Statistical Imbalance

I was just perusing NFL stat leaders for the 1st half of the season searching for ideas for a new post, and came across the QB rating leaders. Like I'm sure most of you have done forever, I have only looked at QB rating with a general knowledge that 100 is pretty good, the 60s are kind of the Mendoza line of ball-hurlers, and 120 or higher is a great game. So, I decided to look into it some more. First, I found out that Aaron Rodgers is the leader in passer rating, which seemed odd to me considering how many times he has been sacked.

Then I found out that QB rating doesn't even take sacks into account! This really disturbs me. I recognize that a quarterback can't help a terrible offensive line, so I don't think that it should be a huge factor in the calculations, but the simple fact is that some quarterbacks, like Rodgers, hold the ball for way too long! If QB rating is meant to be referenced as a complete statistic, it has to involve sacks to me. It's absurd to me that Aaron Rodgers is considered the best quarterback in the NFL above Manning, Brees, and Favre this year. While I recognize that the difference between the four is only four points, that is exactly why a sack/attempt ratio of some sort should be employed in calculating the rating. Quarterbacks holding the ball can cost their teams valuable points and even games, and so if we are rating their performance, doesn't it make sense to include some reference about how frequently the quarterback is sacked? I do not pretend to be mathematically inclined enough to offer a statistical improvement on this, but I don't think that completions, yards, touchdowns, and interceptions per attempt are the only factors of a quarterback's success.

So, for what it's worth I think that Manning, Brees, and Favre have clearly had better years than Rodgers as NFL quarterbacks and the rating considered to be the ultimate barometer of quarterback success should reflect that.