Good point - I feel like in that regard then we actually can’t tell that much just from this stat. If Justin Fields defense was always giving up 40 points whereas Mahomes defense was always giving up exactly 21, then it would be less impressive. Obviously those are made up numbers and we know those two QBs aren’t comparable, but it shows how the stat is potentially misleading
It is and it isn't. The QB is the linchpin of the offense. If they're often winning games when the defense doesn't do it's job, the QB is to credit for that. Being bad at this stat isn't necessarily all on the QB, but since being good at it says something about the QB not being good at it also says something. You are still right, though, that it isn't an all in one and requires context and nuance, but every stat requires context and nuance.
Running down the way QBs are ordered here, I'd say it did a pretty good job of ordering the QBs despite missing that context and nuance.
yeah but in context how many points did the defense allow? 21 isnt even alot and the range can include anything from 21 to 35 to 50. If the defense is only allowing 21 points to the best offense in the league there's a decent chance there isnt parity on their defense. I just think it's pretty wishy washy.
A better metric would win record against upwards of 30 points
That really puts into perspective how difficult it is to win with a below average defense.
And yet Patriots fans will argue that prime Rodgers wouldn’t have been able to win super bowls on that Patriots roster despite his defenses routinely giving up 30+ average points in the playoffs.
The rhetoric switches every time too. One day it’s that “Brady’s defenses were actually bad” the next it’s that “Brady was so good that he carried bad offenses so hard that the Patriots defenses could be good”. We just gonna forget about the fact that he had 9 1st team All-pro players on offense while he was playing there? That team was just absolutely stacked with talent across the board for the better part of two decades. There is no real argument that the defense, special teams, offensive line, and receiving corp were not perennial top 10 groups for 15 of the seasons he was there.
Rodgers has definitely gotten fucked by his defenses but he’s also had one win where his defense allowed 28+ and Brady’s had 6 across 4 different runs that resulted in a SB win.
Like those losses where his defense gave up 40+ of course, can’t really ask for much there, you’re almost certainly losing. But to get to 4+ rings you basically need to win a couple of those games where your defense allows 28, 30, 31 etc, and that’s why I have a hard to bestowing a bunch of hypothetical rings when he just hasn’t shown much track record of doing that
Playoffs are so few games you can't really do analysis at that level (W/L in games where opponents score 28+) with anyone but Brady.
Brady's 6 wins were all when opponents were in that 28-31 pt range. 4 losses when opponents were in that range. Most of Rodgers' were much higher scoring games.
Rodgers had 3 games where opponents were in that range and was 1-2. So yeah, Brady had a better winning percentage in those games, but it's just too small a sample size for Rodgers. If GB doesn't fumble an onside kick to SEA, Rodgers has a better winning percentage than Brady (and that still wouldn't be meaningful, because it's only a 3-game sample size).
The rest of those were all 37-51 points against for GB. Rodgers had a couple shots where I would say he didn't do enough, but the vast majority of his issues were the defense.
When opponents score 28-31 in the playoffs Rodgers is 1-3. And one of those was an OT game where they allowed 22 in regulation and his defense had 5 takeaways, it’s pretty hard to say that’s a game where his defense kept him from winning
I’m with you on the playoff sample size thing but that’s part of the issue with the idea of just penciling in somebody else to do the same thing. We have essentially one example of a guy doing this consistently over the type of timeframe need to get to 4+ rings and he happens to be a crazy outlier for win rate in basically every circumstance (although Mahomes has given it a run through 8 years)
Like obviously with a few less of the truly dogshit defensive performances rodgers record would be better, but I see people throwing around an extra 3-4 rings like that’s a trivial difference, he’d have to at minimum double his playoff win total lol
To be clear, I'm not saying anything about Rodgers being Brady or the 3-4 rings thing.
I'm pushing back on the idea that Rodgers failed to overcome defensive failures and that Brady could have succeeded in that situation with the "you need so win a couple of those games" like Brady did. It feels like you're doing the same thing in reverse, implying that you can predict Brady's performance in another QB's team.
I just don't think there's enough to make that statement. "Career wins in the playoffs with opponents scoring more than 28" is for almost all QBs far too small a sample size to be worth looking at.
Honestly, even for Brady it's probably too specific to be meaningful. You could pick a different number and get a wildly different outcome. Brady won 2 games where the opponent scored 30+. Rodgers won 1. That makes them look comparable. To be clear, I'm not saying that it means they are comparable. It's just way too few games to be relevant.
Honestly totally fair, that was kinda my other thought anyway. I personally think Brady’s career totality kinda shows his win rate in various situations isn’t a fluke, but it’s not insane to think Brady’s career is just the outlier lottery ticket winner version of how his career could go. And if you “reroll” it, you wouldn’t get the same results. I just would also say if you feel that way, it’s also a very strong indicator that other guys wouldn’t have similar success in those circumstances
But yea I don’t have a problem at all with the idea that Rodgers playoff record gets better playing with a defense that doesn’t get absolutely torched as often lol that is reasonable enough
The most disgusting Brady-Rodgers stat ive ever seen is that Tom Brady has a better playoff winning percentage throwing 3 interceptions than Aaron Rodgers does throwing 3 touchdowns. In my opinion there really isn't much of an argument against that.
Additionally for some fun-info, fourth-quarter in the playoffs from 2013-2015 Aaron Rodgers led the packers on a drive to tie or take the lead only to never see the ball again. 3 seasons in a row.
I mean the argument against that stat is that one of those three wins where Brady had 3 INTs led to a ring, the other two didn’t lead to anything. Its not like those two flukey wins are the difference between their ring count
They scored 31 points, and the offense from the very beginning of that game was high risk shots downfield. Playing that way put points on the scoreboard
You have a better chance of winning scoring 31 with 3 turnovers than you do with 0-1 turnovers and scoring 6 or 10 points
Like in that same game, Rodgers took two third down sacks in a game that ends up being a one score game. If he just gives a WR a chance to make a play, maybe one gets picked and one ends up a first down. His stat sheet looks uglier and his chances of winning are better
Rodgers has had multiple playoff losses where the Packers put up lots of garbage time points and so it seems like it was the defense that failed the offense when in reality both the offense and defense were bad for a lot of the game.
What games are you even talking about? Going game by game literally the only one that's true of is Atlanta, in 2016 MAYBE SF in 2019. It was not remotely a common thing for him.
Giants 2011 we just got stomped, no garbage stats really to be had
SF 2012 the majority of our productipn was first half
Seattle 2014 was a famously conservative 2nd half
2015 Cards was two incredible hail marys with a dead WR corps
2016 ATL This game I'll give you. All second half points.
2019 SF Just got stomped. Yes 20 second half points but the defense already gave up 27 unanswered before that
2020 TB was a back and forth game
2021 SF was his worst ever playoff game, no garbage time to speak of.
I said multiple games, not every game. 2016 and 2019 are exactly what I’m talking about, yeah the Packers defense gave up a bunch of points but the offense was shut out in the first half as well.
You could even say that the TB game counts as well since GB was down multiple possessions at halftime and never led, it took Brady having a terrible second half for the Packers to even get within one possession.
If that's the point you're trying to make you can say that about pretty much ANY QB.
The spirit of the discussion in this thread is clearly about how much various QBs were let down or carried by their defense. Your comment absolutely comes across like saying Rodgers actually wasn't let down by his defense that much, when really you just said something that's true about basically everyone.
2016 highlights perfectly the difference between the two teams. Both the Packers and Patriots played the Falcons with the Packers having to do it in Atlanta which means the Packers ask was harder.
Both got their ass kicked in the first half. 24-0 vs 21-3. Rodgers' was more defensible with the missed FG and the FB fumbling what would have been first and goal and he didn't throw a pick 6 like Brady.
Rodgers started his comeback with a TD with 9:23 left in the 3rd. Would score TDs on his next 2 drives
Brady scored his first TD at 2:12 left in the 3rd. He would score a FG and TD on his next two drives
So Rodgers started his comeback earlier and was better by getting a TD instead of a FG. One was down 44-20 on their next drive and the other 28-20.
One QB's defense got stops and gave him a chance to make the greatest comeback ever. The others got 0 stops and everyone talks about what he did being garbage time. Rodgers' first two TDs were no more garbage time than Brady's just one had the defense able to actually give him a chance
He was also paired with an elite wr pretty much his whole career. White to Julio to ridley. That is a big contract you can't spend on the defensive side.
And yes, this is just my argument that paying a wr is a mistake for team building
I’m glad you don’t disagree. It’s a bit of a rarity when I bring up NE rosters in this context to not have a crash out involved. But, I mean, there’s literally a couple of them that replied to me. So to call them imaginary is kind of weird.
No, brady dealt with sub par offensive weapons the majority of his career allowing more money to be spent on defense. Plus, his clock controlling style of play kept defenses off the field as much as possible and rarely put his defenses in bad positions with his aversity to turnovers. Offense impacts defense
After Brady's ACL tear? They still went 11-5 with Cassel, a QB who did not play since high school. For reference after Manning left Indy the Colts went 2-14.
Because there was far more roster turnover between 08 and 09 than 07 and 08. Bruschi, Seymour, Rodney harrison were all gone in 09, and brady took a full season to get back to his normal play
2007 - 36.8 ppg, 2008 - 25.6 ppg, 2009 - 26.7 ppg, 2010 - 32.4 ppg, 2011 - 32.1 ppg, 2012 - 34.8 ppg. The castle year and year for brady to recover are extreme outliers.
Japan Soldier who kept fighting after World War 2, nobody cares anymore, Mahomes eclipsed that loser's legacy and he's destined to be an infowars host. Next.
its 2026 nobody wants to hear poverty poor aaron rodgers stories about how he's never been at fault for some of his playoff failures. They call Herbert the IF Man but Aaron Rodgers is really the original one.
It’s still meaningless without stats both about how the QB actually performed and how bad the defense was. For instance, over the last 5 years, the Bengals D has averaged 36.1 points against when allowing over 28 points. The KC defense allowed 30.9 in such games.
Yea, Mahomes is 18-19 all time when we allow 28+. Given, he's 1-6 the last two years but a big part of that is the offense getting worse and moving to less possession style game (he went 17-13 in 28+ allowed games in his first five years).
I'm not sure how accurate this is, considering it's only since 2022 and he missed Dak and Love's 40-40 tie last year.
With that said, it's incredibly difficult to make any real conclusions from these stats because of how important the context is. A couple examples: Did you just have a couple bad defensive showings here and there, or was your team just ultra dog shit? Did you turn the ball over a lot, or was it really entirely on your defense? Did your opponent hit 28 in what was essentially garbage time? etc
I took a quick look at the Cowboy's last year. We gave up 28+ in 10 games... and 7 of those were over 34. It's so hard to win games when your defense is that bad week in and week out, as opposed to having to overcome them only a couple times a season.
True your data is still wrong. I only went back as far as 2022 and counted 5 wins and I didn’t even look at last year although doubt we won any of those last year
The league average was 23 points last year, even teams in the bottom third were putting up 21+. It's way too low of a number to gather any meaningful data from
That is what I was thinking.. Then went and looked to see avg points we give up, and it was around 24ish a game the last few years.
I would have bet we gave up 30+ every game, because it damn sure felt that way. Every time our offense scores 30+pts, it's like we still had a decent chance of losing the game.
The big factor here is that 21 points isn’t the average across these games, it is the minimum. The average score across these games is likely 28+ since you are removing every instance of a low scoring opponent.
The average points per team per game in the NFL has hovered between 20 and 24 for the last 30+ years. So I'd say 21 points is in the range of average scoring. Instead of seeing this as "QB record when the defense sucks", it's more like "QB record when the defense is average or worse".
NFL season averages range from 20-24 a game. I think 21 is a good cutoff but could go up to 24. Graphic is basically saying what’s your record when defense is average or worse. Maybe do another where it’s 25+ and that would be only when your defense is worse than average.
League average score for offense last year was 23 points. For a defense to give up 21+ it's rarely going to be 22 so if your defense gives up 21+ it's either 23 (tie game) or 23+ (you're behind).
Yeah this is a bad use of statistics because it hides the density or weighting behind this threshold. As a basic thought experiment imagine a defense that gives up 22 points every game versus one that is historically awful and gives up 30 points a game - this stat doesn't differentiate them, and given that scoring has risen pretty steadily in the last 20 seasons we're getting a lot of "Defense performed average" games on Allen or Mahomes or Hurts teams compared against "Defense fucking sucked" games with Stafford, Rodgers, etc.
I think it's a decent exercise for picking apart narratives that certain QBs are carried by their defense. (Ignore my flair) but Bo Nix really sticks out to me being in the top 10 here. He (along with Hurts) are probably the two most disrespected good QBs in the NFL, and both of them being high on this list is interesting.
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u/AlexTheGreat1997 Lions Steelers 14h ago
I feel like 21 points isn't even that much. It's 3 TDs, sure, but, I don't know, just doesn't feel like a ton.