ESPN has tried to shove their new spin on quarterback rating, QBR, down our throats as much as they do Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless. To be fair, they’re fighting an uphill battle – the traditional quarterback rating is equally wonky but because it was first, it’s the standard that is difficult to forget. But after seeing who had one of the best games in NFL history according to their metric, their QBR has lost whatever credibility it had.
Pro Football Talk’s Michael David Smith had the acute eye notice the Pittsburgh Steelers very own Charlie Batch had one of the greatest QB performances in NFL history with a 99.9 QBR rating in 2010.
That day, Batch went 12/17 for 186 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. Clearly, the stats don’t match up to the pedestal of “greatest ever.”
Without an explanation, ESPN removed Batch from the list but as I noticed today, never actually changed his QBR. In his ESPN game log, he still has a 99.9 rating.
According to Smith, ESPN now says Batch did not have enough “action plays” to qualify. Carson Palmer and Tom Brady are currently the only two players to achieve a 99.9 performance while the best in Steelers’ history came from Ben Roethlisberger against the San Francisco 49ers this season, earning him a 99.4 rating. Ben threw for 369 yards and three touchdowns with zero interceptions, a lot more impressive than Batch’s outing.
But the legend of Charlie Batch will go down in history. The greatest game ever.
Sort of.
