ESPN claims that it created QBR to be a more meaningful alternative to the traditional passer rating statistic by incorporating "all of a quarterback's contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers, and penalties.
[3] Total QBR was developed by a team at ESPN Stats & Information Group including Jeff Bennett, Dean Oliver, Alok Pattani, Albert Larcada, and Menlo College professor Ben Alamar.
The group also received input from ESPN analysts Trent Dilfer, Jon Gruden, and Ron Jaworski.
[8] According to ESPN, QBR is a more complete and meaningful alternative to the passer rating, which remains the official National Football League measure of quarterback performance.
The calculation of the NFL passer rating is much simpler than the QBR, as it depends only on passing statistics rather than an analysis of each play a quarterback is involved in.
[1] The QBR calculation accounts for several meaningful statistics that are not included in passer rating, such as throwing distance, sacks, fumbles, designed runs and scrambles.
QBR also makes adjustments for situational context with "EPA"—a dynamic statistic that is meant to signify "expected points added" per play.
Conceptualizing the detail total QBR puts in can be explained through the 2015 NFC Wild Card game between the Green Bay Packers and the Washington Redskins.
[9] Aaron Rodgers of the Packers completed 21 of 36 passes for 210 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions, which computes to a 93.5 passer rating.
Kirk Cousins of the Redskins completed 29 of 46 passes for 329 yards with 1 touchdown and 0 interceptions, computing a 91.7 passer rating.
Unlike the NFL passer rating, ESPN has not yet been forthcoming on the exact specific formulas and procedures to calculate QBR.
"[11][12] In an op-ed piece published by Deadspin, they opine that the clutch index component of the QBR "looks like a weirdly applied version of baseball's leverage metric and which, tellingly, is the sort of mindless branding you get when the network of 'Who's Now' starts dicking around with numbers.".
[13] Michael David Smith of Profootballtalk.com explained the major drawback of QBR:[3] One of the aspects of Total QBR that could be both a strength and a drawback is that it considers data that the average fan doesn’t have access to, like how far a pass travels in the air, and whether the quarterback was under pressure when he threw it ... it means fans can't see for themselves exactly where Total QBR comes from—fans just have to trust that the distance the ball traveled was correctly measured, and how much pressure the quarterback felt on the play was correctly assessed ...
If ESPN is committed to this stat and is able to clearly and concisely explain it on the Worldwide Leader’s NFL broadcasts, then fans will quickly become familiar with it and it will soon become a staple of how we talk about quarterbacks.
Statistics that helped Batch's QBR rise were that he was not sacked, did not fumble, and that he completed 70.6% of his passes, one of which he spiked into the ground to stop the clock.
[14] 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.
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.
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.
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.