NFL Passer Rating Data
Variables below (from left to right):
Quarterback's first name
Quarterback's last name
Pass attempts (ATT)
Pass completions (COMP)
Passing yardage (Yards)
Touchdowns (TD)
Interceptions (INT)
NFL Rating (rounded to the nearest .1)
The data, obtained from the NFL, are current to the beginning of the 1997-1998 season for those players with at least 1,500 passing attempts. For more details see the article "How does the NFL rate passers?" which appeared in _The UMAP Journal_, volume 18, number 2, pp. 145-166. For updates of the data below, consult any one of a number of almanacs (not necessarily sports almanacs). As a hint to students on how to fit rating to the other variables an instructor may wish to mention:
"Ratings [are] based on performance standards established for completion percentage, average gain, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage." (Hassan, J., editor, (1997), _ESPN 1998 Information Please Sports Almanac_, Information Please LLC, New York, p. 262.)
Interested individuals may also wish to see the NFL's 1977 publication "National Football League Passer Rating System". In this document 25 of the 36 pages are devoted to look-up tables to compute rating rather than simply giving the formula below (NFL, 410 Park Avenue, New York, NY 1022-4444, (212) 758-1500).
NFL Rating = [5(%Completions - 30)/6] + [10(%TDs)/3] + [25(19 - 2(%Int))/12] + [25(Yards/Attempt - 3)/6]
where it is understood that each item in [ ] is to be truncated to be no smaller than 0 and no larger than 475/12 (giving a maximal rating of 475/3 or 158.3). This rating is rounded to the nearest tenth. When none of the truncation limits are reached, which is true in most cases, the above amounts to
Rating = [25 + 10(%Completions) + 40*(%TD) - 50(%INT) + 50(YD/ATT)]/12
Player ATT COMP Yards TD INT NFL Rating Steve Young 3192 2059 25479 174 85 96.2 Joe Montana 5391 3409 40551 273 139 92.3 Brett Favre 2693 1667 18724 147 79 88.6 Dan Marino 6904 4134 51636 369 209 88.3 Otto Graham 2626 1464 23584 174 135 86.6 Jim Kelly 4779 2874 35467 237 175 84.4 Roger Staubach 2958 1685 22700 153 109 83.4 Troy Aikman 3178 2000 22733 110 98 83.0 Neil Lomax 3153 1817 22771 136 90 82.7 Sonny Jurgensen 4262 2433 32224 255 189 82.6 Len Dawson 3741 2136 28711 239 183 82.6 Jeff Hostetler 2194 1278 15531 89 61 82.1 Ken Anderson 4475 2654 32838 197 160 81.9 Bernie Kosar 3365 1994 23301 124 87 81.8 Danny White 2950 1761 21959 155 132 81.7 Dave Krieg 5288 3092 37946 261 199 81.5 Warren Moon 6000 3514 43787 254 208 81.0 Neil O'Donnell 2059 1179 14014 72 46 80.5 Scott Mitchell 1507 853 10518 71 49 80.5 Bart Starr 3149 1808 24718 152 138 80.5 Ken O'Brien 3602 2110 25094 128 98 80.4 Fran Tarkenton 6467 3686 47003 342 266 80.4