On Sunday Night Football, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning became the NFL's all time leader in touchdown passes thrown, surpassing former quarterback Brett Favre's previous record of 508. In typical league fashion, when Manning breaks a record, everyone is supposed to care. Everyone and their grandmothers were cued up to give their congratulations. As much as I don't care for Peyton Manning or his inflated passing numbers, it was nice of his compatriots to take the time to say some nice words. Tom Brady was interviewed by WEEI's Dennis and Callahan the next day and the theme was Manning's new record. At the 6:45 mark of the interview, Brady was asked about the advantages for a quarterback "playing half their games in a controlled environment?" Brady responded carefully, making sure he didn't take away from Manning's accomplishment.
"I think controlled environments, like everything, there’s positives, there’s negatives," Brady said. "It’s like anything, if you play golf in a controlled environment, which most of those guys do, you’re going to have great scores. If you play golf and it’s 20 mile-an-hour winds and rainy, your scores aren’t going to be as good. But like everything, both teams play in it, and your competition is against your particular opponent. It’s not against a statistics sheet. I would say that the statistics in great conditions are typically going to be — I would say on average — better than they would be if there was really inclement weather. "
The advantages of playing in a controlled environment are controversial to say the least. There are plenty of people, such as Scott Kacsmar, that believe there isn't enough evidence to support the belief that controlled environments make it any easier to throw the football. Despite the arguments made against the supposed advantages, it was clear leading up to Super Bowl 48 that there was fear of weather playing a part in deciding the outcome of the game. Instead of just doing the work and uncovering an answer, many would rather just blindly assert whichever position supports what they wish was true. It's time to put the myth to bed for good.
Myth: Playing in a controlled environment does not give quarterbacks a significant advantage passing.
To begin, the highest league-wide passer rating in NFL history was 84.1 in 2013. I then took every quarterback with a career passer rating above 84.1 as a starting group of quarterbacks to measure. The reasoning here is that these quarterbacks, by virtue of being above the highest single season average ever, are at the very least average. I then chose Peyton Manning as the quarterback whose time-frame in the league would be used as the basis for the analysis. Using this time-frame of 1998-2013, I eliminated quarterbacks that did not spend the majority of their career in the league in these years. The quarterback must have been in the league for at least 6 years as well, leading to the latest a player could have started being 2008. This brought the list to 20 quarterbacks. (Note: Joe Flacco is included as his career passer rating eclipsed the 84.1 mark in 2014)
Player | PR (2013) | Seasons |
Aaron Rodgers | 104.9 | 2005-2014 |
Peyton Manning | 97.2 | 1998-2014 |
Philip Rivers | 96 | 2004-2014 |
Tony Romo | 95.8 | 2004-2014 |
Tom Brady | 95.7 | 2000-2014 |
Drew Brees | 95.3 | 2001-2014 |
Kurt Warner | 93.7 | 1998-2009 |
Ben Roethlisberger | 92.6 | 2004-2014 |
Matt Ryan | 90.6 | 2008-2014 |
Chad Pennington | 90.1 | 2000-2010 |
Matt Schaub | 89.9 | 2004-2014 |
Daunte Culpepper | 87.8 | 1999-2009 |
Jeff Garcia | 87.5 | 1999-2011 |
Trent Green | 86 | 1997-2008 |
Carson Palmer | 85.9 | 2004-2014 |
David Garrard | 85.8 | 2002-2013 |
Donovan McNabb | 85.6 | 1999-2011 |
Jay Cutler | 84.6 | 2006-2014 |
Marc Bulger | 84.4 | 2002-2009 |
Joe Flacco | 83.7 | 2008-2014 |
From here, I went and broke each quarterback down by their outdoor and indoor passer ratings. The quarterbacks are in the same order as above. Quarterbacks with an (*) next to their name had a higher passer rating outdoor than indoor.
Player | Outdoor Rating | Indoor Rating |
Aaron Rodgers | 101.8 | 116.8 |
Peyton Manning | 95.9 | 99.1 |
Philip Rivers* | 97.1 | 76.3 |
Tony Romo | 93.1 | 101.0 |
Tom Brady | 95.1 | 104.6 |
Drew Brees | 89.9 | 101.7 |
Kurt Warner | 86.4 | 102.8 |
Ben Roethlisberger | 92.1 | 99.4 |
Matt Ryan | 87.0 | 92.8 |
Chad Pennington | 89.0 | 101.7 |
Matt Schaub* | 93.2 | 82.6 |
Daunte Culpepper | 77.7 | 95.3 |
Jeff Garcia* | 88.5 | 83.4 |
Trent Green* | 87.1 | 76.1 |
Carson Palmer | 85.3 | 90.9 |
David Garrard | 84.1 | 108.0 |
Donovan McNabb | 84.6 | 94.0 |
Jay Cutler | 83.4 | 91.1 |
Marc Bulger | 75.3 | 90.9 |
Joe Flacco | 82.7 | 98.3 |
16 of the 20 quarterbacks have higher indoor passer ratings than outdoor. 16 quarterbacks have an indoor passer rating over 90. There are 7 quarterbacks with an indoor passer rating over 100, the same number of quarterbacks with an outdoor passer rating over 90. The majority of the most efficient passers in history throw better outdoors than indoor.
The retort to this is that quarterbacks that play outside the majority of the time would have the advantage of not playing in controlled environments consistently. This has some merit. The average percentage of indoor attempts of all quarterbacks was 26%. Below is a chart that shows the quarterbacks with less than 10% of their career pass attempts indoors.
Player | Outdoor Rating | Outdoor Attempts | Indoor Rating | Indoor Attempts | Total | Indoor % |
Philip Rivers | 97.1 | 3879 | 76.3 | 229 | 4108 | 5.60% |
Joe Flacco | 82.7 | 2907 | 98.3 | 196 | 3103 | 6.30% |
Tom Brady | 95.1 | 6128 | 104.6 | 458 | 6586 | 7.00% |
David Garrard | 84.1 | 2120 | 108 | 161 | 2281 | 7.10% |
Ben Roethlisberger | 92.1 | 4027 | 99.4 | 319 | 4346 | 7.30% |
Chad Pennington | 89 | 2255 | 101.7 | 216 | 2471 | 8.70% |
Donovan McNabb | 84.6 | 4871 | 94 | 503 | 5374 | 9.40% |
Trent Green | 87.1 | 3388 | 76.1 | 352 | 3740 | 9.40% |
The numbers are more sporadic. What about for quarterbacks with more than 40% of their career attempts indoors?
Player | Outdoor Rating | Outdoor Attempts | Indoor Rating | Indoor Attempts | Total | Indoor % |
Matt Ryan | 87.0 | 1239 | 92.8 | 2049 | 3288 | 62.3% |
Marc Bulger | 75.3 | 1323 | 90.9 | 1848 | 3171 | 58.3% |
Daunte Culpepper | 77.7 | 1344 | 95.3 | 1855 | 3199 | 58.0% |
Drew Brees | 89.9 | 3553 | 101.7 | 3226 | 6779 | 47.6% |
Peyton Manning | 95.9 | 4644 | 99.1 | 3808 | 8452 | 45.1% |
Kurt Warner | 86.4 | 2256 | 102.8 | 1814 | 4070 | 44.6% |
Unlike before, these quarterbacks of all different degrees of skill and circumstances all have higher passer ratings indoor than outdoor. It would appear that the more time a player spends indoors, the more obvious that discrepancy becomes.
Overall, how much more significant are the numbers? Here are the totals of all the quarterbacks combined, broken down by outdoor and indoor.
Completions | Attempts | Yards | Touchdowns | Interceptions | |
Outdoor | 38107 | 60811 | 446493 | 2864 | 1610 |
Indoor | 14200 | 21736 | 170309 | 1184 | 558 |
Completion % | YPA | TD % | INT % | PR | |
Outdoor | 62.7% | 7.3 | 4.7% | 2.6% | 89.6 |
Indoor | 65.3% | 7.9 | 5.4% | 2.6% | 96.6 |
Interceptions stay relatively the same, debunking any idea that these quarterbacks will turn the ball over more outdoors than indoors. Completion percentage, yards per attempt, and touchdown percentage are significantly higher. Add it all up, and the combined passer rating is a ludicrous 7 points higher. Playing in a controlled environment clearly provides a superior statistical advantage. The myth that playing in a controlled environment does not provide an advantage to quarterbacks has been busted.
Never miss Patriots breaking news!