Air Yards

[nineteen72]

I have been tinkering a bit with some statistics from this past year regarding quarterbacks. What prompted me to research this a little bit was because of my intense hatred (but well respected) for the Patriots and especially Brady. I am sick of watching his little slant pattern completions for less yards than what the receiver runs for after the catch BUT Brady gets credit for the YAC. Its a bit confusing why we would give the QB the YAC but this has always been part of the way football stats have been compiled. This is just a sampling of the data sorted high to low by Average Air Completion (Final Column). Air Yards are simply total yards minus YAC (Yards after catch). To me, Air Yards tell alot about the ability for the QB to throw down the field. This is my first real post....take at easy on me.
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Most importantly take a look at where Tannehill stands with everyone....pretty telling, eh? When I originally looked at the numbers, I chose the top ten teams who posted the highest YAC as a team and then added a few others like Tannehill, Luck, RG3, and Wilson to see how the rookies stacked up. Here's the source I was using:
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2012	Attempts	Completions	Yards	YAC	AIR YARDS	Yards/Attempt	Yards/Completion	Avg Air Attempt	Avg Air Completion
Andrew Luck	627	339	4374	1730	2644	7.0	12.9	4.2	7.8
Russell Wilson	393	252	3118	1361	1757	7.9	12.4	4.5	7.0
Drew Brees	670	422	5177	2280	2897	7.7	12.3	4.3	6.9
Ryan Tannehill	484	282	3294	1388	1906	6.8	11.7	3.9	6.8
Tony Romo	648	425	4903	2064	2839	7.6	11.5	4.4	6.7
Peyton Manning	583	400	4659	1998	2661	8.0	11.6	4.6	6.7
Matt Stafford	727	435	4967	2217	2750	6.8	11.4	3.8	6.3
Tom Brady	637	401	4827	2352	2475	7.6	12.0	3.9	6.2
Matt Ryan	615	422	4719	2169	2550	7.7	11.2	4.1	6.0
Aaron Rodgers	552	371	4295	2177	2118	7.8	11.6	3.8	5.7
RG III	393	258	3200	1762	1438	8.1	12.4	3.7	5.6
Carson Palmer	565	345	4018	2169	1849	7.1	11.6	3.3	5.4
Michael Vick	351	204	2362	2007	355	6.7	11.6	1.0	1.7
Total	7245	4556	53913	25674	28239	7.4	11.8	3.9	6.2

[MP-Omnis]

Luck should've been OROTY

[Czonka39]

Wonder what Marino's career and peak years "air yards" were

[DzakkH13]

Arians runs a vertical offens, but I didn't expect to see Tannehill that high.

Even though Brady gets a lot of inflated stats from YAC, he still is excellent in the Red Zone and that's where QBs really earn their paycheck.

[Smith21]

Vick got a new contract?

[NUGap]

Interesting to see the numbers side by side. Both Air/Completion and Air/Attempt are interesting, and tell different stories. For someone like Luck where he threw deeper often but at a lower completion percentage so relatively his Air/A are lower. You may or may not be interested to know that as I've charted the QBs coming into the draft this year, their Air/C average around 6.33 or slightly higher than the average you get .