Total QBR: a Totally Flawed Statistic

Advanced metrics in sports have recently become popular, especially in baseball, and to a lesser extent basketball--and this makes sense, these sports are played out over 162 games 82 games respectively, and many key statistics are based on finite percentages accumulated over many many games. That is why stats like WARP, WHIP, and PER, have been so successful, and, perhaps, the reason ESPN felt compelled to create this new absurd statistic, Total QBR.  But football is much different than these sports, there are but a mere 16 games in a season, it is played mostly outdoors and often in varying weather conditions (true baseball is played outdoors too, but in the summer when weather is not as significant a factor), and the stats accumulated in these games are much less consistent than in sports with structures in place that create consistency--such as the shot clock in basketball, and the number of outs in a game in baseball. Total QBR was invented by ESPN a couple of years as a so called 'improvement' to the somewhat archaic Quarterback Rating system that had long been in place. While I think that the initial quarterback rating has it's inherent flaws (mostly it overrates TD passes), it is a simple and somewhat effective tool for measuring passing numbers for a quarterback. Total QBR on the other hand takes the simplicity way out of the equation in an attempt to incorporate all of the factors that lead to a quarterbacks success, and essentially just goes way over the top. In attempting to include all of these statistics, Total QBR, actually accounts for far less consistency than if it were to focus on a smaller number of more important stats (like the original quarterback rating).  By trying to measure every part of the game, it really jumbles everything up.  .
So, what are some of the other reasons Total QBR is so dumb? For starters ESPN has yet to release the actual formula for total QBR, why is this? They have also altered the formula the last two seasons--implying they themselves can sense the flaws the system, but don't know quite how to fully correct them (I think they are in over their heads). By incorporating rushing statistics into to Total QBR, ESPN, unnecessarily over-complicates things; instead of being able to look at ones quarterback rating and also look at ones rushing statistics as separate entities that both lead to a quarterback's effectiveness, we must mush them together in a sort of unappealing casserole of a statistic. Furthermore there is no advanced statistic to measure one's rushing effectiveness for other postilions, so why does in only matter for quarterbacks? This is the reason that Total QBR was in love with 'quarterback' Tim Tebow, even though anyone who has seen him throw one of his horribly inaccurate passes would rightly know otherwise. One of my biggest qualms with Total QBR, is the the sort of 'clutch' elements that it way over-emphasizes. For some reason a quarterback who plays great in the first half and essentially has propelled their team to victory, is far less impressive that a quarterback that has not played well enough to put their team ahead but is able to ultimately win a close game by coming back in the fourth quarter. This is because of how the sports media has sensationalized the comeback like the the news media sensationalized serial killers and horrendous acts of violence. With Total QBR, ESPN gives the fan what they think they want, and not what actually makes sense.
I think that one of the ultimate conclusions when it comes to Total QBR is that it was invented for the ever-growing casual sports fan. With social media and twitter's increasing popularity, so too has sports grown in popularity, but not for those that check the box scores and read the long form articles, but rather the fans who need instant gratification. I think part of Total QBR's appeal is to the lazy fan, who just watches Sportscenter and does not take the time come through an array of statistics and create judgments for themselves, instead they rely on a simple statistic that may or may not include beard length among the various unknown factors in its formula. It seems like Total QBR is here to stay, and is becoming more and more commonplace among commentators and writers alike, which is a shame. I think ESPN's shadow is far to great to completely escape it. I just hope that people can learn to think twice when they look at Total QBR, and do the research themselves when a Tim Tebow scores better than an Aaron Rodgers.