RealGM

It is pretty confusing behind why Peyton Manning's 2004 season has a higher QB rating than Tom Brady's year. Brady had 300 more yards, more touchdowns, less interceptions, and a higher completion percentage. Yards per completion is the only stat Manning leads him in, and it's only by a yard. Does that alone make his rating higher? I know it doesn't mean much in the grand scale of things, but it's damn confusing.

My guess is 13 sacks versus 21 sacks. Maybe Peyton's slightly higher first down % ? How do they compare in fumbles lost? I don't know how QB rating is calulcated, and am too lazy to look it up right now, but I'm sure its an imperfect stat.

You know I just noticed this a few minutes ago while I was looking at their stats.

Brady has more yards, touchdowns, completions, completion %age and is threw one less pick.

Makes no sense at all.

Its probably due to the fact that his overall QB rating isnt based on overall stats, but his average QB rating per game. Brady had a couple of poor QB rating outings (Jets, Ravens, Dolphins) which lowered his average rating.

QB rating also factors in yards per attempt. Manning had an absolutely inhuman 9.2 YPA in his 2004 campaign, as opposed to Brady's lesser-but-still-great 8.3 YPA. Football Outsiders' DVOA stat also had 2004 Manning rated higher going into this week; i'm not sure if last night's game changed that. But even if DVOA still favors The Forehead, you can counterargue that Brady's season was hurt by the bad weather games that Manning didn't have to play. I'm betting these two seasons will be compared for years to come.

Peyton's TD% was higher; maybe that's it. I don't know the formula, but I did notice Peyton threw a lot less passes and still had 49 touchdowns. So even though Brady threw for a better completion percentage, the simple fact that Peyton threw less attempts but had a similar amount of touchdowns with a higher yards-per-attempt rate could be the reason he was 4 points higher in QB rating.

**** is **** confusing...

Either way, I think at the end of the day, more touchdowns, more yards, and a better completion percentage wins it out. Both are great, though. Manning is outstanding... I think Brady's a notch higher...

There are four components to the NFL passer rating:

-Completion percentage
-Yards per attempt
-Touchdowns per attempt
-Interceptions per attempt

All are then skewed (postively or negatively, each one is different)

Then they are added together and skewed to adjust to a scale where 100 is considered Very good (or adequate whatever a 100 rating means).

Hope this helps. If you are feeling ambitious you can go to the wikipedia article ("passer rating" or something like that) and calculate it yourself to see if or why Peyton's is higher. I'm guessing one or two of those categories are significantly higher for Peyton over Tom.

As for who is the better quarterback its no contest. Manning is. He runs the colts offence. Calls all the plays. Brady's a good quarterback but he gets all his plays from coach's or his girlie wristband.

^^^

lol