Philip Rivers’ Amazingly Average Day

What a performance by Philip Rivers on Sunday! I mean, he threw for over 500 yards! He couldn’t be stopped (unless you mean at the end of the game by the goal line). Praise is all around for Philip Rivers and his performance against the Packers. In fact, this morning I open my ProFootballTalk app and I see they released their power rankings for the week and the Packers dropped 1 spot from number two to number three. Now, I don’t really care about where their ranked, put them at number 32 for all I care, because these rankings are as meaningless as a Justin Bieber song. What I do take issue with is the reasoning behind it

3. Packers (6-0; No. 2): It’s hard to hold the No. 2 spot when giving up more than 500 yards passing.

Who gives a shit? They gave up 500 yards and only 20 points. This is on the same scale as the Drew Brees passing yardage records. It’s pretty easy to break passing records when you throw it 50% more than most teams. In fact , I went back to my nerdery and looked at all of the quarterback stats for the week and when normalized for attempts and completions, Philip Rivers had a pretty average day.

Here’s how he ranked, starting with his most impressive first.

Completion Percentage: 67.2% (5th)

It is easier to complete passing when you aren’t throwing passes any farther than 10 yards down fields

Yards per Attempt: 7.9 (14th)

Who had more yards per attempt than him? Well, Rodgers, of course, but also Colin Kaepernick, Jay Cutler and Ryan Fitzpatrick to name a few.

Yards per Completion: 11.7 (15th)

Who had more yards per completion than him? Well, Rodgers, of course, but also Teddy Bridgewater, Brian Hoyer and Landry Jones to name a few.

Attempts per Touchdowns: 32 (17th)

Who had fewer attempts per touchdowns than him? Well, Rodgers, of course, but also Matthew Stafford, Ryan Tannehill and Blake Bortles to name a few.

Completions per Touchdowns: 21.5 (19th)

Who had fewer completions per touchdowns than him? Well, Rodgers, of course, but also Andy Dalton, Josh McCown and Joe Flacco to name a few.

But congratulations Philip, you’ve earned your praise. I still think I’ll keep Rodgers though. Below is the complete chart for those interested in such things.

Quarterback	Completions	Attempts	Yards	TD	Completion%	Yds/Attempt	Yds/Completion	Attempts/TD	Completions/TD
Philip Rivers	43	64	503	2	67.19%	7.9	11.7	32.0	21.5
Carson Palmer	29	45	421	1	64.44%	9.4	14.5	45.0	29.0
Matthew Stafford	27	42	405	4	64.29%	9.6	15.0	10.5	6.8
Jay Cutler	26	41	353	1	63.41%	8.6	13.6	41.0	26.0
Joe Flacco	33	53	343	2	62.26%	6.5	10.4	26.5	16.5
Colin Kaepernick	16	27	340	2	59.26%	12.6	21.3	13.5	8.0
Blake Bortles	30	53	331	3	56.60%	6.2	11.0	17.7	10.0
Tom Brady	23	37	312	3	62.16%	8.4	13.6	12.3	7.7
Andrew Luck	30	50	312	3	60.00%	6.2	10.4	16.7	10.0
Drew Brees	30	39	312	1	76.92%	8.0	10.4	39.0	30.0
Matt Ryan	30	44	295	2	68.18%	6.7	9.8	22.0	15.0
Brian Hoyer	24	36	293	3	66.67%	8.1	12.2	12.0	8.0
Peyton Manning	26	48	290	1	54.17%	6.0	11.2	48.0	26.0
Alex Smith	22	37	282	1	59.46%	7.6	12.8	37.0	22.0
Sam Bradford	24	38	280	1	63.16%	7.4	11.7	38.0	24.0
Cam Newton	20	36	269	1	55.56%	7.5	13.5	36.0	20.0
Ryan Tannehill	22	29	266	2	75.86%	9.2	12.1	14.5	11.0
EJ Manuel	28	42	263	1	66.67%	6.3	9.4	42.0	28.0
Aaron Rodgers	16	29	255	2	55.17%	8.8	15.9	14.5	8.0
Ryan Fitzpatrick	19	26	253	2	73.08%	9.7	13.3	13.0	9.5
Teddy Bridgewater	17	31	249	1	54.84%	8.0	14.6	31.0	17.0
Andy Dalton	22	33	243	3	66.67%	7.4	11.0	11.0	7.3
Russell Wilson	18	30	241	1	60.00%	8.0	13.4	30.0	18.0
Marcus Mariota	21	33	219	1	63.64%	6.6	10.4	33.0	21.0
Josh McCown	20	39	213	2	51.28%	5.5	10.7	19.5	10.0
Kirk Cousins	25	43	196	1	58.14%	4.6	7.8	43.0	25.0
Eli Manning	24	38	189	1	63.16%	5.0	7.9	38.0	24.0
Landry Jones	8	12	168	2	66.67%	14.0	21.0	6.0	4.0