![]() But Graham also had one of the higher completion rates of his era. His 9.0 YPA is more than a half-yard better than second-place Luckman and his 8.4 mark and he’s third overall in YPC behind Luckman and someone named Ed Brown. However, the early days of the NFL were dominated by the guys who chucked it deep: Otto Graham, Sid Luckman, and Norm Van Brocklin are the top three on the career leaderboard thanks in part to the styles of offense that they played in. Do you remember from our earlier installments how Tom Brady was close to Rodgers in INT%? He’s almost a full 1% behind in TD%, but Rodgers also makes a big distinction in YPA, as he has a 0.4 YPA advantage on the longtime Patriot. In overall YPA, therefore, Aaron Rodgers is among the very best of the modern breed of quarterbacks, tying for second among active players in YPA (just 0.1 behind Russell Wilson) and sitting in a tie for sixth place all-time. Multiply them together and there you are, yards per attempt. Getting YPA is actually simple math when you have the above two stats. That difference in completion rate is massive and more than makes up for the difference in YPC, though that difference is still significant. Johnny Unitas, for example, put up 14.2 YPC, but completed just 54.6% of his passes. Let’s use Rodgers as the modern comparison: he has a career completion percentage of 65.1% and a YPC of 12.1. In fact, Young, his predecessor, Joe Montana (15th), and Troy Aikman (T-29th), are the only three quarterbacks in the top 36 all-time who played the bulk of their careers before the new millennium.Īnd it’s not just that the top of the leaderboard is modern - it’s the sheer difference between the modern standard and that of the players who lead in YPC. You have to go down to Steve Young at 11th place to find a player who retired before 2009, let alone one whose heyday was in the 1980s or 90s. Rodgers ranks seventh all-time in completion percentage, and the names at the top of the list bear out the discussion above. (If you count Michael Vick as active, that bumps Rodgers to sixth.) Completion % Rodgers’ offense absolutely does not fit that mold, but he still comes in fifth among active QBs behind Newton, Russell Wilson, Ben Roethlisberger, and Andrew Luck. Newton runs an offense predicated on running the football and then using his big arm to throw over the top for big plays. Cam Newton is the active leader in this stat at 12.7 YPC, which makes sense when you think about it. ![]() The leaderboard for career YPC is here, and you have to scroll a very long way before finding an active quarterback. These two contributing factors can sometimes balance out a bit when looking at YPA, but ultimately the top of the leaderboard is littered with players from every era. How does that affect YPA? In short, the yards per completion were generally higher in the earlier days of football, because the passes tended to be deeper, but the completion percentage was significantly lower, as you’ll see in a bit. Now, NFL teams prioritize being careful with the football, which lends itself to shorter passes at a higher frequency. The pass was a chance at a big play, but that chance was often there for both teams. This led to more touchdowns per pass, more interceptions per pass, and often more yards per pass, since the dirty work of moving the football methodically down the field was left to the running game. In the early days of the NFL, quarterbacks didn’t throw the ball very much, and when they did they usually went deep. ![]() That will be a common theme in this discussion of Rodgers’ all-time numbers and those from his magnificent 2011 season, both of which illustrate just how hard it is to achieve and maintain truly elite YPA numbers. Thus, if you complete passes for more yardage, that will be reflected in YPA, but you are also rewarded for completing those passes at a higher rate. One of the interesting things about the yards per attempt stat is something that Paul Nooonan and I have discussed at length: essentially, it encompasses two separate stats that have more easily-definable meanings: yards per completion and completion percentage. Statistics like yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage are the easiest of these stats to find and can take at least the volume aspect out of the equation. One way to evaluate the best players at the quarterback position is on a per-pass basis. ![]() The NFL is far more of a passing league now than ever before, and that requires raw passing yardage, touchdown, and interception totals to be examined with a critical eye. To understand how great Aaron Rodgers is, one needs to look at historical context for his numbers. ![]()
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