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The NFL QBs Who Do Well Crush in Cold Weather
Recently ‘Sheriff’ Bill Monighetti has posted a piece about fading NFL quarterbacks in cold weather. As he points out in his piece, QB Plus/Minus values tend to drop as the months get colder:
The graphic above is for FanDuel. The same general trend exists on DraftKings. The worst months of the season for QB performance are the coldest: December and January. They’re the worst months in terms of both raw production and salary-based output.
Even in the cold, though, some QBs have done relatively well in the past. In a recent piece on football in December, Kelly McCann has noted that a couple of QBs — the “Ice Kings” (his words) — have produced even in freezing temperatures. I would’ve called these guys the White Walkers, but whatever.
Always the student of contrarianism, I have this question: Are there rare NFL QBs who for whatever reason actually do better in the cold than in warmer weather?
Let’s use our Trends tool to explore this question.
The Anti-Peyton?
The ‘Anti-Peyton’ is the NFL QB who balls out in cold weather. Whereas Peyton Manning in the cold was magnificently awful to a non-Peyton degree — so much so that PolitiFact published a 2014 post about it — it’s possible that the league possesses an Anti-Peyton whose performance is enhanced with dropping temperatures.
If there is an Anti-Peyton, he’s probably Aaron Rodgers, one of the Ice Kings identified by Kelly. Not only does A-Rod do well in freezing temperatures . . .
. . . but he also does (slightly) better in the cold than in temperatures of at least 33 degrees Fahrenheit:
And (in case this needs to be said) Rodgers in non-freezing weather is better than most QBs in any kind of weather. So A-Rod is pretty good in cold weather.
He might be the mythical Anti-Peyton.
The Anti-Peyton is Like Santa Claus: He Matters Only in December and (Probably) Isn’t Real
Rodgers probably isn’t the Anti-Peyton. Or, phrased differently, we don’t have sufficient evidence to prove that he is. Even though over the last three years he’s done better in eight freezing games than in 38 non-freezing games, the data isn’t easily interpreted: Seven of the eight freezing games . . .
. . . were played at home. Additionally, four of those home games are from the second half of Rodgers’ 2014 MVP campaign, when he was hot enough to make Mount Doom look like Elsa’s ice castle. Per Pro Football Reference:
By the end of 2014, A-Rod was so big pimpin’ that nothing could keep him from playing with double-checking crotch-thrusting swagger, not even Lambeau-induced frost-bitten genitals. A little cold wasn’t going to stop him from setting that tundra ablaze.
So is Rodgers really good at playing in cold weather? Or instead was he just good in eight games that happened to be cold, half of which were played when he was hotter than Hansel?
We don’t know. I have my doubts, because . . .
Almost All QBs Seem to Suck in the Cold. Period.
This piece is entitled “The NFL QBs Who Crush in Cold Weather.” Guess what?
The truth is that we can’t say definitively that any QB is inclined to perform well in cold weather. In fact, the opposite is almost certainly true.
Over the last three years, Matthew Stafford has balled out in cold weather! . . . twice. Both of those games were in Week 17, which is the regular season’s version of the preseason’s Week 4.
Matthew Barkley has had a good game in cold weather. Let’s give him the 2017 starting job!
Cam Newton has had two fairly good games in cold weather . . . but 43 collectively better games in better weather.
And then next on the list of ‘good cold QBs’ is Peyton F*cking Manning:
Seriously, out of all the guys to play more than one freezing game in the last three years, Manning has been the fourth-most productive on DK. That fact pretty much says everything you need to know about how QBs do in cold weather.
But What About the Other Guys Who Always Play in Cold Weather?
If Rodgers were the Anti-Payton it would make sense: Who else should be good in freezing weather if not a stud QB who plays in cold weather a lot of the time? He’s had practice. He should be used to it.
Let’s extend this logic to other QBs who play in cold temperatures frequently.
Over the past three years, the following QBs are the only guys to average more than one freezing game per season and to have all of their starts with one team (so no Brock Osweiler, whose 2015 and 2016 circumstances are wildly different):
• Tom Brady
• Ben Roethlisberger
• Tyrod Taylor
• Alex Smith
• Jay Cutler
• Teddy Bridgewater
All of these guys play their home games in the Midwest or the Northeast. They’re not unfamiliar with freezing weather. And, as a whole, this group is pretty decent.
How do these guys do in cold games?
To quote Sir Anthony Strallan: “Ugh, good god!”
Not only do they significantly underperform their non-freezing selves as a cohort . . .
. . . but not one of them individually does better below 33 degrees Fahrenheit than at or above it. If I bothered to show you how poorly Brady and Roethlisberger have done in cold weather over the last three years . . .
. . . you’d rather be robbed than roster them in cash games. At least with a robbery you can file a police report and hope your property is returned. Full disclosure: Seven of these nine games were played on the road — so they might be unrepresentative — but you still wouldn’t expect B&B to produce like Carson Wentz on the basis of just one factor, right?
Now ask yourself these two questions:
- If the non-Rodgers QBs who play in freezing temperatures on a somewhat regular basis don’t do well in the cold, can you reasonably expect any QB to do well in that weather?
- Do you want to invest in a guy whom you suspect has an extremely limited chance of playing close to his best?
Mitigating circumstances and exceptions always exist, but if to either of those questions you answered a straightforward, “Yes,” you might want to consider a vasectomy or similar.
“Winter is Coming”
Over the next 32 days, we will have Weeks 16-17 of the regular season and the wild card, divisional, and championship rounds of the playoffs. The weather will be cold, and the QBs will be players you want to roster.
Do yourself a simple favor. If you see a QB projected to play in freezing weather, say these three words:
Pink lipstick and eyelid batting are unnecessary but encouraged.
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The Labyrinthian: 2016, 93
This is the 93rd installment of The Labyrinthian, a series dedicated to exploring random fields of knowledge in order to give you unordinary theoretical, philosophical, strategic, and/or often rambling guidance on daily fantasy sports. Consult the introductory piece to the series for further explanation. Previous installments of The Labyrinthian can be accessed via my author page.
