Using PFF’s season simulator to project Aaron Rodgers’ 2023 stat line

The other day I used the ProfootballFocus in-game simulator to run a one-game simulation for the New York Jets 2023 season. Upon examining the output, I decided a more fun way to use this tool might be to focus on the player stats, which are outputted for quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight ends, and running backs.

To do so, I decided to run many simulations and then to examine how the outputs vary across simulations. In an ideal world where I had dozens of hours of manpower to dole out, I would have this hundreds of times to provide the best estimate possible… however, I am but one man with a laptop so I’m going to settle for 10 runs. Upon examining the output though, this might be adequate because the simulations don’t seem to vary all that much between runs and seem to be rather consistent overall (see standard deviation output from table for support).

As a first foray into this task, I am going to focus on the output of New York Jets Quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Regarding quarterbacks, the tool outputs passing attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns, and interceptions; additionally, using these figures I went ahead and calculated completion percentage (completions divided by attempts) and yards per attempt (yards divided by attempts).

Overall, the PFF simulator’s has very favorable projections for Aaron Rodgers. Even using the worst values across all of the simulations, we are left with a Rodgers’ stat-line of:

• 64% completion rating
• 4,464 yards
• 7.75 yards per attempt
• 27 touchdowns
• 13 interceptions

Needless to say, even these theoretical “low bar” outputs would be a major step forward for the Jets’ quarterback performance. For reference, the passing yards output would be a Jets’ single season record while his touchdowns would be third all-time, and that isn’t even to mention the respectable 7.75 yards per attempt and 2-to-1 TD-to-INT ratio.

While no simulation is perfect and 10 simulations is hardly representative, this does provide a rosy outlook for the Jets passing game… at least if we place any stock in PFF’s projections. For Jets fans, this is a nice change from recent preseasons where the passing attacks were generally not viewed all too favorably.