ESPN’s QBR With An Instant Backfire In Week One

Maybe you’ve heard about the new statistic that ESPN has wheeled out for the NFL season called QBR.  It’s ESPN’s advanced answer to the QB rating statistic that we’ve used for years to judge quarterbacks on efficiency and success.  ESPN couldn’t stand pat with that, no sir.  Not in an age of advanced metrics.  So naturally, to upstage everyone else, ESPN put together the brilliant minds of guys like Trent Dilfer and Herm Edwards along with some statistics interns to develop a formula with arbitrary values assigned to nearly immeasurable statistics to try and create an all-encompassing statistic to rate quarterbacks.  We’re talking values for stuff like “being clutch” and “importance of drives”.  Who are they to decide that?  And more importantly, how can you weight those against measurable stats like interceptions.  For example, according to QBR, interceptions that don’t lead to...