Nathan Freedman: I'm an Eagles fan, and I think McNabb could have been a future-Hall of Fame quarterback had he played on a team that had good receivers. I am interested in what the 3-year similarity scores are for McNabb, and if any QB is actually really comparable. It seems to me like a pretty unique 3-year stretch, by a unique player of the DVOA Era.

Aaron Schatz: There's no way to use similarity scores to tell how he would have done with better receivers; the quality of the receivers is built into the stats. And the similarity scores don't use DVOA, just regular stats -- they go back to 1978, not just the DVOA era (1997).

That being said, similarity scores are fun, so let's see what we can find.

Two injured years means that McNabb doesn't come out as very similar to anybody.  The highest three-year similarity is 714, Mark Brunell 1997-1999.  Then Jim Kelly 88-90, Joe Montana 84-86, and Bill Kenney (who?) 1983-1985.

The most similar single seasons to McNabb this year: Steve Grogan in 1983, Jim McMahon in 1987 (pro-rated for strike), Wade Wilson in 1988, and some guy named Donovan McNabb in 2005.  Grogan is also the most similar if you look over two years only. It's funny, I don't think anybody would think of Steve Grogan and Donovan McNabb as similar players, but they are in many ways: scrambling quarterbacks who fought injuries for years, and the fans never felt that they quite reached their potential. Grogan had a lower completion percentage, but part of that is the era in which he played. (Part of this is that people have a hard time seeing players of different races as similar, even if they are similar, like Warren Moon and Trent Green.)

Then I took this year's numbers and pro-rated them to 16 games to see what would come up. I left last year's injury in, so you'll get players who had a middle year with an injury.

The most similar in that case is Joe Montana 1985-1987, but again, not that similar: 741. Montana's 85-86 is pretty similar to McNabb's 2004-2005, but Montana's 1987 is very different from McNabb this year: higher completion percentage but fewer yards per attempt, more passing touchdowns but less running.  Montana's 1987 numbers are pro-rated for the strike.

It's funny -- people keep asking me about quarterbacks this year, and I keep coming up with "that quarterback is really unique."  I'm guessing this is a sign I need to work on refining the quarterback similarities in the off-season.

Post by Aaron Schatz