Similarity scores aren't going to get across the full magnitude of Rex Grossman's up-and-down 2006 season, but I thought it would be interesting to get a list of quarterbacks with seasons most similar to Grossman's total 2006 numbers.

1. Jon Kitna, 1999 Seahawks
2. Randy Wright, 1986 Packers
3. Vinny Testaverde, 1989 Bucs
4. Paul McDonald, 1984 Browns
5. Neil Lomax, 1985 Cardinals
6. Jim Zorn, 1980 Seahawks
7. Neil O'Donnell, 1993 Steelers
8. Craig Erickson, 1993 Bucs
9. Richard Todd, 1981 Jets
10. Joey Harrington, 2004 Lions

Well, that's not a very good list, is it? I'm sure Grossman would love to have a career like Testaverde, throwing a ton of interceptions and lasting forever anyway. What's interesting is that I only compared a single season, and I based the experience variable on "years of experience" rather than "years as a starter." Yet, I still got a number of players who, like Grossman, were in their third or fourth year in the pros but first full year as a starter. That includes Kitna, Wright, McDonald, and lower down, Scott Brunner of the 1982 Giants, Stan Humphries of the 1992 Chargers, and Vince Ferragamo of the 1980 Rams. Maybe that means that Grossman's struggles were to be expected o####uy in his situation.

Of course, most of those players lost their jobs within a couple of years, or, in the case of McDonald, the next year. Probably not a good sign.

Post by Aaron Schatz

Every week, Football Outsiders staffers e-mail each other with updates on Sunday's action as it happens. Here's what we were talking about this week:

"Seven minutes to go in the first quarter: two Vick passes, two Crumpler drops."

"I think the Titans have a very good chance of pulling off an upset, though I would rather that they never win a game with the light blue uni-color uniforms. Some decisions just shouldn't be rewarded."

"This is what it is to be a Lions fan: They're up 7-3 and have first-and-goal inside the 5. Do they score? Nope. Ball squirts out of Kevin Jones' hand, Patriots pounce on it."

"Props where props are due: On third-and-5, Vick play-actions, and hits Crumpler in stride for a 20-plus yard gain. Great throw, great catch."

"Wow. In the first half, Rex Grossman completed 3 of 9 passes for 22 yards and 2 picks. That, my friends, is a quarterback rating of 2.8."

"After trailing 14-0, the Falcons are now leading 17-14. The last TD resulted from Falcons' DL Chauncy Davis intercepting a Jason Campbell pass and returning it to the Atlanta 25-yard line. Two plays later, Vick gets time and throws a laser to Michael Jenkins who inexplicably doesn't drop it. By the way, the best thing about the Davis pick was that Grady Jackson was right next to him when he made the play and proceed to take two steps before seemingly saying, 'Look, you know I'm not going to run downfield and block, and I know I'm not going to run downfield and block, so let's stop kidding ourselves right now.' Jackson stopped running."

"Halfway through the third quarter, Grossman has three more incompletions and another pick. His rating is now the Big Blutarsky. Take it, Dean Wormer: 'Zero-point-ZERO. ' Right now, I'm picturing Grossman with a pencil in each nostril."

"The Steelers are way down the depth chart at WR. For example, on the last play Ben Roethlisberger threw a pass to Sean Morey and it was broken up by ... Phillip Buchanon. This is sad on so many levels."

"The Giants socks should have been hung by the chimney with care."

"At what point in discussing the problems of the Denver offense will somebody finally say the words 'Matt Lepsis'"?

"Bootlegs, scrambles, incomplete passes ... golly, Denver sure looks different tonight."

"I swear, they should just put it right on the ball: THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NFL FOOTBALL. DO NOT THROW THIS ANYWHERE NEAR CHAMP BAILEY."

"Okay, Seahawks fans - your team is 8-4 and your kicker is your MVP. You'll take it, right?"

For more, check out Audibles at the Line at Football Outsiders.

post by Mike Tanier

Mactbone: My impression is that Rex Grossman performs well when the team is up and plays poorly when the Bears are losing. I'm curious if his DVOA/DPAR is higher when the Bears are already up by 7/14 and lower when they're down 7/14 points. Of course, he could just play well when he has a short field and poorly when he actually has to put a drive together. Just trying to get a handle on the reason the Bears will win or lose in the playoffs.

Aaron Schatz: Thanks for the excellent question, Mactbone. It turns out that you are absolutely correct. When I measure scoring gap, I generally use 8 points as the guideline, since that's the maximum score you can get on just one drive. Here are Grossman's stats when the Bears are up by 9+ points, losing by 9+ points, or within 8 points either way.

Lose >8: -17.0 DPAR, -70.7% DVOA, 4.3 ypa, 4 INT
Within 8: 1.8 DPAR, -10.6% DVOA, 5.9 ypa, 7 INT
Win >8: 39.3 DPAR, 82.2% DVOA, 9.4 ypa, 0 INT

Wow, that would concern me if I was a Bears fan. Evil Rex seems to come out whenever the Bears are losing, and they're more likely to fall behind a good team they'll meet in the playoffs than they are to fall behind some team like Detroit.

How does this compare to other quarterbacks? I ran two other random guys with somewhat similar total value this year:

Here's Tom Brady:

Lose >8: 10.2 DPAR, 22.4% DVOA, 5.5 ypa, 0 INT
Within 8: 15.4 DPAR, 5.0% DVOA, 6.5 ypa, 8 INT
Win >8: 18.5 DPAR, 36.3% DVOA, 6.1 ypa, 1 INT

Brady seems to play looser in close games -- more yards, more turnovers -- but better overall when he either is coming back from behind or has a nice lead. Here's Steve McNair:

Lose >8: -0.2 DPAR, -14.0% DVOA, 6.5 ypa, 3 INT
Within 8: 11.8 DPAR, 2.0% DVOA, 5.7 ypa, 5 INT
Win >8: 5.0 DPAR, 2.8% DVOA, 5.0 ypa, 1 INT

I have no idea if this is actually a real trend that represents the Chicago offensive style, or Grossman himself, or if it is just random chance. One of the projects I hope to do for next year's book is a study of which "splits" represent actual skills and which are basically just random from year to year.

Post by Aaron Schatz

Since we went back in time to see how bad Edgerrin James was on Monday night compared to the worst rushing performances of the last few years, it's only fair that we do the same for Chicago quarterback Rex Grossman.

I started with the question, "Is this the worst performance by a winning quarterback since we started DPAR?" After compiling the numbers, the question became, "Is this the worst performance by a quarterback period since we started DPAR?"

Remember Quick Reads from Monday? The worst passing game belonged to Michael Vick, who was worth -9.2 DPAR as a passer. (He was worth 0.5 as a runner, but I'm only looking at passing for this post.)

Rex Grossman this week was worth -21.3 DPAR.

Going all the way back to 1997, there are only two quarterbacks who had lower DPAR (Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement) in a single game. (DPAR explained here.) That's subject to change, of course, because the opponent adjustments for 2006 are going to change. Right now, Arizona grades out as a below-average pass defense, and Grossman's rating was actually penalized; without the opponent adjustment, he's worth -20.1 PAR. If Arizona continues to play poor pass defense against everybody but Chicago, at the end of the season this will reign as the worst passing game of the decade.

The two quarterbacks who come out lower than Grossman are:

• Donald Hollas of the 1998 Raiders, who went 12-for-31 with 152 yards, one touchdown, eight sacks, and six interceptions in a Week 14 loss to Miami. By the fourth quarter, they had mercifully pulled him for Wade Wilson, who I believe was 94 years old at the time. Wilson actually passed for a late touchdown, so the Raiders only lost 27-17. With -27.6 PAR, this was by far the worst game of the decade before adjusting for opponent, but Miami was the best defense in the league that year, so it ends up at -21.7 DPAR.
• Alex Smith in his first career start, a 28-3 loss to Indianapolis in Week 5 of last year. Smith was 9-for-23 with 74 yards, five sacks, four interceptions, two fumbles, and no touchdowns. That's -23.1 PAR before the adjustment, -21.5 DPAR afterwards.

That's it. Every other game right now comes out as better than Grossman if you include opponent adjustment. If you want the PAR rating without opponent adjustment, Grossman's game against Arizona ranks eighth.

So, you may ask, was the worst quarterback performance ever by a winning quarterback? Is water wet? I looked at the worst 30 passing performances of the decade, and every single one except Grossman was a loss. I looked at every game of -16 PAR or worse before I just gave up on trying to find another win. The only one close was Tommy Maddox in Baltimore's 13-10 victory over Pittsburgh in the final week of 2003, and that game is just the 24th worst PAR of the decade.

Here's your full list of the 10 worst PAR passing games. Most of these do a lot better in DPAR because they came against the best defenses in the league.

• 1) Hollas (-27.6)
• 2) Smith (-23.1)
• 3) Jon Kitna, 1999 Seahawks vs. Bucs (-22.0 PAR): 19-for-44, 197 yards, 0 TD, 5 INT, 3 sacks, 2 fumbles
• 4) Ty Detmer, 2001 Lions vs. Browns (-21.7 PAR): 22-for-42, 212 yards, 0 TD, 7 INT, 3 sacks
• 5) Kyle Orton, 2005 Bears vs. Bengals (-21.4 PAR): 17-for-39, 141 yards, 0 TD, 5 INT -- but amazingly, no sacks
• 6) Ryan Leaf, 1998 Chargers vs. Chiefs (-20.8 PAR): 1-for-15, 4 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT, 2 sacks, 3 fumbled snaps
• 7) Brett Favre, 1999 Packers vs. Seahawks (-20.3 PAR): 14-for-35, 180 yards, 1 TD, 4 INT, 3 sacks, 2 fumbles
• 8) Grossman (-20.1)
• 9) Anthony Wright, 2000 Cowboys vs. Titans (-20.1 PAR): 5-for-20, 35 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT, 4 sacks, 3 fumbles
• 10) Tim Hasselbeck, 2003 Redskins vs. Cowboys (-20.0 PAR): 6-for-26, 56 yards, 0 TD, 4 INT, 1 sack

I think every "worst passing whatever" list is required by law to have Ryan Leaf on it. The only reason that game isn't the worst one is that Leaf didn't have the ball -- and the chance to keep sucking -- as much as the other quarterbacks.

By the way, Elias has said that Grossman has the worst passer rating in a winning effort since Drew Henson on Thanksgiving in 2004, but Henson has just -5.3 DPAR by our system, mostly because he only played half the game.

Note: Edited score of 2003 BAL-PIT game. 

Post by Aaron Schatz