Week 6 Quick Reads

by Bill Barnwell

One of the league's elite quarterbacks had the best game of the past 15 years on Sunday, according to our DYAR metric.

It just wasn't the one you might think.

Tom Brady [1] and Drew Brees [2] each had incredible days on Sunday. Brady, playing in an October nor'easter, threw for 380 yards and six touchdowns in just under three quarters before giving way to the Brian Hoyer [3] Experience. Brees, in the relative calm of the Superdome, picked up 369 yards on four fewer attempts while throwing four touchdowns. There's very little between them. Brees put up 318 passing YAR on the day, while Brady was right behind him at 314 passing YAR.

What that stat is missing, though, is what separates these two: The 'D' in DYAR, which stands for defense-adjusted. Brady spent his Sunday against a Titans pass defense that was 29th in the league even before Sunday, a game they entered without either of their starting corners. Meanwhile, Brees' matchup saw him take on the league's best pass defense, a Giants team that had allowed opposing #1 and #2 receivers a combined 43 yards per game.

As a result, DYAR takes some of the air out of Brady's game while raising Brees's up to the historic level. There were only three YAR between them, but Brees finished the day with 347 passing DYAR, the highest total in the DVOA Era (1994-2009). Brady ended up with 264; remarkable, but not historic.

Those totals come even before considering that opponent adjustments are only at 60 percent; each week, we up the defensive adjustments 10 percent, until they hit 100 percent after Week 10. Unless the Giants defense fails to recover from their destruction at Brees's hands, the Saints quarterback should see his DYAR total for what was truly an amazing performance rise even higher by the end of the year.

(If you want to compare Brees' day to the other top quarterback games, click here [5]. That was written before we had 1994 and 2008 stats, but no 1994 or 2008 games would break into the top ten.)

Quarterbacks
Rk	Player	Team	CP/AT	Yds	TD	INT	Total DYAR	Pass DYAR	Rush DYAR
1.	Drew Brees	NO	23/30	369	4	0	350	347	4
Brees actually finished with 350.3 DYAR, thanks to the 3.7 rushing DYAR he added to his 346.6 passing DYAR. The defensive scheme that the Giants employed against Brees to disastrous results was extremely similar to the one they used against the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, with the usually blitz-happy Giants rushing four defensive linemen and dropping seven back into coverage on most plays. The difference? In the Super Bowl, the Giants -- particularly Justin Tuck -- abused the Patriots' offensive linemen, beating them one-on-one repeatedly and battering Tom Brady [1]. On Sunday, they barely sniffed Brees, giving him all the time he needed to take their zones apart.
2.	Tom Brady	NE	29/34	380	6	0	264	264	0
We don't have the numbers readily available, but it would be a huge shock to find that Brady didn't own the single-quarter record for passing DYAR. In that fateful second quarter, Brady was 17-of-21 for 252 yards, six first downs, and five touchdowns. Had he thrown for touchdown passes instead of taking sacks on two separate third-down plays from the Titans 15-yard-line, he might have been able to challenge Brees.
3.	Matt Schaub	HOU	28/40	392	4	1	205	202	3
Our colleague Vince Verhei notes, "Matt Schaub is going to end up with a pretty great day by DYAR, but the receivers are doing more than their fair share -- a lot of the yards, especially the big plays (the Steve Slaton touchdown, a screen to Andre Johnson) have come after the catch." Of course, most big plays have a fair amount of yards after the catch, but Vince is right; the Texans had seven plays with ten or more YAC on the day. The only team with more was...
4.	Ben Roethlisberger	PIT	23/35	417	2	1	197	189	8
The Steelers had ten plays with 10 or more YAC on the day. Of course, Cleveland's right up there with Oakland amongst the league's worst-tackling teams, but that's still a remarkable total. By player: Hines Ward [6] (79 YAC), Santonio Holmes (49 YAC), Heath Miller (19 YAC), Mike Wallace (18 YAC), and Rashard Mendenhall (14 YAC).
5.	Brett Favre	MIN	21/29	278	3	0	165	165	0
We'll cover the DPI king of the day later on, but 2008 pass interference champion Bernard Berrian was up to his old tricks, picking up a 39-yard pass interference call in the fourth quarter that got the Vikings down to the Ravens two-yard line. Favre's final pass, the 58-yard bomb to Sidney Rice [7], had all kinds of stuff going on worth mentioning. One, there was a blatant hold only inches away from Favre that should have been called. Two, the defender in coverage on the play was noted sieve Frank Walker, who was brought in to replace a benched Fabian Washington. If you watch the 2008 Ravens on tape, you'll note that teams went after Walker like he owed them money when he snuck into the cornerback rotation. He's a gaping hole at cornerback. Three, we heard people saying that Rice was an emerging star at wide receiver Sunday night. Really? Give the guy credit for a huge game, but before Sunday, he was on pace for 54 receptions, 745 receiving yards, and six touchdowns, and that was assuming that he stayed healthy for a full season for the first time in his career. Let's hold off a bit on anointing him.
6.	Joe Flacco	BAL	28/42	385	2	0	147	147	0
One thing DYAR and DVOA don't account for is injury. Of course, injury can be all the difference in the world; consider Flacco, who was 3-of-5 for 22 yards and a sack in the first quarter. After Antoine Winfield went down with a foot injury during the opening series of the second quarter, Flacco threw for 363 yards. Correlation isn't always causation, but having Winfield around for the whole game couldn't have hurt.
7.	Kurt Warner	ARI	32/41	276	2	1	137	137	0
It wasn't exactly Brady's second quarter, but Kurt Warner [8] had one of those first halves that make you wonder how he won't be a first-ballot Hall of Famer: 12-of-12, 171 yards, six first downs, a passing touchdown, and 14 points on the board, with a third drive ending the quarter inside the Seahawks' ten-yard line.
MNF.	Kyle Orton	DEN	20/29	229	2	0	125	133	-9
8.	Aaron Rodgers	GB	29/36	358	2	1	84	79	5
Aaron Rodgers [9] didn't pad his stats; after a third-quarter sack and fumble, he threw only one pass in the fourth quarter, an interception. A more important question: What's up with Greg Jennings? We thought the star wideout would have a big game against the Lions, but Jennings only ended up with 38 yards on six catches in eight attempts. Our theory: Rodgers is struggling to get the protection he needs to allow Jennings to run double moves and get open downfield.
MNF.	Philip Rivers	SD	20/33	274	1	0	66	68	-1
9.	Jay Cutler	CHI	27/43	300	2	2	63	50	14
Of course, statistics never tell the whole story about a player or a game. Cutler's a prime example; he threw two ugly picks, and was constantly buzzing his receivers with inaccurate throws vaguely in their direction. You often hear about a pitcher in baseball with good control, but no command, meaning that they get the ball in the strike zone, but can't put their pitches where they want them to; that was Cutler on Sunday.
10.	Matt Ryan	ATL	19/33	185	2	2	62	56	5
Hooray for statistical flukes. Before Sunday, Ryan was 7-of-11 on deep (15+ yards) passes to the left side of the field, picking up 153 yards. Against the Bears, though? Two attempts, two picks.
Rk	Player	Team	CP/AT	Yds	TD	INT	Total DYAR	Pass DYAR	Rush DYAR
11.	Carson Palmer	CIN	23/35	259	1	1	49	48	1
Palmer's numbers were stifled by fumbles that came on completed passes around midfield. Those turnovers don't color his numbers at all, but they stopped drives that might have helped him accrue more DYAR and, more importantly, helped Cincinnati to a 5-1 record.
12.	Marc Bulger	STL	22/33	213	1	1	25	25	0
There were a lot of great performances by quarterbacks this week, but there were also a lot of absolutely miserable days, too. The result is that a typical middling day from Bulger, accruing 25 DYAR, ranks 12th despite the fact that it would've been 17th or so on most weeks. Bulger's final pass of the day, from the Jaguars nine-yard line in a three-point game, was marked with no intended receiver. That's the NFL play-by-play's way of insulting you.
13.	Eli Manning	NYG	14/31	178	1	1	23	23	0
The Giants game plan offensively was to beat the Saints deep, especially on passes through the middle of the field, on seam routes and deep posts. It didn't work, thanks to a combination of tipped passes, drops, and poor throws. Manning threw seven different pass attempts 20 or more yards downfield, and didn't complete a single one. If two or three fall into Giant hands, the game very well might have gone differently.
14.	David Garrard	JAC	30/43	335	0	2	13	-2	15
Not included in the totals you see above (outside of DYAR) are, yes, four different pass interference penalties against Rams defenders. They only counted for 37 yards, but that's four new sets of downs that the Jaguars passing game picked up. Although Garrard acccrued his fair share of yards and first downs, his two picks -- including an ugly screen pass returned by Leonard Little for a touchdown -- held his advanced metrics down.
15.	Jason Campbell	WAS	9/15	89	0	1	2	5	-3
What was it, again, that Todd Collins [10] was suppose to offer the Redskins that Jason Campbell [11] didn't? Jim Zorn claimed after the game that Campbell had some accuracy issues, but he completed a higher percentage of his passes than Collins did. Collins has the vaunted "game manager" label that's supposed to grant him the magical powers of avoiding turnovers and dumb plays, but football isn't Dungeons and Dragons, and Collins took a game-ending sack in the end zone. Campbell averaged more yards per attempt, and took one fewer sack in two more attempts. The only difference between the two is that Campbell threw an interception on a Hail Mary play to end the half, and that Clinton Portis rolled off a 78-yard carry while Collins was handing the ball off. Oh, and that Campbell might actually contribute to a winning team at some point in the next ten years, while Collins is an emergency backup. Jim Zorn played the last card he had on Sunday, and it failed.
16.	JaMarcus Russell	OAK	17/28	224	1	2	-2	-12	10
It's a mystery to us, too. In a game against one of the most confusing, dangerous pass rushes in the league, JaMarcus Russell [12] was actually ... mediocre. That's not an insult, either; we expected Russell to put up one of his worst days of the year, and while he got serious help from Zach Miller's running after the catch on his absurd 86-yard touchdown, Russell held up in the pocket and kept the ugly mistakes and awful breakdowns in mechanics to a minimum.
17.	Brian Hoyer	NE	9/11	52	0	0	-7	-5	-3
18.	Ryan Fitzpatrick	BUF	10/25	116	1	1	-46	-44	-2
Fitzpatrick's ability to end up on teams with starting quarterbacks that get hurt is astounding to us. Of course, we're not one of those starting quarterbacks. All we're saying is that if your favorite team signs him, you should be prepared.
19.	Donovan McNabb	PHI	22/45	269	0	0	-56	-56	0
Again, this doesn't even consider that the Raiders were without Nnamdi Asomugha (on the other hand, it doesn't consider that the Eagles were without Jason Peters for most of the game, either). This was the ugly side of McNabb. When he's on his game, there might not be a better quarterback in the league, but McNabb is given to stretches of utter mediocrity, where his mechanics break down and he one-hops a half-dozen curl patterns and overthrows six more deep ins. That makes him the polar opposite of Kevin Kolb, who doesn't have the arm strength of McNabb, but appears to be a more accurate passer. That doesn't necessarily make Kolb the better player, just a different one.
20.	Matt Cassel	KC	17/32	186	0	0	-58	-47	-11
Cassel made one of the worst throws you'll ever see on Sunday, scrambling out of the pocket to complete a pass despite being a full two yards ahead of the line of scrimmage. Granted, it's a move that Brett Favre [13] has pulled a half-dozen times during his career, but it wasn't a good thing then, either.
Rk	Player	Team	CP/AT	Yds	TD	INT	Total DYAR	Pass DYAR	Rush DYAR
21.	Derek Anderson	CLE	9/24	122	1	1	-63	-63	0
It takes a lot to make 5.1 yards per attempt and a 37.5 percent completion percentage look good. Fortunately, Derek Anderson [14]'s Week 5 numbers qualify as "a lot" of something. Maybe realtor-in-training Brady Quinn can put Anderson's house up for sale, too.
22.	Todd Collins	WAS	6/14	75	0	0	-85	-85	0
23.	Daunte Culpepper	DET	6/14	48	0	1	-86	-86	0
It seems so strange to consider that, this time four years ago, Culpepper was 28 and very clearly the best quarterback in the NFC. Imagine if Ben Roethlisberger [15] tore his knee to shreds next week and then was never effective as an NFL quarterback again. That's Culpepper.
24.	Jake Delhomme	CAR	9/17	65	1	2	-89	-89	0
This was supposed to be Delhomme's big game of the year, his chance to take on the league's weakest defense and help restore his seasonal notation to some sort of respectability. Instead, he threw for 65 yards against a team that had allowed the Cowboys two individual plays of 65 yards or more in Week 1. Granted, the Panthers were busy running all over the Buccaneers on the ground, but Delhomme could have -- and should have -- done far more with his 17 attempts.
25.	Drew Stanton	DET	5/11	57	0	2	-96	-96	0
26.	Josh Johnson	TB	11/17	147	0	1	-107	-102	-4
The biggest problem at the moment for Josh Johnson [16] is holding onto the ball. His raw numbers above look fine, if pedestrian, but he lost a fumble on an aborted snap (the one fumble that the offense is far more likely to recover than the defense), and then fumbled three different times on sacks. He has to do a better job of protecting the football, something his coaches will be drilling into his head in practice.
27.	Matt Hasselbeck	SEA	11/29	112	0	1	-131	-128	-4
Seahawks punter Jon Ryan beat his team's starting quarterback by 156 passing DYAR.
28.	Kerry Collins	TEN	2/12	0	0	1	-134	-134	0
Another example of "When Game Managers Go Bad". Collins should be an ideal quarterback for the snow, where he'll stay within himself, make good decisions, and do whatever else it is quarterbacks of middling talent who have great defenses do during seasons when they make the playoffs. Instead, he turned the ball over twice and fumbled another time before being taken out.
29.	Mark Sanchez	NYJ	10/29	119	0	5	-209	-211	2
Four of Sanchez's five interceptions went to Braylon Edwards, who had three catches on nine targets for 40 yards. Not to say that the Browns know what they're doing, but the line of people queueing up to laugh at them for trading away a "star" wide receiver for mid-round picks and Jets bench players got a lot smaller this week.

Five most valuable running backs
Rk	Player	Team	Rush Yds	Rush TD	Rec Yds	Rec TD	Total DYAR	Rush DYAR	Rec DYAR
1.	Ray Rice	BAL	77	2	117	0	68	28	41
We're going to look back at the 2008 draft class for running backs the same way that people view the quarterback class of 1983. The two backs selected first -- Darren McFadden and Jonathan Stewart -- have struggled with injuries, but consider that they were followed by Felix Jones, Rashard Mendenhall, Chris Johnson, Matt Forte [17], and Rice. Rice isn't as flashy as some of the other guys on that list, but what a football player. He didn't run for a first down against a very good Vikings run defense, but he scored on two long carries, and he was 10-of-11 for 117 yards as a receiver. That's a good season for Brandon Jacobs.
2.	Laurence Maroney	NE	123	1	10	0	61	64	-3
While the Titans' pass defense has been terrible, they still had an elite rush defense through the first five weeks. Hard to say whether it was the weather that affected an undersized team that relies upon speed, but they made Maroney look like a viable starting back for the first time in, seemingly, years.
3.	Thomas Jones	NYJ	210	1	17	0	56	43	13
How do you rush for 200+ yards and not finish first? Well, an utter and absolute lack of balance. 135 of Jones' yards came on two consecutive carries (well, with some other non-Jones plays inbetween), which is great, but you have to contribute over the rest of the game, too. Jones had four carries on first down for two yards or less and failed to convert on his only third-down carry. Against the Bills, who ranked 24th in rush defense DVOA heading into the game, Jones needed to do more considering the workload he got.
4.	DeAngelo Williams	CAR	152	2	20	0	55	41	14
Williams didn't have the big plays that Jones did, but he put up virtually the same amount of rushing DYAR because of his consistency. Only two of his 16 carries on first down went for two yards or less, and he converted three of his five attempts on third down. Although Tampa Bay's defense is worse than Buffalo's, it's not a coincidence that Williams' team scored 28 points and won, while Jones' scored 13 and lost.
5.	Brian Westbrook	PHI	50	0	91	0	39	13	26
Westbrook only got six carries, but he picked up two first downs and added a nine-yard run on first-and-10. The bulk of his work, as might be expected, came in the passing game. As an honorable mention, we'd like to note the player who came behind him; Steve Slaton had -34 rushing DYAR, but 65 receiving DYAR to finish with 31 total DYAR on the day. At some point, isn't it easier to just make a guy a wide receiver.

Least valuable running back
Rk	Player	Team	Rush Yds	Rush TD	Rec Yds	Rec TD	Total DYAR	Rush DYAR	Rec DYAR
1.	Matt Forte	CHI	24	0	37	0	-65	-81	16
As we suggested two weeks ago, there was nothing wrong with Matt Forte [17] that was magically "fixed" by playing the Lions. It was a narrative formed by people who don't consider the strength of a defense when looking at a stat line or clips of a player in a single game. It's the same sort of folks who were saying that JaMarcus Russell [12] looked more confident because Zach Miller went all Tecmo Bo against the Eagles defense, or that Peyton Manning carried the Colts to the playoffs with a huge second half without considering that he played an impossibly easy slate of games. Of course those guys look good; look who they're playing!

Five most valuable wide receivers and tight ends
Rk	Player	Team	Rec	Att	Yds	Avg	TD	Total DYAR
1.	Marques Colston	NO	8	8	166	20.8	1	120
Throw in a 35-yard pass interference penalty for good measure. As we mentioned earlier, the Giants had been shutting down the opposing team's top wideouts this year. Corey Webster, in particular, was having a monster season; the Giants' top corner had been allowing opposing number one wideouts only 15 yards per game. Colston averaged nearly 21 per catch, abusing Webster, fellow corner Terrell Thomas, supposed safety C.C. Brown, and overmatched linebacker Antonio Pierce for big play after big play. Colston's game ranks eighth among wide receiver games in DYAR history (for more on the other games, click here [18]).
2.	Randy Moss	NE	8	10	129	16.1	3	82
Imagine what he'd do if he didn't loaf! All Moss did this week was turn all eight of his catches into first downs or touchdowns.
3.	Wes Welker	NE	10	11	150	15.0	2	76
Welker would have had a perfect day, if not for a second-quarter drop. For such a smart player, a lot of Welker's incomplete passes come in exactly the same way: While catching a short pass, Welker often tries to turn and make his move upfield before he's got the ball in his grasp. The result is a dropped pass. Because Welker's got such a reputation, he doesn't take any flak for it, but he does it frequently enough to warrant mentioning.
4.	Sidney Rice	MIN	6	7	176	29.3	0	61
We threw some cold water on Rice earlier, but it was still an excellent game. Baltimore excels at taking away the throwing lanes to possession receivers and limiting their numbers (look at Welker's career against them if you don't believe us), but Rice simply got downfield and abused Fabian Washington until the Ravens' corner got benched. And then he made Frank Walker look worse.
5.	Hines Ward	PIT	8	12	159	19.9	1	56
His line was sullied only by a Roethlisberger interception on which he was the intended target. There hasn't been a ton of Hall of Fame hype surrounding Ward, but he has to make it in the long run, right? He's 16th in career receptions and 28th in receiving yards, and has four Pro Bowls and two Super Bowl rings to go along with his well-deserved reputation as a blocker. A full list of the wide receivers taken before him in that year's draft, by the way: Kevin Dyson, Randy Moss [19], Marcus Nash, Jerome Pathon, Jacquez Green, Patrick Johnson, Germane Crowell, Tony Simmons, Joe Jurevicius, Mikhael Ricks, Brian Alford, E.G. Green, Jammi German, and Larry Shannon. Moss, Ward, and Jurevicius would be a heck of a combination, actually.

Least valuable wide receiver or tight end
Rk	Player	Team	Rec	Att	Yds	Avg	TD	Total DYAR
1.	Jeremy Maclin	PHI	1	6	6	6.0	0	-32
Maclin was supposed to benefit from Asomugha paying attention to DeSean Jackson, leaving him free to abuse Chris Johnson in single coverage while McNabb got eons and eons of time throw from the Eagles' excellent offensive line. Instead, Asomugha didn't play, so Johnson got shifted over to cover Jackson. Jackson took advantage of Johnson, which isn't surprising, but Richard Seymour laid waste to the left side of the Eagles' line, and Maclin never had any time to get deep. Ah, the best-laid plans...

(Reminder: Quick Reads appears on ESPN Insider on Monday, then gets republished on FO on Tuesdays, with added ratings for Monday Night Football.)