Revisiting the Rule of 26-27-60

Back before the ’10 season, SI writer John P. Lopez published a piece examining whether there was a magic bullet that could allow teams to predict NFL success at the quarterback position.

Could a simple formula have warned us of Russell's lack of NFL readiness? And Ryan Leaf's and David Carr's and other failed, high-pick quarterbacks?

Call it the Rule of 26-27-60.

Here is the gist of it: If an NFL prospect scores at least a 26 on the Wonderlic test, starts at least 27 games in his college career and completes at least 60 percent of his passes, there's a good chance he will succeed at the NFL level.

The article gets mentioned on occasion around the sports community, and every time it does, I get irritated by it. The problem is that Lopez falls into the trap of cherry-picking his quarterbacks, and not particularly doing the greatest job at it. As such, I’d like to take a much deeper look at this.

So my intention is to look at the following: I’ll be examining all quarterbacks with more than two years as the primary starter in the NFL. This will eliminate guys like Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow, who we can’t really say whether they’ll be good or not. I do intend to include guys like Matt Stafford, because even though he’s started only 14 games in the NFL, I do think we’ve seen enough of him to say with confidence that if he can stay healthy, he’s going to be a very good NFL QB.

I’m also going to include all first round QB draft picks between years 2002 and 2009 if they’re not primary starters, as this mostly labels them busts. Given the predictor of success, we’ll want to know the QBs that fizzle out as well. Starting with 2002 is a bit arbitrary, but ’01 only had Vick who’s included in current starters and ’00 had Pennington who is difficult to categorize anyway, so it’s not terrible not to include him.

I’m also rounding the study out with two other QBs that deserve mention here, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre. Both are long-time starters that just finished or are injured and would normally still be starting. This gives us a population of 40 different quarterbacks, and should be a good gauge of whether the Rule really does work or not.

I’m also going to try to simplify the definition of QB success by listing four different categories. They’ll go as follows:
The elite – These are the true cream of the crop of the NFL, the best of the best. Seven fit here.
The solid – These are guys I would define as good players that you are happy to leave in as your team’s QB for five-plus years. They may not be the best QBs out there, but they’re good enough to give your team a chance. I have 13 in this category.
The young guns – These are guys playing in their third or fourth year and are on a trajectory to fall somewhere in either the elite or the solid groups in the next few years. There are six of them.
The bad – These will range between flat busts and QBs that are starters for their teams, but are unlikely to hold that job long because they’re not good enough to rely on being winners in the long term. There are 14 in this category.

There may be some discussion as to whether certain guys could fall into the “bad” vs. the “solid” category. And I’m fine with that, but in general, I don’t see a lot of argument there. We may also argue between elite and solid a bit to, but I think that’s an even less important distinction, as the Rule isn’t really called out to distinguish between the good and the great; I’m just looking at it for general instruction.

And so the meat of the discussion, how does the Rule really perform?

Elite, fits Rule
Brees, Manning, Rivers
Elite, doesn’t fit Rule
Brady, Favre, Rodgers, Roethlisberger
Solid, fits Rule
Eli Manning, Kolb, Schaub, Fitzpatrick, Romo
Solid, doesn’t fit Rule
Palmer, McNabb, Cutler, Kerry Collins, Cassel, Hasselbeck, Vick
Young gun, fits Rule
Matt Ryan
Young gun, doesn’t fit Rule
Henne, Flacco, Freeman, Sanchez, Stafford
Bad, fits Rule (as in, does not have 26 and 27 and 60)
Alex Smith, Quinn, Leftwich, Carr, Losman, Russell, Campbell, Harrington, Boller, Ramsey, Tarvaris Jackson, Vince Young
Bad, doesn’t fit Rule (as in, does have 26-27-60)
Leinart, Grossman, Orton

One thing worth noting here, I count Aaron Rodgers in the “doesn’t fit Rule” category, because I don’t count his starts at community college as true college starts. If you do count those, then he fits the Rule. However, starting at community college seems to me to be a terrible measure, as I don’t know that the NFL has ever seen a community-college-only QB ever come into the NFL and succeed. I’m not sure one has ever entered the NFL, and either way it doesn’t impact the overall numbers much.

And so, what percent of each group has the Rule correctly predicted?
Elite – 3/7 = 43%
Solid – 5/12 = 42%
Young Gun – 1/6 = 17%
Bad – 12/15 = 80%
Overall – 21/40 = 53%

Let’s look at it a different way. What percentage did achieve 26-27-60 and succeed and what percentage did not achieve 26-27-60 and turned out bad?

Did achieve 26-27-60 and succeeded – 9/12 = 75%
Did not achieve 26-27-60 and were bad – 12/28 = 43%

It looks like the Rule is actually pretty solid at predicting that a quarterback will succeed on some level if they fit the criteria. However, the Rule appears to be a terrible predictor of failure if the prospect doesn’t fit all the criteria. It also appears to be poor at distinguishing exactly how good a QB is going to be, as only 33% of those that achieved 26-27-60 turned out to be in the elite or young gun category, while 32% that didn’t achieve 26-27-60 fell into elite or young gun.

Overall the Rule doesn’t do a much better job at predicting overall success or failure of the population pool than simply flipping a coin. I hated this Rule from the first time I read about it, because Lopez cherry-picked his quarterbacks to fit his study and never really looked at how good of an indicator it was across the whole population. Seeing the numbers in greater detail doesn’t change my opinion.

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Abundance of Good Quarterbacks

I was thinking about Flacco the other day and trying to figure out where I'd rate him in terms of best QBs in the league. And it led me to the general thought that while I don't know where I'd rank him, there are simply a lot of really good QBs in the NFL right now. Probably more than have ever been in the league before.

Rather than trying to rank them specifically, I'll just throw them out in tiers...

Best in the league
Drew Brees, and I don't think it's close.

Great old vets, possibly on the down-side or close to it
Tom Brady
Peyton Manning
Carson Palmer
Donovan McNabb
Kurt Warner
Chad Pennington

Established young players
Ben Roethlisberger
Philip Rivers
Eli Manning
Jay Cutler (??? controversial)
Matt Schaub
Tony Romo

Next-gen great ones
Matt Ryan
Joe Flacco
Aaron Rodgers
Matt Cassel
Mark Sanchez (??? looks like he can play, but it's two games)

More than half the league has good to great quarterbacks. This doesn't include guys like Favre, Garrard, Trent Edwards and Orton who may deserve to be on this list somewhere as well.

Not sure what the reason is for this. My guess is part of it has to do with colleges running a more pro-style of game and therefore preparing these QBs better than they've been in the past. Part may be that WRs these days are getting out of hand how good some of them are. Part may be all the variations of the west coast offenses out there which may be making it easier for the quarterbacks.

Not sure there's anywhere to go with this, just thought it's pretty interesting.

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Modeling For Injury Tendencies

As a natural extension of the Moneyball concept, Stan Conte of the Los Angeles Dodgers is attempting to build an algorithm to predict injury rates among ballplayers.

The ability to predict how players’ bodies will fare is a holy grail. With an actuarial approach, Conte seems to have a head start in the pursuit. He is trying to build a formula that will give teams a competitive advantage and help them avoid players who spend their days in the training room and not on the field.

“The insurance industry has made millions of dollars off figuring out how, when, where and why people are going to die, and we are trying to figure those things out about injuries,” Conte said.

Every major league team and scores of independent analysts are trying to understand why injuries strike certain players. But Conte said his effort was more advanced because his data has been compiled over 15 years as a trainer for the San Francisco Giants and now the Dodgers. He has had hands-on interaction with hundreds of players before and after their injuries, and his observations and medical records inform his hypotheses.

Conte also draws on the analytical prowess of David Zes and Adam Sugano, statisticians who teach at U.C.L.A., and Matt Marks, an employee in the Dodgers’ baseball operations department. They are building mathematical formulas that they hope will show the chances a player will be injured within the next season.

Okay, I will be the first to admit that I'm not exactly sure how this applies to the NFL. Not because I don't think it is valid, but rather because I expect that teams are already doing this, at least to some extent.

What I find particularly interesting though, and what probably ties directly in, is that some teams seem to tend toward fewer injuries than others, particularly at the extremes. We already know that at draft time players are selected for injury history. In most cases a significant collegiate or high school injury will cause draft stock to drop - or plummet - depending on its severity and likelihood to impact performance.

Some things we already know pretty well. Running backs are very likely to experience dramatic dropoffs in performance after seasons of heavy use; the rule of 370 coined by the Football Outsiders. We know that concussions progressively debiliate health and increase in likelihood. Exhibit A is Trent Green, but concussions also forced Steve Young from the game while still near his peak.

Other factors though are less clear. Is it really just luck that teams like the Ravens and Chargers tend to escape injury devastation annually, while teams like the Lions lead the league in players on IR every year? It is doubtful that this is mere coincidence. Is the key in player selection? Conditioning? Are there blocking and tackling techniques that reduce injury risk that some teams employ and others don't?

As a matter of public health I would love to see this explored openly. But then, I would love to see it explored openly period. It's a fascinating subject.

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