2007 Passing Yards Per Attempt

Cold, Hard Football Facts for Dec 30, 2007

(Passing yards per attempt is a "Quality Stat" because it has a direct correlation to winning football games. Click here to read more about this "Stat That Matters." Passing YPA also cuts through the complex clutter of the passer rating formula and gives you a number that actually means something.

NOTE: Most stat-keepers do not calculate passing YPA properly! They ignore sacks, as if these game-changing plays don't matter! If you want to know why our passing yards per attempt figures are more accurate than any others you'll find anywhere, see the footnotes after the chart below.)

FINAL 2007 OVERVIEW

It should come as no great surprise that New England, Dallas, Green Bay and Indianapolis -- the Fantastic Four -- come in 1-2-3-4 in this all-important number.

But the top 10 also featured five non-playoff teams, all of which had the same problem: no defense. Houston, Cleveland, Arizona, Cincinnati and Denver all finished in the bottom 12 in scoring defense.

Still, one thing a high YPA number can ensure is that you will be competitive -- of the top 16, 10 made the playoffs, and the other six finished no worse than 7-9, regardless of how good or bad the defense was.

On the other end of the spectrum, no team can overcome a terrible passing game. The Giants came as close as you can, finishing 23rd, but no one below them was even .500, and 8 of the 10 were 5-11 or worse.

Any passing game is a product of many different parts. But if you want to answer the question "How much are receivers worth to a passing game?", a look at New England's performance here over the past three years is a good way to start.

New England, which was almost a half-yard ahead of the YPA field in 2007, has had more or less the same offensive line and definitely the same quarterback for the three seasons.

But they went from average receivers in 2005 (Deion Branch, David Givens) to well below average in 2006 (Reche Caldwell, aging Troy Brown) to fantastic in 2007 (Randy Moss, Wes Welker).

The numbers:

2005: 6.67 YPA
2006: 6.12 YPA
2007: 7.79 YPA

Those numbers tell us that the difference between terrible receivers (2006) and great ones (2007) adds up to about a yard-and-a-half for every dropback -- a major shift, for sure. In 2007, for example, that 1½ yard per attempt would represent the difference between Peyton Manning and Indianapolis' passing game vs. Chicago's three-headed, no-talent passing attack.

And using that same Patriot example, the difference between OK and either extreme is somewhere between a half-yard and a yard per attempt, very approximately.

It helps to have good receivers, for sure. All of the top 10 teams have a "go-to" guy, with the exception of Jacksonville's no-frills, no-favorites attack.

The biggest drop from 2006 to 2007 was Baltimore, going from 8th at 6.35 to 29th at 5.07 in a plunge that mirrored their 8-game drop in the standings.

The biggest gainer was Houston, leaping from 27th to 5th.

The AFC South had the best overall passing games in 2007, placing 4th (Indy), 5th (Houston), 8th (JAX) and 20th (Tennessee).

FINAL 2007 PASSING YARDS PER ATTEMPT (playoff teams in italics)

	Team	Pass Attempts	Pass Yards	Sacked	Lost Yards	Total Attempts	Net Yards	YPA
1	New England	586	4859	21	128	607	4731	7.79
2	Dallas	531	4290	25	185	556	4105	7.38
3	Green Bay	578	4461	19	127	597	4334	7.26
4	Indianapolis	551	4172	23	139	574	4033	7.03
5	Houston	529	3925	22	174	551	3751	6.81
6	Cleveland	535	3832	14	109	549	3723	6.78
7	Cincinnati	575	4131	17	119	592	4012	6.78
8	Jacksonville	469	3495	31	167	500	3328	6.66
9	Arizona	590	4228	24	163	614	4065	6.62
10	Denver	515	3759	30	166	545	3593	6.59
11	New Orleans	652	4423	16	109	668	4314	6.46
12	Tampa Bay	490	3579	36	222	526	3357	6.38
13	Seattle	590	4181	36	217	626	3964	6.33
14	Pittsburgh	442	3418	47	347	489	3071	6.28
15	Washington	525	3622	29	159	554	3463	6.25
16	San Diego	471	3175	24	170	495	3005	6.07
17	Detroit	587	4216	54	338	641	3878	6.05
18	Philadelphia	577	4005	47	237	624	3768	6.04
19	Minnesota	432	2938	38	193	470	2745	5.84
20	Tennessee	464	3077	30	199	494	2878	5.83
21	Buffalo	445	2842	26	208	471	2634	5.59
22	Chicago	569	3701	42	324	611	3377	5.53
23	NY Giants	544	3376	28	222	572	3154	5.51
24	Atlanta	555	3573	47	277	602	3296	5.48
25	Oakland	451	2893	41	262	492	2631	5.35
26	NY Jets	512	3330	53	316	565	3014	5.33
27	St. Louis	574	3561	48	328	622	3233	5.20
28	Kansas City	563	3525	54	344	617	3181	5.16
29	Baltimore	557	3308	39	273	596	3035	5.09
30	Carolina	505	2941	33	206	538	2735	5.08
31	Miami	558	3319	42	288	600	3031	5.05
32	San Francisco	513	2685	55	365	568	2320	4.08

Here's a little look at our passing yards per attempt formula and why it's superior to others.

Only our YPA is correct

Most every team yards per attempt figure you see out there is wrong! Or, at the very least, it's not calculated properly. Go to ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports, wherever. Basically, a lot of places like that will publish a net yards figure and then, in the next column, the yards per attempt figure will be based upon gross passing yards. The math just doesn't add up, at least not when you use the published figures.

So here's what you'll find from the Cold, Hard Football Facts. We use only NET passing figures to determine yards per attempt. This is gross passing yards, minus yards lost via sacks, divided by passsing attempts. If we were merely looking at individual quarterbacks and their yards per attempt, we might (might!) be inclined to use gross passing yards, so as not to penalize the quarterback if he has a sieve of an offensive line.

Sacks count as pass attempts

Our yards per pass attempt is a "Quality Stat" – a stat that has a direct correlation to victory. So we're looking at team data. After all, it's teams that win and lose football games.

There's more to our calculations, though. Instead of just dividing the net passing yardage by pass attempts, we add in the number of sacks to the attempts column. We believe this gives a far more accurate gauge of a team's ability to pass the ball. After all, when a QB is sacked, it's because he was attempting to pass. Why shouldn't this attempt to pass count as an attempt?

For example, if a quarterback attempts 10 passes for 100 yards, his yards per attempt is 10.0 YPA. Easy enough, right? But what if that QB was sacked three times and lost 22 yards? Suddenly, the team's passing YPA is a mere 6.0 (78/13).

Hey, the team only gained 78 net yards when attempting to pass. And those 3 sacks came on attempts to pass. So, to accurately measure a team's ability to pass, that's our formula:

Net passing yards/(pass attempts + sacks allowed)

By Kerry Byrne

Read more: Cold Hard Football Facts, NFL

Forearm Shiver: the CHFF Blog

Hockey Announcer Gone Wild: You Want To Party (Maybe) With This Guy

Best Pass Defense Ever: Ronde Barber And The 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Reese Witherspoon Arrest Video: Hot, Bothered And Handcuffed

Sam Adams In A Can, Just In Time For Summer Drinking Season

Live From Radio City: Reporter Punks NFL Draft Fans


Privacy guaranteed. We'll never share your info.