Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
Drew Brees played a flawless game on Monday night, which left fans wondering why the Saints quarterback didn't leave with a perfect passer rating.
- Drew Brees played one of the best games of his career on Monday night, completing 29 of 30 passes and throwing for 307 yards and four touchdowns in a dominant win over the Indianapolis Colts.
- Brees broke Peyton Manning's record to become the all-time leader in NFL touchdown passes and also broke Philip Rivers' single-game completion-percentage record.
- Despite the brilliant performance, Brees fell short of having a perfect passer rating, leaving some fans questioning the merits of the statistic.
- Passer rating is based on a somewhat frustrating formula that weights four different values to analyze a quarterback's performance, and Brees fell just short of having the necessary yards per attempt to be considered a perfect passer.
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Drew Brees had himself quite a night on Monday.
Over the course of the New Orleans Saints' 34-7 dismantling of the Indianapolis Colts, Brees threw four touchdowns, passing Peyton Manning for the all-time record.
Brees didn't stop breaking records there though. He went on to complete 29 of his 30 passes on the night to finish with the highest single-game completion percentage in NFL history, passing the mark set by Philip Rivers last season.
At the end of the night, Brees finished with an impressive line of 29-for-30 with 307 yards, four touchdowns, zero interceptions. But despite his near-perfect night on the field, Brees finished with a passer rating of 148.9 - nearly ten points shy of the perfect passer rating of 158.3.
Many fans were confused as to why Brees had fallen short of a perfect passer rating, using the incongruous results as evidence that the stat was ineffective or outdated.
Passer rating is based on a relatively complex formula, and you can read a full explanation on the stat from the NFL here. In short, it comes down to an analysis of four measurements:
- Completion percentage
- Yards per attempt
- Touchdown rate
- Interception rate
The formula gets complicated because it uses a series of calculations in order to properly weight the four values, then combines them to produce what eventually turns into a player's passer rating.
Brees was on pace for a perfect night in three of the four categories - completion percentage, touchdown rate, and interception rate - but fell just short of reaching the necessary yards per attempt to produce a perfect passer rating.
According to a bit of back of the napkin math, Brees would have needed 375 passing yards on his 30 attempts in order to reach the 158.3 mark - with only 307 passing yards, he fell just short.
Passer rating is still an imperfect stat - any casual fan watching the game on Monday night would know it was near impossible for Brees to play any better than he did.
But regardless of your feelings on the stat, the reason Brees fell short is that according to the formula, Brees didn't throw for enough yards to be considered a perfect passer.
After setting two NFL records on Monday night en route to a dominant win in front of the home crowd, I doubt Brees minds the snub.
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How do these stats not equate to a perfect passer rating? Makes no sense pic.twitter.com/LBSm6FPHVi
- Ben Volin (@BenVolin) December 17, 2019I don't understand how brees didn't have a perfect passer rating.
- Schmitzy (@schmitzy_tv) December 17, 2019Lmao at this not being a perfect passer rating pic.twitter.com/rLmIoCGWlJ
- Marcus (@HoldMyJoc) December 17, 2019I hate @nfl so much that I think Brees not having a perfect passer rating tonight is a(nother) conspiracy against the #Saints
- Duris Holmes (@duris) December 17, 2019