[Quarterback Score is a new metric for rating a quarterback's performance that is both easier to calculate and more complete than the NFL Passer Rating. For a full account of QB Score read The Wages of Wins. For partial--though sufficient--accounts of QB Score, click here, here, here, or here.]
At 0-2, the Browns seem to be following more closely the path I thought they would take rather than the path Peter King thought they could take, which is to say that the Browns stink and the outlook is grim. I thought the team would finish 4-12, but I had one of those wins against New Orleans. Now I’m scrambling to find which team could replace the Saints. Carolina has underperformed. Maybe the Panthers will piss away their season and the Browns will recapture that victory in week five, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The real hope for victory number four is in week 16 against Tampa, although I imagine the Bucs will by that point be averaging more than 1.5 points per game. Even more worrisome is that the AFC North is quickly presenting itself as arguably the best division in football. The Bengals, Steelers, and Ravens can all make legitimate claims for the postseason, while the Browns, at this point, look poised to make a claim for a top five draft pick. In fact, if the team reaches week 16 with only three wins I will certainly be rooting for the old “good showing” rather than an actual victory, much like I’m doing now with the Indians, although for different reasons (higher draft pick, Carthon being fired).
After yesterday’s loss I decided that I would be worth tracking the statistical performance of Charlie Frye, mostly because I have my concerns about Frye as the future quarterback of the team. I’m not here to pick on the poor fellow. If anything, I’m actively rooting for him to have unparalleled success. But Frye is single largest factor contributing to the team’s success and as such deserves to be picked apart by overzealous football fans. It’s our rights as Americans. If we can’t be overly critical about second-year quarterbacks from the Mid American Conference starting for their hometown teams, then the terrorists have already won (ahem).
With that said, here are Frye’s QB Scores from the first two weeks of the season, replete with his statistics for each week.
In week 1 Frye was the third-worst starting quarterback in the league. I haven’t done the full calculations for the remaining quarterbacks for week 2, but my guess is that Frye is probably still in the bottom third. Most glaring about his lines is that he has thrown two interceptions each week of the season. Most encouraging is that he wasn’t sacked against the Bengals. If Frye keeps up this pace of improvement, he should be an above average quarterback by the end of the season (this will not happen)!
UPDATE: An average quarterback will have a QB Score of 40. Really good quarterbacks will have QB Scores of 120-180, with QB Sc/Play of around 4.
