Ryan Tannehill

"The Guy wrote:

What it suggests to me is that Tannehill tends to accumulate yards that aren’t meaningful in terms of expected points, thus his passer rating is artificially inflated in a way that’s less predictive of scoring and therefore of winning.

That's a bold claim. It's a claim that can be tested and I think you should at least present evidence for this before claiming it.

Specifically, show what expected win% is using ESPN's clutch-weighted EPA per play vs. passer rating to see which predicts Tannehill's win% better. I can do the predictions for passer rating so that methodology can be copied. If you let's say adjust all 2002-2019 regular season (team) passer ratings to 2019, the best fitting line between win% and passer rating is:

Win% = 1.08*(passer rating) - 47.6

(and you can plug in the 2019 league average of 90.4 in there and you get 50% win%)

So.. with a 117.5 rating you'd expect Tannehill to win 79.3% of his games. He won 70% (these are regular season stats).

If you do the comparable analysis with ESPN's EPA per play and show it does better than 9.3% away from actual win% I'll be impressed. Since it's some work I'd be willing to accept going 5-10 years back, but you'll need to get sufficient sample size to make the best-fitting line reliable. Oh, and no need to adjust to a common year with EPA because it's already adjusted. Also, note that the best-fitting line is to QB EPA per play (meaning you have to use win% for that QB) as there is no comparable team stat to do the regression with.

Anyway, for Tannehill I'm predicting passer rating does better than ESPN's EPA per play.

How can you say that Tannehill's yards are not meaningful when the titans went from one of the worst offenses in the NFL in terms of scoring to the #2 scoring offense in football.

PLease come up with some other crazy theory... This was awesome... in it's own messed up way

"Etrius24 wrote:

How can you say that Tannehill's yards are not meaningful when the titans went from one of the worst offenses in the NFL in terms of scoring to the #2 scoring offense in football.

PLease come up with some other crazy theory... This was awesome... in it's own messed up way

He was also one of the best, if not the best, QB in the red zone.

I found another site that uses EPA (and not the manipulated version that ESPN uses). They also break the plays down by type so the number of plays equals the pass attempts.

This is their definition under passing stats:
EPA: Expected Points Added; the total change in the offense’s Expected Points that came on passes thrown by the player

It is a pay site but they have a free trial.

http://wiki.sisdatahub.com/

In their data, Tannehill is 6th in the league in EPA pre play and 2nd in the league in percentage of pass plays that produced a positive EPA.

[ATTACH:full]

"cbrad wrote:

That's a bold claim. It's a claim that can be tested and I think you should at least present evidence for this before claiming it.

Specifically, show what expected win% is using ESPN's clutch-weighted EPA per play vs. passer rating to see which predicts Tannehill's win% better. I can do the predictions for passer rating so that methodology can be copied. If you let's say adjust all 2002-2019 regular season (team) passer ratings to 2019, the best fitting line between win% and passer rating is:

Win% = 1.08*(passer rating) - 47.6

(and you can plug in the 2019 league average of 90.4 in there and you get 50% win%)

So.. with a 117.5 rating you'd expect Tannehill to win 79.3% of his games. He won 70% (these are regular season stats).

If you do the comparable analysis with ESPN's EPA per play and show it does better than 9.3% away from actual win% I'll be impressed. Since it's some work I'd be willing to accept going 5-10 years back, but you'll need to get sufficient sample size to make the best-fitting line reliable. Oh, and no need to adjust to a common year with EPA because it's already adjusted. Also, note that the best-fitting line is to QB EPA per play (meaning you have to use win% for that QB) as there is no comparable team stat to do the regression with.

Anyway, for Tannehill I'm predicting passer rating does better than ESPN's EPA per play.

I also notice that the ESPN list restricts the list to the top 30 QBs. I'd be willing to be that the list he is using for passer rating includes more QBs. So he is likely comparing the z scores for passer rating and EPA using different populations.

"cbrad wrote:

That's a bold claim. It's a claim that can be tested and I think you should at least present evidence for this before claiming it.

Specifically, show what expected win% is using ESPN's clutch-weighted EPA per play vs. passer rating to see which predicts Tannehill's win% better. I can do the predictions for passer rating so that methodology can be copied. If you let's say adjust all 2002-2019 regular season (team) passer ratings to 2019, the best fitting line between win% and passer rating is:

Win% = 1.08*(passer rating) - 47.6

(and you can plug in the 2019 league average of 90.4 in there and you get 50% win%)

So.. with a 117.5 rating you'd expect Tannehill to win 79.3% of his games. He won 70% (these are regular season stats).

If you do the comparable analysis with ESPN's EPA per play and show it does better than 9.3% away from actual win% I'll be impressed. Since it's some work I'd be willing to accept going 5-10 years back, but you'll need to get sufficient sample size to make the best-fitting line reliable. Oh, and no need to adjust to a common year with EPA because it's already adjusted. Also, note that the best-fitting line is to QB EPA per play (meaning you have to use win% for that QB) as there is no comparable team stat to do the regression with.

Anyway, for Tannehill I'm predicting passer rating does better than ESPN's EPA per play.

If we do that, how will we determine whether the discrepancy between passer rating and EPA per play, in terms of predicting win percentage, reflects that one of them is measuring team functioning (as opposed to individual functioning) to a greater degree than the other?

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

I also notice that the ESPN list restricts the list to the top 30 QBs. I'd be willing to be that the list he is using for passer rating includes more QBs. So he is likely comparing the z scores for passer rating and EPA using different populations.

The sample I've been using consists of the players listed on the ESPN site (https://www.espn.com/nfl/qbr) for the past three regular seasons.

"The Guy wrote:

The sample I've been using consists of the players listed on the ESPN site (https://www.espn.com/nfl/qbr) for the past three regular seasons.

ESPN mysteriously leaves off a number of QBs.

Ryan Tannehill - 286 attempts, included
Matthew Stafford - 291 attempts, included
Mason Rudolph - 283 attempts included
Joe Flacco - 262 attempts, not included
Case Keenum - 247 attempts, not included
Dwayne Haskins - 203 attempts, not included

"The Guy wrote:

If we do that, how will we determine whether the discrepancy between passer rating and EPA per play, in terms of predicting win percentage, reflects that one of them is measuring team functioning (as opposed to individual functioning) to a greater degree than the other?

You can't. Both are team stats, and one of them is proprietary. My point is you made a claim without any evidence.

Furthermore, note that the expected win% for Tannehill is higher than actual so you can't even superficially say he was performing worse than expected from a team with 70% win%. Besides, the standard error (standard deviation along the y-axis relative to the estimate) is about 10 passer rating points (a bit less for higher ratings since things asymptote) so the predicted win% (95% confidence interval) goes approximately from low 60's% to high 90% and 70% lies well within that.

So there's nothing you can claim here with passer rating not being a good predictor, and I would bet that if you actually did the comparable analysis to what I did that you'd find that ESPN's clutch-weighted EPA per play is a worse predictor for Tannehill.

"Etrius24 wrote:

Tannehill just posted the 4th highest QB in the history of the NFL.... I am not expecting him to do that **** again...

Let's also not forget, when Tannehill eventually retires, he will be in the record books as 4th all time...unless someone surpasses him by then...and they won't adjust his stats.

"cbrad wrote:

You can't. Both are team stats, and one of them is proprietary. My point is you made a claim without any evidence.

Furthermore, note that the expected win% for Tannehill is higher than actual so you can't even superficially say he was performing worse than expected from a team with 70% win%. Besides, the standard error (standard deviation along the y-axis relative to the estimate) is about 10 passer rating points (a bit less for higher ratings since things asymptote) so the predicted win% (95% confidence interval) goes approximately from low 60's% to high 90% and 70% lies well within that.

So there's nothing you can claim here with passer rating not being a good predictor, and I would bet that if you actually did the comparable analysis to what I did that you'd find that ESPN's clutch-weighted EPA per play is a worse predictor for Tannehill.

Here's the thing, however -- EPA per play predicts win percentage better than passer rating. For the past five regular seasons those figures are 0.617 for EPA per play (95% confidence interval 0.510 to 0.706) and 0.572 for adjusted (to 2019) passer rating (95% confidence interval 0.456 to 0.669). The confidence interval for EPA per play is smaller as well.

The Guy is basically Tannehill's Carol Baskin.

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

ESPN mysteriously leaves off a number of QBs.

Ryan Tannehill - 286 attempts, included
Matthew Stafford - 291 attempts, included
Mason Rudolph - 283 attempts included
Joe Flacco - 262 attempts, not included
Case Keenum - 247 attempts, not included
Dwayne Haskins - 203 attempts, not included

I wonder if that's related to the Charlie Batch story. When ESPN's QBR came out (which is based on their clutch-weighted EPA) people pointed out that Charlie Batch's 17 attempt 186 yard 2 INT game was the highest ever QBR ever recorded for any game at 99.9. ESPN instead of modifying their formula decided to artificially remove Batch from their list of highest QBR by setting a minimum threshold for attempts. Batch's 99.9 is still there for all to see:
https://www.espn.com/nfl/player/gamelog/_/id/1490/type/nfl/year/2010

But he's not on any list of highest QBR (at least not last I checked). It's possible they decided to remove QB's with too few total attempts to prevent sample size related issues like that. Now.. Batch had 17 attempts in that game and 17*16 games = 272 attempts, and all the ones you listed that are not included are below 272 attempts. Coincidence?

"The Guy wrote:

Here's the thing, however -- EPA per play predicts win percentage better than passer rating. For the past five regular seasons those figures are 0.617 for EPA per play (95% confidence interval 0.510 to 0.706) and 0.572 for adjusted (to 2019) passer rating (95% confidence interval 0.456 to 0.669). The confidence interval for EPA per play is smaller as well.

Means nothing because you don't know what extra parameters ESPN is including in their proprietary "clutch-weighted" formula. Every mathematician will tell you that by including more parameters you can predict things better, so it's trivial to say you can predict something better if you use more parameters. How many does ESPN use?

Remember, we know QBR uses 10,000 lines of code when you only need a few lines for a look-up table, and you yourself showed that ESPN's clutch-weighted EPA is nearly perfectly correlated with QBR, so that means that most of those 10k lines of code are for "clutch". Add more parameters => trivial increase in predictive power. Doesn't mean they're actually capturing something relevant in the game. That's just a mathematical trick you can play with things that have no physical meaning.

Best to stay away from clutch-weighted EPA. Use EPA if you want. That's a solid concept. But stay away from anything proprietary.

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

He was also one of the best, if not the best, QB in the red zone.

I found another site that uses EPA (and not the manipulated version that ESPN uses). They also break the plays down by type so the number of plays equals the pass attempts.

This is their definition under passing stats:
EPA: Expected Points Added; the total change in the offense’s Expected Points that came on passes thrown by the player

It is a pay site but they have a free trial.

http://wiki.sisdatahub.com/

In their data, Tannehill is 6th in the league in EPA pre play and 2nd in the league in percentage of pass plays that produced a positive EPA.

[ATTACH:full]

OK so let's use the above data, which apparently removes ESPN's clutch weighting.

For the top 33 QBs in the league in terms of pass attempts in 2019 (ending with Dwayne Haskins at 203 attempts), here are the z-scores for the discrepancy between EPA per play z-score and passer rating z-score:

Ryan Tannehill 2.38
Russell Wilson 1.61
Joe Flacco 1.56
Dwayne Haskins 1.39
Drew Brees 1.12
Daniel Jones 1.08
Kirk Cousins 1.07
Case Keenum 0.84
Mason Rudolph 0.71
Gardner Minshew 0.66
Carson Wentz 0.51
Jimmy Garoppolo 0.36
Sam Darnold 0.31
Aaron Rodgers 0.26
Mitchell Trubisky 0.12
Kyler Murray 0.07
Derek Carr -0.01
Tom Brady -0.34
Josh Allen -0.39
Jacoby Brissett -0.41
Matthew Stafford -0.49
Kyle Allen -0.62
Matt Ryan -0.63
Andy Dalton -0.65
Ryan Fitzpatrick -0.79
Deshaun Watson -0.89
Lamar Jackson -0.95
Baker Mayfield -1.09
Jameis Winston -1.25
Dak Prescott -1.26
Patrick Mahomes -1.30
Philip Rivers -1.35
Jared Goff -1.61

Now consider that when we use ESPN's EPA per play for the past five regular seasons, here are the top 20 QBs in the league during that period of time, again in terms of the z-score of the discrepancy between EPA per play z-score and adjusted (to 2019) passer rating z-score:

2018 Ryan TannehillMIA 2.76
2019 Ryan TannehillTEN 2.70
2017 Jared GoffLAR 2.61
2019 Kirk CousinsMIN 1.83
2015 Derek CarrOAK 1.82
2015 Russell WilsonSEA 1.79
2017 Drew BreesNO 1.76
2017 Mitchell TrubiskyCHI 1.70
2015 Blaine GabbertSF 1.68
2018 Russell WilsonSEA 1.39
2019 Gardner Minshew IIJAX 1.37
2017 Kirk CousinsWSH 1.32
2015 Ryan TannehillMIA 1.30
2016 Sam BradfordMIN 1.28
2019 Drew BreesNO 1.26
2017 Andy DaltonCIN 1.23
2016 Ryan TannehillMIA 1.19
2018 Derek CarrOAK 1.10
2015 Sam BradfordPHI 1.10

So, this isn't a one-season thing for him, and it occurs at various levels of passer rating. Of course he didn't play in 2017, or that figure might be in the top 20 above as well.

"Etrius24 wrote:

How can you say that Tannehill's yards are not meaningful when the titans went from one of the worst offenses in the NFL in terms of scoring to the #2 scoring offense in football.

PLease come up with some other crazy theory... This was awesome... in it's own messed up way

For some reason you don't seem to understand that when a player has a single season that's extremely discrepant from six previous seasons in the league, it makes some sense to take a look at what sorts of situational advantages he might have been benefiting from.

To shut down that process without exploring it fully actually shows a bias for Tannehill, and (perceived) bias is the thing you're apparently railing against here.

"The Guy wrote:

OK so let's use the above data, which apparently removes ESPN's clutch weighting.

For the top 33 QBs in the league in terms of pass attempts in 2019 (ending with Dwayne Haskins at 203 attempts), here are the z-scores for the discrepancy between EPA z-score and passer rating z-score:

Ryan Tannehill 2.38
Russell Wilson 1.61
Joe Flacco 1.56
Dwayne Haskins 1.39
Drew Brees 1.12
Daniel Jones 1.08
Kirk Cousins 1.07
Case Keenum 0.84
Mason Rudolph 0.71
Gardner Minshew 0.66
Carson Wentz 0.51
Jimmy Garoppolo 0.36
Sam Darnold 0.31
Aaron Rodgers 0.26
Mitchell Trubisky 0.12
Kyler Murray 0.07
Derek Carr -0.01
Tom Brady -0.34
Josh Allen -0.39
Jacoby Brissett -0.41
Matthew Stafford -0.49
Kyle Allen -0.62
Matt Ryan -0.63
Andy Dalton -0.65
Ryan Fitzpatrick -0.79
Deshaun Watson -0.89
Lamar Jackson -0.95
Baker Mayfield -1.09
Jameis Winston -1.25
Dak Prescott -1.26
Patrick Mahomes -1.30
Philip Rivers -1.35
Jared Goff -1.61

Now consider that when we use ESPN's EPA per play for the past five regular seasons, here are the top 20 QBs in the league during that period of time, again in terms of the z-score of the discrepancy between EPA per play z-score and adjusted (to 2019) passer rating z-score:

2018 Ryan TannehillMIA 2.76
2019 Ryan TannehillTEN 2.70
2017 Jared GoffLAR 2.61
2019 Kirk CousinsMIN 1.83
2015 Derek CarrOAK 1.82
2015 Russell WilsonSEA 1.79
2017 Drew BreesNO 1.76
2017 Mitchell TrubiskyCHI 1.70
2015 Blaine GabbertSF 1.68
2018 Russell WilsonSEA 1.39
2019 Gardner Minshew IIJAX 1.37
2017 Kirk CousinsWSH 1.32
2015 Ryan TannehillMIA 1.30
2016 Sam BradfordMIN 1.28
2019 Drew BreesNO 1.26
2017 Andy DaltonCIN 1.23
2016 Ryan TannehillMIA 1.19
2018 Derek CarrOAK 1.10
2015 Sam BradfordPHI 1.10

So, this isn't a one-season thing for him, and it occurs at various levels of passer rating. Of course he didn't play in 2017, or that figure might be in the top 20 above as well.

Yeah, well, I care as much about this as you do about YPA, CPOE, red zone performance, and the many other stats that indicate a high level of QB play. You can have your single unexplained quirk.

"The Guy wrote:

For some reason you don't seem to understand that when a player has a single season that's extremely discrepant from six previous seasons in the league, it makes some sense to take a look at what sorts of situational advantages he might have been benefiting from.

To shut down that process without exploring it fully actually shows a bias for Tannehill, and (perceived) bias is the thing you're apparently railing against here.

LOL... bias..... laughable after you spent 6 years denying the situation disadvantages that hindered him.......

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

Yeah, well, I care as much about this as you do about YPA, CPOE, red zone performance, and the many other stats that indicate a high level of QB play. You can have your single unexplained quirk.

Since it involves at least four seasons of his career and appears to be highly specific to him and not to other QBs, why not try to explain it?

"The Guy wrote:

Since it involves at least four seasons of his career and appears to be highly specific to him and not to other QBs, why not try to explain it?

Maybe because is a fudged number? Haven't we already established that?

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

Maybe because is a fudged number? Haven't we already established that?

Well hold on now, ESPN was supposed to have been providing the "fudge," and when we remove ESPN's proprietary component, we get a consistent result. Tannehill is still atop the league.

"The Guy wrote:

Since it involves at least four seasons of his career and appears to be highly specific to him and not to other QBs, why not try to explain it?

LOL at you looking for an alternate explanation for a QB that was:

1st in passer rating
1st in YPA
1st in NY/A
1st in ANY/A
1st in CPOE
1st in red zone completion %
1st in inside the 10 completion %
1st in red zone on target %
2nd in TD %
2nd in red zone TD %
4th in average completed air yards
3rd in average intended air yards
3rd in air yards to the sticks

"The Guy wrote:

Well hold on now, ESPN was supposed to have been providing the "fudge," and when we remove ESPN's proprietary component, we get a consistent result. Tannehill is still atop the league.

And what happens to all the other results? Everyone else stay pretty much the same?

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

LOL at you looking for an alternate explanation for a QB that was:

1st in passer rating
1st in YPA
1st in NY/A
1st in ANY/A
1st in CPOE
1st in red zone completion %
1st in inside the 10 completion %
1st in red zone on target %
2nd in TD %
2nd in red zone TD %
4th in average completed air yards
3rd in average intended air yards
3rd in air yards to the sticks

Sure, because what we're examining here is whether he enjoyed a situational advantage, and EPA incorporates the situation in its formulation.

Take a look at the following article and realize that the two variables fundamentally utilized in this very comprehensive approach are EPA and WPA:

https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/jqas/15/3/article-p163.xml?tab_body=pdf-69320

"The Guy wrote:

Sure, because what we're examining here is whether he enjoyed a situational advantage, and EPA incorporates the situation in its formulation.

Take a look at the following article and realize that the two variables fundamentally utilized in this very comprehensive approach are EPA and WPA:

https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/jqas/15/3/article-p163.xml?tab_body=pdf-69320

LOL.... sure. Did a situation "advantage" explain his 2018 season? Also, you are not using the EPA described in the article for the most part. You are using the fudged numbers.

BTW, CPOE takes into account the situation (distance to the receiver, separation from defender) also. He was first in that metric, by a lot.

"FinFaninBuffalo wrote:

LOL.... sure. Did a situation "advantage" explain his 2018 season? Also, you are not using the EPA described in the article for the most part. You are using the fudged numbers.

A situational advantage could explain each of his four seasons noted above, in that if his passer rating would've been consistent with his EPA and not so discrepant from it, his passer rating would've been lower every one of those years.

You seem to be implying that the situation in 2018 wasn't advantageous, and I understand that concept, but there are numerous situations in every game, regardless of the team a player is on, that offer the opportunity to increase passer rating without correspondingly increasing EPA.

That's what I mean by "situational advantage" in this instance. His performance, combined with the situation, did wonders for his passer rating, but far less for his EPA. Or conversely, there were instances in which his EPA was lowered, and his passer rating was unaffected.

BTW, CPOE takes into account the situation (distance to the receiver, separation from defender) also. He was first in that metric, by a lot.

Not surprising, given the following:

"That chart shows that Tannehill has been the least accurate quarterback in the league on deep throws, but Titans receivers have caught EVERY catchable pass he’s thrown. As you can see with all the red on the chart … that’s not normal. That chart was made before the Raiders game, but Tennessee’s receivers continued to be perfect on deep targets, hauling in all three of Tannehill’s catchable deep targets."

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/12/ryan-tannehill-titans-franchise-qb-new-contract