From the Washington Post:
Actually, after the pass-happy 2004, referees tended to shift against the offense again, as Aaron Schatz of FootballOutsiders pointed out in 2005. Maybe the way the refs are calling has shifted back in 2009 to more 2004-like customs? The NFL can change things by winks and nudges as well as by overt rule changes.
The wide-open era
Led by some of the NFL's current greats, quarterback play is as exciting and efficient as ever
By Mark Maske
"There are a lot of quarterbacks playing at a high level, more than I've seen in a long time," former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann said.
If this indeed becomes one of the greatest seasons for quarterbacks, collectively, in league history, the question will be: Why now?
The answer seems to be that it's a combination of having a collection of excellent quarterbacks and a set of circumstances highly favorable to good quarterback play. ...
But it's more than just an assemblage of good quarterbacks. It's also the most passing-friendly era in NFL history. The game has been wide open since the 2004 season, before which the league cracked down on clutching-and-grabbing tactics by defensive backs with a directive from the competition committee to officials to strictly enforce the rule prohibiting defensive contact against receivers more than five yards downfield.
Actually, after the pass-happy 2004, referees tended to shift against the offense again, as Aaron Schatz of FootballOutsiders pointed out in 2005. Maybe the way the refs are calling has shifted back in 2009 to more 2004-like customs? The NFL can change things by winks and nudges as well as by overt rule changes.
The game changed immediately. That season, Peyton Manning threw 49 touchdown passes, breaking Dan Marino's 20-year-old NFL season record, and had the highest passer rating in league history, at 121.1. Brady threw 50 touchdown passes two seasons ago to set a new record. Last season, Brees had only the second 5,000-yard passing season in NFL history. Add to that the fact that the league has cracked down on hits on quarterbacks by defenders, and stopping the top passers seems to have become next to impossible.
"I think the rules benefit the passing game right now," said Tim Hasselbeck, a former quarterback for five NFL teams, including the Redskins and New York Giants. "You have the way pass interference and the plays down the field are being called. You have quarterbacks being protected by the rules, and I think that obviously plays into it. It helps guys stay healthy and play every week."
Peyton Manning and Roethlisberger are on pace for 5,000-yard passing seasons. Perhaps more strikingly, eight NFL quarterbacks currently have passer ratings above 100. Six more have passer ratings above 90. Compare that to last season, when only the San Diego Chargers' Rivers had a passer rating above 100 at season's end, and eight others topped 90.
The passer rating is a figure designed to assess overall throwing efficiency through a complicated formula that takes many statistical elements into account. The system, which gives a passer a rating between zero and 158.3, has its detractors. But it most often seems to confirm what knowledgeable observers say about which quarterbacks are playing well and which aren't, and this season it affirms that many of the sport's biggest stars are putting on dazzling displays. ...
"I don't necessarily love the passer rating system as a measure of quarterback play," Hasselbeck said. "If a guy is sacked and fumbled, that doesn't show up in the rating. But there are obviously a number of guys playing well, and that's reflected in the numbers. ...
"There are probably 15 to 17 guys where if you were running a team you'd say, 'I definitely feel comfortable building my franchise around this guy in any system. We can get to the Super Bowl with this guy as our quarterback,' " Hasselbeck, now an NFL analyst for ESPN, said by telephone this week. "I do think that's an unusually high number, to think that half the league or over half the league is comfortable with its quarterback situation."
The productive passing seems to be benefiting the teams involved and the league as a whole. The combined record of the clubs with quarterbacks who have passer ratings above 100 is 37-8. The league, meanwhile, has seen its television ratings soar this season; they're up 13 percent over last season and were at a 20-year high five weeks into the season. The sport's rules-makers always have considered a wide-open style of play attractive to fans.
"The ratings have been incredible," Colts owner Jim Irsay said last week at an NFL owners' meeting in Boston. "You really have to understand the sort of numbers we've been able to put up. That's been incredible and it shouldn't be understated."
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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11 comments:
The system, which gives a passer a rating between zero and 158.3
I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but any stat with a range like that is probably not very meaningful.
It's also interesting that Tom Brady never seems to get a lot of respect for his ability because a lot of people think that he's just a good quarterback in a great system. This suspicion is somewhat confirmed by the experience of Matt Cassel and by the fact that Bill Belichick almost managed to drag the woeful Drew Bledsoe to the Super Bowl.
Great quarterbacks can make a team good, but only a great team can make a good quarterback great.
I think the current generation was inspired by Peyton Manning, and his unstoppable no-huddle offense. Many of today's best were in school, or struggling when Peyton transformed the position in the NFL. You didn't see the audibles and hand-signals until Peyton came to the league.
The game has been wide open since the 2004 season, before which the league cracked down on clutching-and-grabbing tactics by defensive backs with a directive from the competition committee to officials to strictly enforce the rule prohibiting defensive contact against receivers more than five yards downfield...
The game changed immediately...
The sport's rules-makers always have considered a wide-open style of play attractive to fans.
"The ratings have been incredible," Colts owner Jim Irsay said last week at an NFL owners' meeting in Boston. "You really have to understand the sort of numbers we've been able to put up. That's been incredible and it shouldn't be understated"...
You mean changing the rules changes the nature of the game?
Gee - who'da thunk it?
It's almost as though changing the rules of the game tends to produce - wait, get this - an entirely new game altogether!
And changing the rules to increase television ratings?
Nah, no one would ever do that...
I have tried watching american football many times, however for some reason it just hasnt gone into me. I did not grow up in America by the way.
There are alot of people who like this game and appreciate it, it does nothing for me. I would just like some advice on how to appreciate it. Should I concentrate on a particular aspect of it that will unlock the hidden beauty from my eyes.
I like soccer very much and i get enormous satisfaction when I see a good game. If a I see for example a very good goal that had some refined dribbling in it; that could turn a bad day into a good day.
Now is there a way to hook me up with this fotball thing. I feel like I am missing out.
"I think the current generation was inspired by Peyton Manning, and his unstoppable no-huddle offense."
So why didn't Jim Kelly change the game with his equally impressive no-huddle offense?
Because he only had one season with a QB rating higher than 100. But he was a premier QB for his time.
I like soccer very much and i get enormous satisfaction when I see a good game. If a I see for example a very good goal that had some refined dribbling in it; that could turn a bad day into a good day.
Soccer is an excellent game for women, girls, small boys, and foreigners.
The NFL can change things by winks and nudges as well as by overt rule changes. --SS
The sport's rules-makers always have considered a wide-open style of play attractive to fans.
"The ratings have been incredible..."
Well, hey... steroids are a "wink and a nudge", too. And they had the same effect on baseball.
People are always saying that baseball is boring, and "needs more scoring". Steroids gave it just that, and the "ratings" responded in kind. Otherwise, the sport would have kept bleeding fans to the more gripping spectacle of cricket, with its 600-run matches.
"The ratings have been incredible..." Colts owner Jim Irsay said...
Hey, isn't that the son of the guy who slipped the historic Colt franchise out of Baltimore in the middle of the night without a fare-thee-well? Gee, why not quote the Bidwells instead?
Soccer is an excellent game for women, girls, small boys, and foreigners. --David Davenport
And those groups have more stamina than do grown American men, especially grown American men whose ancestry is from a certain corner of a certain continent. Is that why soccer can do without the constant substitutions and "time outs" of football?
You know what else those socialist soccer nuts in England do? They demand that clubs build their own stadiums, at their own damned expense!
Football uses the good ol' American free-enterprise way of coer-- excuse me, persuading-- the citizens to raise the city sales tax to build a facility the team can rent for $1 a year, so it isn't forced to move reluctantly to Oklahoma City or Milwaukee or Sacramento.
Even worse, if your club has a bad year, the English kick it out of the league! And replace it with a club from another city! How is a poor beleaguered billionaire supposed to play one city council off another if they do that to him?
"Now is there a way to hook me up with this fotball thing. I feel like I am missing out."
Get some buddies together and play sometime on the weekend.
As Marshall McLuhan might have put it, it may be that the league unconsciously has adjusted the game for the big, flat-screen TVs most guys watch nowadays, making it easy to highlight one player, the QB. The experience is much different -- more "hot" in McL's terms -- than the "cool," small, usually black-and-white TVs of the Jim Brown-Lombardi 1960s.
Ratings are up because more people are at home doing nothing. Isn't attendance down?
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