Quick Q&A with the QB Expert

Q. What's the deal with Aaron Rodgers?

A. So Aaron Rodgers has been really good the past three games. How good? Well, his uncapped passer rating in each of the past three games has been 145.0, 116.9, and 146.5 respectively. His Packers are 3-0 in surprisingly not-blowouts over Chicago, Seattle, and Kansas City. But this isn't really special for Rodgers.

Q. Why? Has he done this before?

A. Back in Week 7 of last year, Rodgers was finishing up a run for the ages. I noted this in my writeup for that week: Rodgers had just finished a run of four games with ratings of 160.1, 158.0, 99.7, and 167.8. (I also correctly predicted Rodgers's return to the MVP conversation following that stretch.) F
Following that fourth game, Rodgers put up a "down" game of 93.8, then returned to form with a fucking absurd 180.3 game against Chicago (capped, it was 145.8. #this is why we need uncapped passer rating). Following that he came back to the mortal plane, not breaking 140 for the rest of the season. As if 140 is a bad passer rating. But over that stretch, from week 4 to week 9, he averaged a passer rating of 134.7. That's only slightly worse than his four-game average of 138.1, although sadly he does drop below the TD% cap (this only makes sense if you go read my UPR article and then the Week 7 writeup).

Basically what I'm saying is that as good as Rodgers has been, he's barely better than the cooldown from after his dominant stretch last season. That being said he's still the best QB in the NFL this season (so far) and will probably be an MVP candidate. You know, like Andy Dalton and Carson Palmer, both of whom have yet to throw for a passer rating under 100. In fact, between the two of them they have only one game (out of six) under a 115 passer rating.

Q. Wait... what?

A. You fucking heard me. Andy Dalton and Carson Palmer have combined for a seasonal passer rating of 119.4. That's better than the career best of Joe Montana, Drew Brees, and even Tyrod Taylor.

Q. But not Tom Brady?

A. No. But only because of this season (it's better than every season he's had before this).

Q. What's Tom Brady doing this season?

A. Oh, nothing much. Just leading the league in completions, attempts, yards, touchdowns, interceptions (as in 0), interception percentage (as in 0%), and yards per game (duh).

Q. What about completion percentage? Brady's at 72.2%. Isn't the all-time record Drew Brees's 71.2% from 2011?

A. Yes. But despite being a full percentage point ahead of the record, Brady's completion percentage still ranks only sixth this year, after Ben Roethlisberger, Tony Romo, Philip Rivers, and the incomparable Tyrod Taylor. And Aaron Rodgers.

Q. Oh yeah, I forgot that Romo and Rivers existed. And I definitely didn't realize how many passes they had completed.

A. I remembered they existed but I had no idea that there were no less than seven players with completion rates above 70%. After all, there have only ever been five seasons above a 70% completion rate: Brees, Brees, Ken Anderson, Steve Young, and Joe Montana.

Q. Wait, seven? Who's the seventh?

A. Russell Wilson. Of course.

Q. I thought he sucked this year?

A. No, just his offensive coordinator. Bevell's best offensive feat is pissing off the entire Seahawks fanbase every time he runs the ball on third and 15.

Q. Why would you run the ball on third and 15?

A. Hypothetically, if your quarterback was really inconsistent on deep balls and turned it over a lot, you might want to throw away a down to ensure that you'd get a punt off. Even though it's a pretty big vote of no confidence for your offense, which is a really shitty thing to do as a coordinator.

Q. But wait, didn't you just tell me Wilson's on pace for the sixth-best completion rate of all time (disregarding the other clowns from this season)? And doesn't he have a really low interception rate even at his worst?

A. Actually he's on pace for the fourth-best completion rate ever (he beats out both Montana and Young, like a god). But he is on pace for a career-worst 10.7 interceptions this year. (He's improved each of the past three years, though, from 10 to 9 to 7). So maybe Bevell is really scared of him turning it over on deep balls. Then again, Wilson does have one of the best deep balls in the NFL over his career. I'm gonna go with Occam's razor on this one: Bevell is just really bad at play calling.

Q. So what other notable QB occurrences have happened so far this year?

A. Well, Mariota is having a pretty good rookie season. By which I mean he's on pace for by far the greatest rookie QB season of all time. He's actually one of the five guys who beats out Brady in TD%.

Q. Who's first and fourth, respectively, on the TD% list?

A. Glad you asked! First is obviously Carson Palmer (who's thrown a TD on 10.2% of his attempts. The modern record, held by Peyton Manning from 2004, is 9.9%. Everyone ahead of Manning on the list (and 9 of the current top 10) played before the 1970 merger. Basically, Palmer is having a better season, speaking strictly in terms of offensive production (touchdowns matter; yards don't), than any quarterback since 1949. Fourth is, naturally, Andy Dalton, at 8.7%.

Q. Why do you insist on grouping Palmer and Dalton together? One is old-school, the other is fairly young. One is playing with an elderly Larry Fitzgerald and who the fuck else?, the other is playing with AJ freaking Green. One is leading an offense that has scored 42 points per game, the other is leading an offense that has scored 28 points per game.

A. Okay, first of all, none of those facts are that different. Second, I want to take this opportunity to point out that in my fantasy football love/hate, I predicted Hill to split carries with Bernard; so far this season Hill and Bernard have EXACTLY the same number of carries (41 each) and Bernard has nearly twice the yards. (This isn't relevant but I like being right.) And third, there's a ton of very legitimate reasons to group them together: They're both Bengals QBs (or formal Bengals QBs), they're both ginger, and they're both doing weirdly well despite not actually being that good.

Q. So they're not actually that good? That answers my next question. Who's your MVP pick this year?

A. Certainly none of them. The only QBs with a chance are Rodgers and Brady. I could see it going either way. And MVP is a stupid award so no one else has a chance.

Q. Cool. Peace.