The 2021 regular season has come to an end. We thought it would be nice to take a look back at the passing performance of QBs. So what does this box full of pretty colors present? It is a visual representation of every passer rating received by the starting QBs this year. You can see the range from their worst game on the left, all the way to their best game on the extreme right. Everywhere you see an “x” denotes a game. Obviously, some QBs played in more games than others and thus had added opportunities. This graphic displays not only how often a quarterback performs at a certain level, but how consistent they are in that range. For example, almost all of Derek Carr’s performance happen in the range of 80-100 passer rating. He is a model of consistency. However he only has one game at 127 or above, where as Patrick Mahomes has 6 such games. On the other hand, Mahomes also has 6 games with a passer rating below 75, whereas Carr only has 2.

One of the largest ranges is Matthew Stafford who has the highest single game rating at 156.1, but who also had a 3 interception game, leading to a 46.8 passer rating. One of the tightest ranges is Tua Tagovailoa who had a rating above 100 in over 40% of his games, and only two qualifying games below a rating of 75. While, there were 16 QBs who had at least one game worse than Tagovailoa, 11 of those 16 also had at least one game where they performed better than him. Granted he also missed games, so we cannot say for certain how he would have performed in the extra games. So what does this graphic tells us? On a macro scale, not a ton. It is just one season of information, in a complex team sport with so many moving pieces. However, on a micro scale it does show consistently where QBs perform. So if you take this data and then apply context such as available weapons, protection, scheme, etc., it can provide valuable insight into which quarterbacks are capable starters and which ones have a long way to go. We would love to hear your thoughts on Twitter about the data and/or your feelings on the QBs it covers. Hit the share button below and join in on the discussion!

*Taysom Hill is noticeably absent from this list, because he only had 4 qualifying games with at least 10 passing attempts, and the comparison didn’t seem fair.