This is why you have to look beyond statistics. Anyone who has seen them both play can see that Ryan is on a different level than Flacco. Nothing against Flacco, he has been a great rookie QB, but Ryan is playing better than any rookie QB since Marino.
All you had to do is watch yesterday's game to see it. His team down, the defense doing nothing for them, Ryan had a drive in the second half where he made about 3-4 "wow" throws. I was watching the game at the sports bar, and I swear, on that drive, every other pass, someone would nudge someone else and say "You've gotta see the pass Ryan just made." Classic Eyeball Test stuff.
I'll just say two things here.1) Ryan's statistics are much better than Flacco's. Use the right statistics, and you don't need to look beyond statistics.
2) Everyone said that Matt Leinart passed the Eyeball Test after a bunch of games his rookie year, including the one against the Bears. I'm not a big believer in the Eyeball Test, because things change pretty quickly when you use that test. Matt Leinart looked like he had "it", and Vince Young certainly had "it", right up until the point where they stopped having "it".
Out of curiosity what are the Right statistics?
The number one statistic to measure QB performance is adjusted net yards per pass attempt. It's calculated as follows:(Passing yards <plus> TDs x 20 <minus> INTs x 45 <minus> sack yards lost) divided by (pass attempts <plus> sacks). People that do calculate ANY/A usually use 10 "yards" per passing TD, but I've recently done some research that suggests upping the number to 20. Regardless, it's the best metric for a couple of reasons.
1) People use to say completion percentage was too skewed towards WCO and yards per completion was too skewed towards vertical passing games. By multiplying the two numbers, you get a metric that's relatively fair to use for any offense. Guys in WCO can compile high yards per attempt numbers and guys in vertical passing offenses can get high YPA numbers. It depends on how good the QB and the offense is.
2) But other things are important besides yards and attempts. Things like touchdowns and interceptions. So you need to give bonus yards for TDs and take away yards for INTs.
3) And then sacks need to be included. A guy who avoids three sacks by throwing in completions is more valuable than a guy who gets sacked three times. But you wouldn't know that if you just used yards per attempt.
So ANY/A (adjusted net yards per attempt) is the best measure of passing effectiveness. It's way better than things like QB Rating, completion percentage, or yards per attempt.
Obviously it's team dependent and QBs that play on teams with good offensive lines and good receivers will have an advantage over QBs on teams with bad lines and bad receivers. But any statistic is susceptible to that problem. But if you just want to measure passing effectiveness, ANY/A is the way to go.
Ryan is in the top five in ANY/A with Rivers, Brees, Romo and Warner. Flacco is not in the top fifteen.
Flacco's very good, but he's not Matt Ryan.
And this is not taking anything away from what Flacco has done - he has been very good. But Ryan appears to be in another class.
