Yep. It's funny that football is the only pure team sport out of the big 4. Notice how some of these advanced stats like those from SABR and starting to show up in hockey are absent in football.
I think passer rating is one way to tell the story of a QB's performance but it's better used with other stats instead of by itself.
I agree. Which, of course, is why I used other stats in my OP.
But even a collection of stats doesn't really tell you what's going on. Again, go back to the example I just gave. What collection of stats tells you, really, how a QB played in a given game?
Suppose, on the Pats' last TD in regulation, that when Brady hit White for a pass that White took down to the one yard line, that White had managed to break the tackle and score (like he did in OT). That would have counted as a TD for Brady, and would have made his final stat line (assuming everything else subsequently happened the same way) different.
From: 43-62 (69.4%), 466 yds, 2 td, 1 int, 95.2 rating
To: 43-62 (69.4%), 467 yds, 3 td, 1 int, 100.7 rating
So White breaking that one tackle (which would have been completely HIS effort, not Brady's), would have improved Brady's passer rating by 5.5 points.
So because he didn't, does that mean that Brady *really* played 5.5 passer rating points worse? No, of course not.
But here's the thing. None of us here can really evaluate QB play without knowing a million variables. We do not know what play was originally called. We do not know whether the QB checked off to a different play, and if he did, if it was a good decision. We don't know if a WR ran a bad route or a QB made a bad read. We don't really know the different responsibilities on any given play. We don't know if a QB is ill or healthy. The same stat line put up by a guy with an aching shoulder and a 103 degree temperature is WAY more impressive than a guy who is perfectly healthy, and often we don't know ANY of this information.
All we really have is the "eye test" - but that is SO uninformed. And, of course, stats. Over larger sample sizes, stats usually do a decent job capturing performance, as those other variables tend to sort themselves out over enough time. So as fans, stats are our best gauge of what's really happening.