Total QBR was built to fix the blind spots of the old passer rating, which ignores sacks, rushing, and game context. This estimator reproduces the spirit of QBR by converting a box-score line into expected points and mapping it onto the familiar 0 to 100 scale.
Why the old passer rating falls short
The traditional NFL passer rating formula dates to 1973 and uses only four inputs: completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown rate, and interception rate. Each is scaled to a component score and averaged. While it captures basic efficiency, it has well-documented blind spots:
It ignores sacks. Taking a 10-yard sack on 3rd-and-7 is a significant negative play for the team, but the passer rating only counts the attempt if the ball is thrown. A quarterback who avoids sacks by throwing the ball away quickly may rate lower than one who takes costly sacks while looking for a deeper play.
It ignores rushing. A mobile quarterback who gains 50 yards on seven scrambles contributes meaningfully to their team’s expected points beyond the passing line. The passer rating does not credit this at all.
It has no situational weighting. A 5-yard completion on 3rd-and-4 (first down) has a very different value than a 5-yard completion on 3rd-and-8 (still punting). Traditional passer rating treats them identically.
Total QBR addresses all three by measuring the net expected points added from every play where the quarterback was a primary actor — including sacks they caused and rushes they chose or were forced into.
How it works
Each event in the line is assigned an expected-points-added weight, summed into a total, then averaged over every play the quarterback was involved in:
total EPA = yards*0.05 + passTD*0.8 - INT*2.0 - sacks*1.2
+ rushYds*0.06 + rushTD*0.8
EPA / play = total EPA / (attempts + sacks + carries)
QBR = clamp( 50 + (EPA/play) * 130 , 0 , 100 )League-average production lands near 50. Strongly positive EPA per play climbs toward the 70s and 80s; negative EPA per play falls below 40.
Interpreting the score
| Estimated QBR | Performance tier |
|---|---|
| 80–100 | Historic, MVP-calibre game |
| 65–79 | Very good, Pro Bowl range |
| 50–64 | Solid, league average to above |
| 35–49 | Below average, inconsistent |
| Below 35 | Poor, cost the team expected points |
A single game score of 50 is roughly what a league-average starter produces. The 0 to 100 scale is designed so that elite quarterbacks cluster between 55 and 75 over a full season, with individual game scores spanning a wider range.
Notes and limits
This is an estimate, not the official metric. ESPN’s published Total QBR layers in opponent adjustment, down-and-distance leverage, and clutch weighting that no single box score can recover, so the exact number will differ. What the estimator does well is rank performances consistently: a clean 300-yard, three-touchdown, no-interception game will score far higher than a 200-yard, two-interception, four-sack game. Use it to compare quarterbacks across games and weeks, and treat the result as a QBR-style approximation rather than the figure shown on the broadcast.