Further criticism of QBR was brought about when, before some tinkering with the equation of QBR,
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback
Charlie Batch had the greatest individual game ever evaluated by QBR. Batch threw for 186 yards with two interceptions in the game.
[13]
On the other side, noted football author and researcher Brian Burke of
Advanced NFL Stats opined that QBR was superior to the traditional passer rating.
[14] The main advantages, in his opinion, are QBR's accounting for many more events in quarterback play than the old rating, and the fact that it avoids the
double-counting that plagues the official NFL passer rating. He did however lament the proprietary nature of the statistic, and predicted it would not become widely used so long as its precise computation details were kept secret (i.e., it is unlikely that
CBS,
Fox,
NBC, and other competing media outlets would want to heavily promote something that is proprietary to ESPN).
Further controversy erupted when the Total QBR system gave the
Denver Broncos'
Tim Tebow a higher rating than the
Green Bay Packers'
Aaron Rodgers in their respective Week 5 contests in 2011. Noting that Rodgers completed 26 of 39 passes for 396 yards and two touchdowns in a win over the
Atlanta Falcons, while Tebow completed four of 10 passes for 79 yards and a touchdown, and six rushes for 38 yards and a touchdown, in a loss to the
San Diego Chargers. In a more recent example, a game played on September 24, 2017,
Alex Smith of
Kansas City Chiefs received an inexplicable QBR of 7.8, half as much as the equally-bad QBR of 16.1 for his counterpart
Philip Rivers of the
Los Angeles Chargers, even though Smith had a higher completion rate (16/21 vs. 20/40), a better average per completion (7.8 yds vs. 5.9), a far superior TD/int ratio (2-0 vs. 0-3), and won the game handily 24-10. For comparison, the RTG, 128.1 for Smith and 37.2 for Rivers, was by far a better metric of success.
Mike Florio of Profootballtalk.com wrote that he'll "continue to ignore ESPN’s Total QBR stat."
[15] Rodgers himself was surprised: "I saw the [QBR stats] and chuckled to myself. I played a full game, [Tebow] played the half. He completed four passes, I completed 26. I think it incorporates QB runs as well ... The weighting of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
[16] ESPN's Stats and Information Group explained that Tebow's higher rating was the result of him staging a partial comeback, taking no sacks, and having positive rushing yards and a rushing touchdown, among other factors.
[17][18] However, Doug Farrar of
Yahoo! Sports wrote that the QBR system lacks a minimum performance frequency floor that players must meet before they can be rated, and thus it essentially penalizes Rodgers because he played throughout the entire game, while rewarding Tebow because he came off the bench in the second half in an attempt to stage a comeback.
[19]
