Lanky Livingston
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Campbell ranks 54th out of all QBs with at least 30 game-winning drive chances since 1998, among the likes of Joey Harrington, Quincy Carter, AJ Feeley, and Elvis Grbac (and others).
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One graphic that sometimes pops up late in NFL games is "number of game-winning drives," which is implied to be a metric of clutch quarterback ability. However, this figure is meaningless out of context, and raises a number of questions. How many opportunities did the quarterback have to lead a game-winning drive? If the quarterback leads his team on a drive to take the lead with one minute left, and then his defense subsequently surrenders a touchdown, shouldn’t he still get credit for that drive? What if the quarterback leads the team on a long drive to the 5-yard line, only for the kicker to miss the game-winning, chip-shot field goal as time expires?
The purpose of the Adjusted Comeback Efficiency (ACE) Rating is to provide a comprehensive figure for measuring a quarterback’s performance in potential game-winning or game-tying situations. First, the methodology of the ACE rating will be briefly explained. This is followed by an analysis of the results. At the end, the methodology calculations are shown in greater detail for those that are interested.
Basic Methodology
The ACE rating compares a quarterback's outcome in a given situation to the expected or average outcome in that situation. Adjustments were made for four factors: starting field position, time remaining in game, deficit (how many points behind), and outcome (no score, field goal attempt, touchdown). For example:
Quarterback A: after an interception return, he starts at his opponent's 5-yard line down by one point with two minutes to go
Quarterback B: after a kickoff, he starts at his own 20-yard line down by 8 points with 30 seconds to go
Quarterback A has a much easier scenario than Quarterback B. Therefore, the ACE rating gives more credit to Quarterback B for a successful comeback than Quarterback A, and penalizes Quarterback B less than Quarterback A for failure. A touchdown is worth more credit than a field goal in most situations (one exception: overtime). If the offense attempts a field goal, it is irrelevant for the ACE rating whether the kicker makes it or misses it. Instead, the quarterback gets credit based on the average success rate for that distance of field goal, such that a short field goal attempt receives more credit than a long field goal attempt.
There are some more adjustments, but the concept is simple: The ACE rating calculates how efficient a quarterback is in potential comeback situations, taking into account the level of difficulty of the situation.
Quarterback Rankings
This list includes all quarterbacks with at least 30 qualifying drives from 1998 to 2009 (including playoffs). For some quarterbacks, this means that this data set only captures part of their career (e.g. Dan Marino at No. 43 from the last two years of his career, 1998-99). At the bottom, I have listed some noteworthy young quarterbacks that have not yet reached the drive threshold, although caution should be exercised with such thin data. For each player, we also provide the NFL's QB rating for comparison purposes.
1 E.Manning 1.55 66 28 42.4% 79.2 32 31
2 B.Roethlisberger 1.44 78 34 43.6% 91.7 8 6
3 P.Manning 1.40 145 62 42.8% 95.2 4 1
4 P.Rivers 1.36 51 22 43.1% 95.8 2 -2
5 A.Rodgers 1.33 32 13 40.6% 97.2 1 -4
6 M.Schaub 1.33 38 14 36.8% 91.3 9 3
7 J.Cutler 1.32 55 21 38.2% 83.8 20 13
8 T.Green 1.31 105 37 35.2% 86.0 16 8
9 T.Romo 1.31 45 15 33.3% 95.6 3 -6
10 D.Brees 1.31 88 36 40.9% 91.9 7 -3
...
51 D.Anderson 0.76 36 8 22.2% 69.7 56 5
52 Q.Carter 0.76 34 8 23.5% 71.7 54 2
53 E.Grbac 0.73 52 11 21.2% 78.2 37 -16
54 J.Campbell 0.72 54 12 22.2% 82.3 26 -28
55 A.Feeley 0.70 33 8 24.2% 69.6 57 2
56 J.Harbaugh 0.70 36 8 22.2% 72.2 53 -3
57 K.Boller 0.66 42 10 23.8% 70.6 55 -2
58 J.Harrington 0.60 50 11 22.0% 69.4 59 1
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