FanPost

Analysis of Fitzpatrick's Stats

So as usual I read something interesting on Buffalo Rumblings and it made me want to do some simple statistics in Excel to see if there were some interesting trends. In this case, the story of interest was the fact that Chan Gailey admitted that Fitz was injured during the season and effected for at least 3 games (weeks 8-10) after the Washington victory is Toronto. So I broke down the game log on ESPN in a couple different ways, which you cans see after the jump.

<I apologize in advance for the gibberish preceding each table. I've tried pasting directly from excel, from word and from text edit and in all cases I get the gibberish. If anyone can tell me how to avoid this in the future that would be much appreciated>

In each case I have included Fitz's season stats as a whole as a comparison point. So the first breakdown is what I think we all noticed during the season. That after the Washington game there was a significant drop in Fitzpatrick's playing ability and this is shown in the stats.

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Games

CMP

ATT

YDS

CMP%

AVG

TD

INT

TD:INT

RAT

1 to 7

155

229

1739

67.7%

7.59

14

7

2.00

97.8

8 to 16

198

340

2093

58.2%

6.16

10

16

0.63

66.5

Total

353

569

3832

62.0%

6.73

24

23

1.04

79.1

As you can see Fitz's completion percentage dropped almost 10%, his yards/attempt dropped almost 1.5 yards, his TD:INT ratio was 1/3 of what is was before and his overall QB rating dropped 30 points. This is a significant drop off. However, Gailey only admitted to the injury affecting Fitz for 3 weeks, so I looked at the stats again, where only weeks 8-10 are cut out.

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]-->

Games

CMP

ATT

YDS

CMP%

AVG

TD

INT

TD:INT

RAT

1-7, 11-16

298

468

3286

63.7%

7.02

22

16

1.38

85.8

8 to 10

55

101

546

54.5%

5.41

2

7

0.29

47.7

Total

353

569

3832

62.0%

6.73

24

23

1.04

79.1

Again there is a drop off between the uninjured weeks and the injured weeks: 9% lower completion percentage, 1.5 yards less per attempt and a QB rating that is almost 40 points lower. I think the most significant thing to take away is that while for the season as a whole Fitz thew roughly 1 TD for every 1 INT, comparing the ratio for weeks 8-10 with the rest of the season there is a 5x difference in the ratios. So clearly something was going on these 3 weeks.

My final table is just wanting to compare the first 7 weeks and the last 6 weeks, when Fitz was apparently healthy in both:

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Games

CMP

ATT

YDS

CMP%

AVG

TD

INT

TD:INT

RAT

1 to 7

155

229

1739

67.7%

7.59

14

7

2.00

97.8

8 to 10

55

101

546

54.5%

5.41

2

7

0.29

47.7

11 to 16

143

239

1547

59.8%

6.47

8

9

0.89

74.4

Total

353

569

3832

62.0%

6.73

24

23

1.04

79.1

We can see that there was a drop off even once Fitz was apparently healthy from the start of the season. So what does this mean? Well I did some pro-rating based on a couple different situations that I think could be fair.

1) Fitz plays like he did for the first 7 weeks

2) Fitz plays like he did while "healthy" 1-7 plus 11-16

3) Fitz plays like he did the last 6 weeks (when he wasn't "on fire")

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]-->

Range

Games

Pro-CMP

Pro-ATT

Pro-YDS

CMP%

Avg

Pro-TD

Pro-INT

TD:INT

RAT

1 to 7

7

354

523

3975

67.7%

7.59

32

16

2.00

97.8

1-7, 11-16

13

367

576

4044

63.7%

7.02

27

20

1.38

85.8

11 to 16

6

381

637

4125

59.8%

6.47

21

24

0.89

74.4

<!--EndFragment-->

So it looks like if Fitz plays 16 games next year he'll be around 4000 yards no matter what his playing ability is. However there is a big difference in the TD:INT ratios, Yards/Attempt and rating.

As a source of comparison the ratings for these different projections compare well to the following players: option 1, 97.8 (Stafford, 97.2); option 2, 85.8 (Cutler, 85.7) and option 3, 74.4 (Cassel, Freeman, McCoy all 74.6).

Lets hope that the reality is somewhere between options 1 and 2 (a 5-13 ranked QB) and not option 3 (25-27 ranked QB).

I hope everyone found this as interesting as I did. Let me know your thoughts.

Just another great fan opinion shared on the pages of BuffaloRumblings.com.