of predictor. He is more likely to be bad, and his bad is more likely to be worse than almost any other starting QB in the league (at least 2 years starting) with the exception of Geno Smith, who is way way way worse in passer rating lows/frequency.
Looking through the ratings, it was evident that the Steelers, Ravens, etc. weren't putting the clamps down on every QB they faced. Andy really had very little problem with them. Even Ryan Fitzpatrick, who only faced one AFCN team last season, put up a better passer rating than Any's low (83.7) against that team (PIT 98.7).
Again, let me be clear about this, the average doesn't matter because we are not gauging how good Andy can be - he can be really good. Instead, we are looking at how low he can go any given week and how often he hits that low and against what teams (to find a pattern, if any). This, to me, seems to be the #1 predictor of playoff success for nearly every team. The numbers have shown that so far pretty much every time.
