NFL coaches and evaluators have long thought Ben Roethlisberger could carry a team. They just hadn't seen him do it to the extent that he did last season. Roethlisberger's performance while passing for 32 touchdowns helped vault the two-time Super Bowl winner into elite company in our recently published 2015 NFL QB Tier Rankings.
Championships count for a lot, but the 35 coaches and evaluators who placed all 32 projected starters into one of five tiers took into account what role quarterbacks played in their teams' successes or failures. Roethlisberger left little doubt last season when he set career highs for pass attempts (608), passing yards (4,952) and Total QBR (74.8).
Roethlisberger wasn't the only major mover from the survey we conducted one year ago, but he made the largest percentage gain in average tier rating (1.85 to 1.37, or 25.7 percent). That was enough to push Roethlisberger into the top tier with five other quarterbacks who have the skill sets to keep their teams in the championship mix without a ton of help.
Here, we take a closer look at Roethlisberger and some of the other players who saw a dramatic change in their stock from a year ago, with special focus on Andrew Luck and Drew Brees. You can find a full breakdown of each quarterback's change in rating at the bottom of the page.
Three biggest risers
1. Ben Roethlisberger | Pittsburgh Steelers
2014 rating: 1.85 | 2015 rating: 1.37 | Percent change: +25.7%
The Steelers have transitioned from being a team that won largely because of its defense to a team that is winning increasingly because of its quarterback. That is one reason Roethlisberger made the jump from the top of Tier 2 to Tier 1. He moved up only three spots overall, rising from seventh to fourth, but his average tier rating enjoyed the largest percentage increase of any returning starter.
Statistical shifts back up voters' thinking here. Pittsburgh's defense ranked second in expected points added (EPA) from 2006 through 2010, while Roethlisberger was 11th in Total QBR (57.3) over that span. The defense started to fall off a bit over the next three seasons (ninth in EPA from 2011-13), but Roethlisberger's QBR remained about the same (59.8, 10th overall). Last season, however, brought a fundamental shift, as Roethlisberger shot up to sixth in QBR (74.8) while the defense dropped to 24th in EPA. The Steelers won 11 games.
2. Andrew Luck | Indianapolis Colts
2014 rating: 1.50 | 2015 rating: 1.14 | Percent change: +23.8%
Voters have expressed zero doubt about whether Luck would become a top-tier quarterback. The question was only whether he deserved to inhabit that space so early in his career. A slim majority of voters (14-12) thought he belonged one year ago. That shifted to an overwhelming majority (30-5) this year as Indianapolis reached the playoffs again with Luck carrying an offense featuring a weak line and a poor run game.
The Colts actually ranked 11th in defensive EPA last season. That is higher than I would have expected. Exceptional defensive performances against Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Houston, Cleveland and Baltimore offset horrendous ones against the best offenses the Colts faced (New England, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Philadelphia and Denver).
You'll sometimes hear the NFL described as a bottom-line business in which victories are all that really matter. It sounds good, but I think we can better gauge quarterback value by seeing how they performed in the games their teams lost. It's one way to get a feel for whether good quarterbacks played well enough to win even in defeat.
A ranking of 2014 QBR scores filtered to include only games in which quarterbacks lost has Luck third behind Drew Brees and Russell Wilson. Matt Ryan, Tom Brady and Roethlisberger come in next. Luck did not play well enough to overcome his team's five worst defensive EPA performances, but he wasn't terrible in those games, either.
3. Russell Wilson | Seattle Seahawks
2014 rating: 2.23 | 2015 rating: 1.71 | Percent change: +23.2%
Wilson tied for eighth overall, same as last season, but he needed to gain 23.2 percent in his average tier ranking to hold his ground (the average grades for all 32 quarterbacks remained at 2.5 year over year, but the players near the top graded out better than in 2014).
Voters still wonder how Wilson would fare without such strong support from Marshawn Lynch and the Seattle defense. But those previously inclined to leave him in the third tier typically acknowledged Wilson had done enough to fall solidly in Tier 2, while 11 of the 35 voters placed him in the top tier.
Wilson remains one of the most divisive players in the rankings, something I'll explore in an upcoming column.
Three biggest fallers
1. Drew Brees | New Orleans Saints
2014 rating: 1.04 | 2015 rating: 1.49 | Percent change: -43.1%
Brees remained in the top tier, but barely. He fell from a tie for first into sixth place, a five-spot drop that was the largest for any quarterback ranked in the top 14 last year. His 43.1 percent decline in average rating was the largest among the 27 returning starters.
Multiple factors are at work. The Saints have ranked 32nd in defensive EPA twice in the past three seasons, putting additional pressure on Brees to carry more of the load -- without some of the first-rate weaponry Brees had at his disposal previously. Meanwhile, some voters saw signs of age is catching up to Brees, who never was the most physically gifted player by NFL standards.
I followed up with one of the voters this week and asked him what he thought about Brees' prospects in light of his huge decline in average rating.
"They won with inside players or specialty matchups outside with the tight end," this voter said. "They won with ... the halfback inside, Marques Colston posting up inside. They have to redo what they are. They have [Brandin] Cooks in there, figuring out what he is. I do not know what they are. [Jimmy] Graham by himself outside was a huge part of what they were. They cannot do that. [Without him] that offense shrinks. It will be interesting to see if Brees can come out the other end of that. If the defense gets better, it will certainly help."
2. Peyton Manning | Denver Broncos
2014 rating: 1.04 | 2015 rating: 1.43 | Percent change: -37.6%
Manning fell from a tie for first last year into fifth place, just ahead of Brees at the bottom of the top tier. One of the questions voters raised the most: Can Manning finish a season strong at age 39? He struggled late last season, but playing well down the stretch wasn't an issue in 2012 or 2013, his first two seasons back from neck surgery. Was last season an anomaly?
Manning was up there with Wilson among the more hotly debated quarterbacks. I'll take a deeper look at those arguments in an upcoming column.
3. Robert Griffin III | Washington Redskins
2014 rating: 3.00 | 2015 rating: 3.91 | Percent change: -30.5%
Some thought voters were too pessimistic regarding Griffin in last year's version of this project, but it got worse after a rough 2014 season. Twenty-nine of the 35 voters placed Griffin below the third tier, dropping him four spots to 23rd overall -- barely ahead of Josh McCown. Does Griffin need a change of scenery? Our Kevin Seifert tackles that question in his column today.