09-19-2019, 01:01 PM
I saw this on a different website. The goal of the research was to see if there was validity to the accusation against Cousins: that "he" can't win vs. winning teams. It turns out... he is "average" in his own personal performances vs. winning teams. Others (like Rivers and Stafford) are worse... and better (like Big Ben and Brady).
The full link can be found here:
EDIT: So some of the analysis below is out of date per adding fumbles. I'm not going to update, I'm purely going to note that Matt Stafford is now in last place due to him having an astronomical 240.42% increase in fumbles per game (from .21 to .73) which makes the paragraph on him below even more appropriate. With fumbles factored in, Kirk still falls in 8th place out of 15, and his fumble rank is 12th out of 15, so his fumbles are certainly bad, but still not as bad as Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, or Matt Stafford.
OK, great, that's a lot of data. I really appreciate if you've stuck with me this far. This is obviously the point at which this objective data is going to get subjectively talked about by a random person. So if you want to just make your own conclusions from the above data, be my guest and skip the rest of this post because everything from this point on will be purely subjective, which means it's likely to be affected by my own cognitive biases.
So obviously the question I set out to answer was "Is Kirk Cousins' performance decrease against teams with a winning record worse than all of his peers?". The answer to that question is a distinct "No". He is average at worst. He has less of a drop off than QBs like Drew Brees and Matt Ryan! He actually throws less interceptions when facing better teams and only Kirk Cousins and Andy Dalton can claim that. His interceptions per game goes from 0.82 to 0.81, so it's not like it's a huge difference, but the fact of the matter is that, on average, QBs throw 18.78% more interceptions in games against better teams and he bucks that trend entirely by remaining mostly constant. And Andy Dalton's stat here is just hilarious, going from .96 interceptions per game to .76 interceptions per game, which is exactly opposite of what you'd expect.
Yards seems to be a little meaningless in this calculation and I'm tempted to throw it out entirely because usually if you're playing better teams, you're statistically more likely to lose and thus you're more likely to accrue more passing yards to make up the difference. That said, only 5 of the 15 QBs (Big Ben, Tom Brady, Joe Flacco, Kirk Cousins, and Alex Smith) threw more passing yards against better teams than worse teams, which I personally found surprising.
Tom Brady's 3.68% increase in completion percentage (65.67% against losing teams vs 66.09% against winning teams) was also an interesting statistical outlier and likely shows the difference in offensive strategy that the Patriots take on when facing better teams: more of a focus on the short and quick passing game rather than driving to push the ball down the field. Except Tom Brady also has a higher Yards per Attempt when facing better teams, and is, in fact, the only QB whose Y/A goes up in this scenario. The two stats here don't necessarily corroborate but I found it very interesting.
The fact that Big Ben tops this list surprised me at first, but after thinking about it a big more, it actually makes perfect sense. Mike Tomlin's Steelers have been constantly criticized over the years for playing up/down to their competition, losing trap games and winning games no one thought they would. Big Ben stepping up when it matters most, playing against "good" teams, makes perfect sense if you're trying to fit these stats to the narrative.
Matt Stafford is another QB constantly judged for failing in big games, and this data actually supports that. He's the 13/15 ranked QB in this scenario, and actually has the single greatest drop in average Passer Rating per game (from 96.50 to 84.21, a 14.6% decrease!). However, for some reason, the narrative has spun back to Kirk Cousins instead of Matt Stafford. I'm not going to reference his W/L record since I don't believe wins are a QB stat, and I also believe that Matt Stafford is a great QB and has provided the Lions organization with much-needed stability over the last decade. That said, these stats certainly reinforce the thought that Matt Stafford takes a fairly large step down when playing against better teams.
But here we are talking about Kirk Cousins and Matt Stafford and they're not even the worst in this category. Why don't we talk about Drew Brees and Philip Rivers? Drew Brees' Passer Rating drops from 108.17 to 96.70 (11.86% drop) and Philip Rivers drops from 103.18 to 90.13 (a 14.48% drop). Philip Rivers also goes from throwing an average of 0.74 Int/game to 1.06 Int/game (second worst behind 2004 draft buddy Eli Manning at 1.07 int/game against teams with a winning record). Drew Brees is arguably a top 5 QB of all time (he's personally in my top 5, but I know he's borderline top 5 for some people) and yet here he is having a significant statistical drop-off when facing better teams. Philip Rivers is Hall of Very Good and has the worst drop off of any QB over the last 7 seasons. Again, there are 7 QBs ranked below Kirk Cousins on this list, why don't we talk about them underperforming against teams with a winning record more?
Conclusion and SummarySo essentially, I've come to the conclusion that if you stop treating wins as a QB stat and look purely at how much worse a QB does against teams with a winning record versus teams without a winning record, Kirk Cousins is decidedly average. Truth be told, that's how I feel about him as a QB as a whole and really his whole career: decidedly average. He's never good enough to be a star, but never bad enough to be a backup. Maybe Kirk Cousins is really the new Dalton Line?
The full link can be found here:
from r/nfl
EDIT: So some of the analysis below is out of date per adding fumbles. I'm not going to update, I'm purely going to note that Matt Stafford is now in last place due to him having an astronomical 240.42% increase in fumbles per game (from .21 to .73) which makes the paragraph on him below even more appropriate. With fumbles factored in, Kirk still falls in 8th place out of 15, and his fumble rank is 12th out of 15, so his fumbles are certainly bad, but still not as bad as Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, or Matt Stafford.
OK, great, that's a lot of data. I really appreciate if you've stuck with me this far. This is obviously the point at which this objective data is going to get subjectively talked about by a random person. So if you want to just make your own conclusions from the above data, be my guest and skip the rest of this post because everything from this point on will be purely subjective, which means it's likely to be affected by my own cognitive biases.
So obviously the question I set out to answer was "Is Kirk Cousins' performance decrease against teams with a winning record worse than all of his peers?". The answer to that question is a distinct "No". He is average at worst. He has less of a drop off than QBs like Drew Brees and Matt Ryan! He actually throws less interceptions when facing better teams and only Kirk Cousins and Andy Dalton can claim that. His interceptions per game goes from 0.82 to 0.81, so it's not like it's a huge difference, but the fact of the matter is that, on average, QBs throw 18.78% more interceptions in games against better teams and he bucks that trend entirely by remaining mostly constant. And Andy Dalton's stat here is just hilarious, going from .96 interceptions per game to .76 interceptions per game, which is exactly opposite of what you'd expect.
Yards seems to be a little meaningless in this calculation and I'm tempted to throw it out entirely because usually if you're playing better teams, you're statistically more likely to lose and thus you're more likely to accrue more passing yards to make up the difference. That said, only 5 of the 15 QBs (Big Ben, Tom Brady, Joe Flacco, Kirk Cousins, and Alex Smith) threw more passing yards against better teams than worse teams, which I personally found surprising.
Tom Brady's 3.68% increase in completion percentage (65.67% against losing teams vs 66.09% against winning teams) was also an interesting statistical outlier and likely shows the difference in offensive strategy that the Patriots take on when facing better teams: more of a focus on the short and quick passing game rather than driving to push the ball down the field. Except Tom Brady also has a higher Yards per Attempt when facing better teams, and is, in fact, the only QB whose Y/A goes up in this scenario. The two stats here don't necessarily corroborate but I found it very interesting.
The fact that Big Ben tops this list surprised me at first, but after thinking about it a big more, it actually makes perfect sense. Mike Tomlin's Steelers have been constantly criticized over the years for playing up/down to their competition, losing trap games and winning games no one thought they would. Big Ben stepping up when it matters most, playing against "good" teams, makes perfect sense if you're trying to fit these stats to the narrative.
Matt Stafford is another QB constantly judged for failing in big games, and this data actually supports that. He's the 13/15 ranked QB in this scenario, and actually has the single greatest drop in average Passer Rating per game (from 96.50 to 84.21, a 14.6% decrease!). However, for some reason, the narrative has spun back to Kirk Cousins instead of Matt Stafford. I'm not going to reference his W/L record since I don't believe wins are a QB stat, and I also believe that Matt Stafford is a great QB and has provided the Lions organization with much-needed stability over the last decade. That said, these stats certainly reinforce the thought that Matt Stafford takes a fairly large step down when playing against better teams.
But here we are talking about Kirk Cousins and Matt Stafford and they're not even the worst in this category. Why don't we talk about Drew Brees and Philip Rivers? Drew Brees' Passer Rating drops from 108.17 to 96.70 (11.86% drop) and Philip Rivers drops from 103.18 to 90.13 (a 14.48% drop). Philip Rivers also goes from throwing an average of 0.74 Int/game to 1.06 Int/game (second worst behind 2004 draft buddy Eli Manning at 1.07 int/game against teams with a winning record). Drew Brees is arguably a top 5 QB of all time (he's personally in my top 5, but I know he's borderline top 5 for some people) and yet here he is having a significant statistical drop-off when facing better teams. Philip Rivers is Hall of Very Good and has the worst drop off of any QB over the last 7 seasons. Again, there are 7 QBs ranked below Kirk Cousins on this list, why don't we talk about them underperforming against teams with a winning record more?
Conclusion and SummarySo essentially, I've come to the conclusion that if you stop treating wins as a QB stat and look purely at how much worse a QB does against teams with a winning record versus teams without a winning record, Kirk Cousins is decidedly average. Truth be told, that's how I feel about him as a QB as a whole and really his whole career: decidedly average. He's never good enough to be a star, but never bad enough to be a backup. Maybe Kirk Cousins is really the new Dalton Line?
