Oakland Raiders: A look inside some numbers Derek Carr must improve in 2018

6.8

There is debate among some about the importance of one passing statistic – yards per attempt. Some believe that it’s overblown and not truly indicative of a quarterback’s efficiency and/or success, arguing that QB rating, because it takes the yardage into account in the equation, is a much better indicator.

However, even the skeptics will admit that there is a very strong correlation between the yards per average statistic and quarterbacks with a higher QB rating. Also, the quarterbacks with a higher yards per average, are usually the ones whose teams usually sit on top of the league.

Take last year for example.

Of the top-five in the yards per attempt statistic, Drew Brees (8.09), Alex Smith (8.0), Jared Goff (7.98), Jameis Winston (7.93), and Tom Brady (7.88), Winston is the only quarterback on a non-playoff team.

He’s also the only one of the five to not appear in the top-five in the QB rating metric, and the only one to post a QB rating of under 100 – of those five, Goff is the lowest with a QB rating of 100.5.

That would seem to indicate that there is indeed a strong correlation between yards per attempt and offensive success.

Which is where Carr comes in. In 2017, Carr posted an average of 6.8 yards per attempt – good for just nineteenth in the league. It’s also never been his strongest metric. After posting a very meager average of 5.5 YPA, he posted back-to-back seasons with 7.0, before slipping back down last year.

While there are few statistics that you can point to as the Holy Grail of statistics that will explain everything about a player’s success and/or failures, the yards per attempt average does seem to bear some very strong correlation to a quarterback – and a team’s – overall success.

It is a metric that Carr will need to improve upon if he wants to take the Raiders higher in 2018.