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Pro Football & Sports Network (PFSN) released a new metric to assess quarterback play for the 2025 season. It’s called the “QB Impact” grade and gauges performance based on traditional stats while also weighing more advanced metrics such as net yards per attempt (removes sack yardage from passing totals divided by total passing plays) and third/fourth down conversion rates to arrive at a letter grade for each signal caller.
PFSN’s Quarterback Impact (QBi) assigns a letter grade to an individual quarterback’s performance. We arrive at the grade by factoring in both passing and rushing efficiency and volume. More stable components like clean pocket performance and EPA per rush on designed runs get weighted more than less stable ones like pressure performance and scrambling. We also add a “clutch” component that gives extra weight to how quarterbacks perform in high-leverage situations.
To qualify for the season leaderboard, a QB must average at least 15 plays per game (dropbacks or designed runs) while playing in at least half his team’s games that season. To qualify for the games leaderboard, a QB must have participated in at least 15 plays that game.
Pro Football Focus (PFF) tracks data for each individual player on every single play, and they also include data from downs negated by penalty (some pretend these never happened). PFF attempts to reward good provides without respect to the outcome, and this makes their data more useful for predicting future outcomes.
For example, a quarterback might make his best throw of the game only for the receiver to drop it. He could also throw an interceptable pass that falls harmlessly incomplete. Most traditional stats in addition to QB Impact Score neglect these plays and only count the end result. That introduces flaws into the data set, which makes predicting future performance all the more difficult.
I still personally believe that PFF’s passing grade is the most robust indicator of individual quarterback performance. However, we should never take it as gospel and it’s positive to have new advanced metrics from additional sources.
Through Week 5, Stafford is currently ranked 10th in PFSN’s new metric. He received a “B” QBi grade.
Here are the quarterback’s ahead of LA’s leading man:
These are Stafford’s ranks in the key metrics weighed by QBi:
It’s fair to say that some quarterbacks—probably the three leaders in Jones, Allen, and Purdy—have more...
