Andre's Rule (the Box for passing) - Part 2

[Ned Flanders]

This post takes a look at the passing statistics so for the "The Box" (Andre's rule). Here are the combined stats so far for the box (Jim Davis and Jeff Eby):

Att: 205
Comp: 101
Yards: 2241
TD: 18
Int: 18

And here are the stats for the rest of the quaterbacks in the CBSMF:

Att: 2025
Comp: 1213
Yards: 25758
TD: 238
Int: 69

Let's compare the percentages:

     Comp%   Yards/Att    TD%   Int%   Rating
BOX   49.2     10.9       8.7    8.7    152.5
TTQB  59.9     12.7      11.7    3.4    198.7

(Rating is the NCAA QB Rating formula). Note that the box is worse than the TTQBs in all categories. In the QB ratings on leaguedaddy (based on the NCAA formula) the two "box" QBs rate 18th and 21st out of 28 qualifying quarterbacks.

So clearly the Box is a below average QB. Not the worst in the league, but certainly below average. This is reasonable I think -- the Box shouldn't give an advantage to whoever uses it. It shouldn't be the worst QB in the league, but it should be no better than average.

What I have noticed is while over the course of a season the box evens out, over the course of a game it may not. In one game I hit my first 5 passes, for 133 yards and 2 touchdowns. In another game, I was 3 of 15 when shaking the box. So while it all evens out over a season, in any particular game it may not even out. I can't think of any way to avoid this, short of some massively-complicated system that tries to "smooth out" the odds. But I don't think we want to go there.

There is one more thing I want to address, which is the "apparent fairness" of the box to my opponent. I'll talk about that in my next message.

Jeff