Quarterback ratings

Trent McCotter is back again as one of the targets of links in today's post, courtesy of his first column in the The News & Observer, which he will write in his copious spare time as a UNC law student. Yesterday, I sang the praises of Steve Strogatz, so now it's Trent's turn. One of the outwardly most mellow people I know, Trent's outward calm conceals a strong passion for sports statistics. A four time winner of the Jack Kavanagh Memorial Youth Baseball Research Award from SABR (three times in the college division, once in the high school division), Trent distinguishes himself by frequently taking a different tack in his work while also delving into the detailed numbers when needed.

In "How to fix the 'perfect game'," Trent avoids the details of the quarterback ratings definition and gets right to the interesting issue of the recent prevalence of perfect passer rating performances, wondering along the way quite how perfect they are.

While we're talking about quarterback ratings and looking forward to the upcoming season, check out "Vick as a Quarterback? He’s Underrated" by Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats in The Fifth Down (both sites are full of interesting items). Without getting into recalculations of possible quarterback ratings, Burke's discussion about more conventional statistics makes clear that neither they nor quarterback ratings tell the whole story.