One example that always comes to mind for me is Cust-21.

2017 championship (https://cust21.myfootballnow.com/box/view/999): 66/68 QB, 57.94 rating, 15/32 passing, 229 yards, 0 TD 1 INT, 2 sacks. Lost 12-29.

2018 championship (https://cust21.myfootballnow.com/box/view/1332): 78/79 QB, 126.79 rating, 23/35 passing, 295 yards, 5 TD 0 INT, 5 sacks. Won 48-16.

Not trying to rub salt in old wounds, but I remember this starkly because after the 2017 loss I resolved to find a good quarterback. With largely the same rosters meeting again in 2018 I thought the QB was the difference. In Cust-21 I had struggled to find a good quarterback from the allocation draft; my roster was always good enough to be competitive but quarterback seemed to hold me back until I got a good one. I also saw marked improvement in both QB and team play when I upgraded my quarterback in MFN23.

Obviously you have more experience than me so I'll defer to you but from my point of view a good quarterback is still a key part of a championship roster.

Ha. That is an excellent response!

So then... it's not the QB or the Play Knowledge, but the guys he chucks it to?

Your QB can flat out ****, like that 3rd guy you listed, and produce... so I can only assume since it's not HIS Abilities, he must have some beasts out there doing a Cleveland Browns Derek Anderson routine, some Kellen Winslow Jr's and Braylon Edwards bailing him out with a Joe Jurcevicous being the steady hands guy with size.

Because my QB is flat out amazing on the Abilities, with his worst aspect being that 89 Arm Strength, but he plays like freaking Brady Quinn.

Here's Benny Worrell, by the way.

Position Experience: 100
Intelligence: 95 Discipline: 88
Hard Count: 69 Scrambling: 76
Arm Strength: 89 Accuracy: 97/100
Pass Release: 84 Look Off Defense: 100
Field of Vision: 100 Avoid Fumble: 76/82

So the guy is in the proper Position. He's Smart, devouring play books. Fairly Disciplined, not that QBs get a lot of Penalties. Okay, so he doesn't have a Montana Hard Count. Scrambling is Solid, but really should you REQUIRE a 100 Scrambling to play QB?

89 Arm, 97/100 Accuracy. Dude has the goods here. Throws should be on the money. 84 Pass Release, so good but not Special. Most plays that should give him time to get the ball out before the Pressure.

100 Field of Vision, dude should see everything and have a variety of options to throw to as he'll generally have more than one guy in a Field. He shouldn't be locked on to one guy forever unless I put plays with **** spacing that completely isolate the Primary on a Long Route so he watches him for 50 Yards and nothing else.

Add to that 100 Look Off Defense, kid should really be moving those Safeties and LBs out of Passing Lanes and not facing a ton of Heavy Coverages on Throws.

So what am I missing?

In 2022 he was poor for me. But hey, that could have just been me, right?

165 of 319 for 51.7%. That's bad, by any standard.

6.12 Yards Per Attempt. Again, bad (and the 2nd Worst of his Career, with only his Rookie Season being worse). Now some of that is funneling things to my TE, but my TE has 99 SPD and 100 ACC with 90+ Catch and Courage... if you can't hit 6'5" 255 of Speed Demon, especially when you have 97/100 Accuracy... so that the guy can YAC, then the Play Call ain't the issue. Add to that his High Break Tackle, but I never once saw him Break Tackle on a Catch, so not only was he not lead... it was placed so poorly that a BEAST couldn't get free a single time.

6 TD to 14 INT. I mean... c'mon. What? 100 Look Off. 100 Field of Vision. 97 Accuracy. I just don't get it.

58.68 Rating.

But like I said, maybe it was me.

So his Career, which has been 6 Seasons... has all be Losing in Denver.

49.8% for a Career... that's Tim Tebow territory, except he doesn't run over Line Backers and Safeties and take a 5-15 Denver and go 8-4, then 1-1 in the Play Offs with them like Timmy Boy did. (You can say Timmy sucked, but dude WON games with a Team that was jack **** before plugging him in. The only real difference was QB, DESPITE his horrid Passing Numbers. Look at his TD/INT and his TTD/TO Ratios though, you'll see why he Won.)

7.15 YPA. Still not good. That's Rookie Level 'worth developing', but he's a 6 Year Vet and that's his CAREER YPA.

110 TD to 120 INT. So even with me putting him at -8 for my Season, he was already -2 on his CAREER over 5 Previous Seasons. A 1:1 Ratio is BAD, very bad.

68.68 Rating.

I mean, the other guys before me couldn't figure him out either. Some one Drafted Steve Young here, and I ain't got no Mike Holmgren to save him from playing like a Buc instead of a '9er.

You'd think a guy this Talented would do some good things on accident, or in spite of the Coaching/Team.

It's so bad that I look at Worrell and say "If I can't get HIM to Produce, there isn't a QB in the Game I can work with... might as well go 100% Run".

In the updates on MFN-1 there is more of a difference between the QB ratings. In the current engine there is some logic that normalized some of the shorter passing game, I have removed that and rewritten the algorithm.

Imagine the career stat lines if those players had played on a GOOD team, lol. Especially Edwards and Winslow. We all know an HB can produce with a sub-par O-line (think Barry Sanders compared to the mid-90s Emmit Smith).

I'm not quite sure what this means.

Does it mean that QBs with great ratings will start to play like it, or that QBs with bad ratings will start to play worse? Or both?

And is this just for short passes?

Both. It will impact all passes. The shorter the pass, the more likely it will be on target, but it was too extreme much for poor QBs.