Football 2011

Before I delve into the bulk of this post, which will be about the NFL, I feel compelled to say a few words about the now annual chaos that is the BCS. From a fan’s perspective, I love the chaos. #2 Oklahoma State, #4 Oregon, and #5 Oklahoma all lost this weekend with only one of them (OSU) losing to a ranked team. Now, it very much looks like when everyone wakes up Monday morning, SEC teams will be ranked #1 (LSU), #2 (Alabama), and #3 (Arkansas). Still on the far outside looking in is undefeated Houston, now 11-0 and ranked #11 before this weekend’s action. Note to Cougars fans – you cannot play for the BCS championship when your signature win is over UCLA.

Chaos is good and bad for the BCS. It makes it far more difficult to determine who the two best teams in the country are. However, when it comes to the actual BCS bowl games, you have far more quality teams and therefore the potential for better match-ups and more viewership. The nightmare scenario right now for the BCS would be if Arkansas can beat LSU next weekend. Then the only undefeated team would be one that hasn’t played anyone significant and while it might be easy to eliminate them from the national title conversation, how do you eliminate… umm, anyone else?

The BCS is overdue for a restructuring and the rumor is that it’s coming in the next couple of years. The most interesting scenario which I’d personally love to see is the BCS would be responsible for the national championship game only. Their formula would determine the top two teams in the country and they could then receive bids for stadiums to host that game (Jerry Jones and a (almost) record BCS crowd at Cowboys Stadium anyone?). The advantage to this idea is that gone would be some of the most unpopular aspects of the BCS. There would be no automatic qualifying conferences so Connecticut would not be forced to get hammered by a top ten Oklahoma team. There would no longer be a two team limit, which is going to completely screw the SEC this year (under current rules, if Georgia were to beat LSU in the SEC Championship Game, the SEC would potentially have teams at 12-1, 11-1, 11-2, and 10-2 and they could all be ranked in the top ten and deserving of a trip to a BCS bowl… and only two of them can go.

Lastly (for the NCAA section), do I think there will be a playoff someday in big-time college football? Absolutely not. Do I think there should be one? No, I don’t and the reason is simple. Under the current format, you have to play perfectly to make it to the title game and win it all. Last March was one of the more exciting NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships that I’ve ever seen but does anyone out there (outside of Indianapolis and Storrs, Connecticut) think that Butler and Connecticut were the two best basketball teams in the country? Of course they weren’t. They played the best over that month-long tournament; they got to the final not because they were the best team but because they were the hottest team. If you change the FBS system to a playoff, the same thing will start to happen. When I look at the list of NCAA Division-I FBS champions, I know that they were one of the best teams in the country. You can rarely say that anymore with March Madness.

NFL

The seasons is just past the halfway mark and while some playoff races have shaped up and are all but determined (I’m talking to you Seahawks, Cardinals, and Rams) others remain intriguing and most likely will until Week 17. This season has had it all but as far as this blogger is concerned, some stories stood out amongst the rest.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES

Today, the one who dubbed the Eagles the “Dream Team” will actually get to start for the first time. Due to Michael Vick’s broken ribs, Vince Young will get the start today for an Eagles team that is all but out at 3-6.

What went wrong? So many people thought they were going to win the NFC if not the Super Bowl. How did things go off the rails so quickly? Well, as is usually the case with teams not living up to expectations, it has been a combination of things but to me, one stands out above the rest; quarterback play.

Last year, everyone thought Vick had turned the corner and had finally learned how to be a pocket quarterback in the NFL. If he did, he somehow forgot nearly everything he learned. This year he is the quarterback that he was in Atlanta. He is still a supreme physical talent and a dynamic playmaker but anymore, that is not the most important part of being an NFL quarterback. If you look at four of the best quarterbacks in the NFL (in no particular order; Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers) they are at their best when they are surrounded by the playmakers. Their job is more one of distribution and leadership than leading by example. Michael Vick was very good in Atlanta when they had a great running attack and they just needed him to make a couple big plays every game. In Philadelphia, they need him to make numerous big plays every week and he isn’t the type of player who can do that consistently.

Other than that, your guess is as good as mine. The defense has needed some time to gel and not having a training camp hurt them greatly but their offense is a far greater concern. DeSean Jackson’s antics have been a distraction and he might not be back next season and this strikes a deeper chord than Vick’s passing. On a different team, Jackson would be kept in line by his fellow players. The teams I can think of off the top of my head are the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Baltimore Ravens, and the New England Patriots. In those places, veterans who have dominant personalities control those locker rooms and nothing goes on without them allowing it to happen. Where is that type of presence in Philadelphia? The short answer is that is doesn’t exist.

PLEASANT SURPRISES (LIONS AND 49ER’S)

One year ago, the Lions and 49ers were 6-10. The main difference is that there was no expectation for the Lions to compete with the likes of the Bears (11-5) or the Packers (10-6). The 49ers were picked to win the NFC West and nearly did, finishing just a game behind the Rams and Seahawks (7-9). The Lions were on the upswing at the end of the year, winning their last four games while the 49ers were just bad with a rookie holdout and then a head coach getting fired.

This year, they are both in line to make the playoffs. The Lions are 6-3 and while they have taken a couple of rough beatings in the last few weeks, they still control their own playoff fate and should make it to the playoffs. They are a case of having numerous high draft picks and actually getting a couple of them right. Matthew Stafford, Ndomukong Suh, and Calvin Johnson have all been playing at a very high level this year. However, I think one of their more important players has been Jahvid Best, the diminutive running back that has been out with an injury since their first loss to San Francisco. They started 5-1 with him and have lost two out of three since he went out. His home run ability out of the backfield as either a runner or a receiver has been sorely missed.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Lions being a dirty team and I wanted to address that briefly. First of all, I have no problem with guys playing hard and playing rough. Of everything I saw (which I’ll freely admit is far from everything) in the first several weeks of the season, I didn’t see anything outside of the unwritten code of conduct on a football field. I saw a bunch of guys with a hard edge looking to make their opponents pay – that’s not dirty, that’s football. Despite the lack of visual evidence, the rumors persist. Last Sunday against the Bears, it was out in the open for everyone to see. Suh ripping the helmet off of Jay Cutler should have gotten him thrown out of the game. If you aren’t allowed to grab a guy’s facemask and you’re not allowed to grab his back collar and pull him backwards, why are you allowed to tackle a guy BY THE HELMET?

Unfortunately, this wasn’t even the worst transgression of the evening for the Bears – that dishonor belongs to Matthew Stafford. I understand that throwing interceptions is frustrating but nothing, I repeat nothing, gives Stafford the right to drag down a defensive player by the head, similar to what Suh did to Cutler. If it had been the ball carrier, I might have been able to give him a pass but it wasn’t, it was a blocker. Every quarterback should know that if you throw an interception and become a defensive player, you are not protected in any special way; if you go for the ball carrier, you are fair game to be blocked. What makes it even worse is the ball carrier had just passed Stafford and he still threw DJ Moore to the ground.

DJ Moore should have been ejected for his reaction; Stafford should have been ejected for starting the whole thing.

NOW THE 49ERS…

The 49ers, so bad a year ago (far worse than their 6-10 record) are now 8-1 and are sitting atop the league’s worst division (hotly contested by the AFC West). If they win today and the Seahawks also lose, they will clinch at worst a tie for the NFC West’s best record… with almost 40% of the season to go. This would be akin to a baseball team clinching their division in early August – it just doesn’t happen. So how has this turnaround happened?

A lot of people point to the influence that Jim Harbaugh has had on that team and it certainly can’t be overlooked. He has brought an edge to that team that it was missing and I think he will have success in the NFL. I think the most important thing he’s done this year is express his confidence in Alex Smith. The oft-maligned seventh year pro from Utah has never had a completion percentage better than 60.5% or a passer rating higher than 82.1 until this year. Right now those two marks stand at 64.0% and 95.8, respectively. Just to prove that he isn’t the game manager that everyone says he is, last week against the 6-2 Giants with Frank Gore proving less than effective, Smith threw the ball 30 times for 242 yards and led the 49ers to victory.

It’s beginning to show now that perhaps all he really needed was someone to believe in him. Now it looks like he’ll be quarterbacking either the #1 or the #2 seed in the NFC and with Frank Gore behind him, it’ll be very hard to bet against them come January.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS

Everyone knew that this team was in decline. Last year they started 6-6 and had to win their last four just to win the AFC Colts division and Peyton Manning posted his lowest passer rating since 2002 (91.9 – which still ranked 10th in the league). Then the lockout happened and Manning couldn’t consult with one of the therapists he trusts the most who happened to be on the Colts’ training staff.

Then he missed the first game of the season and once his consecutive games streak was over, the team and Manning decided that he shouldn’t rush back and should come back when he is 100%. Without Manning, everyone knew this team would miss the playoffs and would struggle to finish 8-8.

With 6 games remaining, the Colts have a solid grip on the #1 overall pick in next year’s draft and have a decent chance to become the third team ever to not win a game in a season and the second to go 0-16. This is yet another illustration of just how much Manning means to the Colts. Not only is he the offensive coordinator in everything but name, the entire roster is built around him, even on the defensive side. One of the reasons they have been so bad against the run the past several years (including during their Super Bowl run) is if you have a big lead, the other team can’t afford to run as much. Those were the types of leads that Manning would give them and virtually no other quarterback in the league could. This team is a house of cards and Manning is the glue that holds them solidly together; without him, they couldn’t win the Big Ten and would struggle to win the Big East.

I don’t believe in conspiracy theories with regards to the NFL draft. I don’t believe that it’s more than coincidence that Manning misses most of the season when there is a guy in the draft pool (potentially) who might be able to replace him. This team was built around #18 and without him, they are just downright terrible.

GREEN BAY PACKERS – AARON RODGERS

On the other end of the winning spectrum are the Packers, who enter today’s game with the Buccaneers 9-0 and playing some of the best offensive football that has ever been played and so far their success starts with Aaron Rodgers. His worst game of the season (by passer rating) was in their 27-17 win over the Bears when Rodgers was 28-38 for 297 yards with 3 touchdowns and one of his three interceptions for a rating of 111.4. Just four times this year has Rodgers rating been under 120 while the last three weeks, he’s posted a rating over 140 each time.

Since 1970, there have been 1,252 instances of a quarterback throwing at least 196 passes (to qualify for the rate statistics, you have to average at least 14 pass attempts per team game and the season used to be 14 games long so 14 x 14 = 196). Amongst those, in the four main components that form the NFL’s passer rating formula, Aaron Rodgers ranks:

1st in completion percentage
2nd in touchdown percentage
6th in interception percentage
2nd in yards per attempt

This is where things get a little skewed in my opinion. Coming into this year, the greatest single season performance by a quarterback did not come from Dan Marino or John Elway or Roger Staubach or Drew Brees or Tom Brady. It came from Peyton Manning.

People remember the high flying Patriots offense led by Brady’s 50 touchdown, 8 interception season but many forget that just three years before that, Peyton Manning had an even better season. The difference? Manning’s Colts never went 16-0.

Yes, Tom Brady threw one more touchdown pass and threw for 249 more yards than Manning. Brady also had 81 more attempts than Manning. This is the best way to normalize things; this is what the seasons for Manning and Brady would look like if each threw the ball 500 times.

Name – Completions-Attempts-Yards-TD-INT
Manning – 338-500-4,585-49-10
Brady – 344-500-4,157-43-7

Manning’s season was better as evidenced by the fact that his passer rating was better. Aaron Rodger’s isn’t trying to best Brady’s 2007 but Manning’s 2004. So what would Rodgers numbers look like if normalized to 500 pass attempts? In a word, ridiculous.

Rodgers – 364-500-4,863-47-5

IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! NO, IT’S…

(Paraphrasing Kung Fu Panda)

LEGEND TELLS OF A LEGENDARY QUARTERBACK, WHOSE QUARTERBACKING SKILLS WERE THE STUFF OF LEGEND!

The most polarizing player in the league right now and perhaps ever is Tim Tebow. His delivery is slow, his reads are slower, but he has boatloads of “intangibles”. Currently, the Broncos are 5-5, just a half game behind the Raiders in the AFC West, a division which could have four 5-5 teams at the end of play today. When Tebow took over as the starting quarterback, the team was a lifeless 1-4 with Kyle Orton at QB. Since then, Tebow has looked good at times (last five minutes of games) and horrid at others (entire 60 minutes against the Lions). However, in a division with a team that just lost is starting QB (Kansas City), a team who last win was against Denver in Week 5 (San Diego Chargers), and a team that just picked up a new quarterback after a strange sort of hold out (Oakland Raiders), they are far from out of it and in some way could be considered the favorites.

Before we go further into the Tebow-mania, let’s take a quick look at the schedules upcoming for the Raiders and Broncos…

The Raiders have four games left that they should win; today against the Vikings, Week 13 in Miami, Week 16 in Kansas City, and Week 17 against San Diego. At this point I’m writing off San Diego because they made a huge mistake when they let Darren Sproles go and now New Orleans has one of the most dynamic offenses in the league. On top of that, they finally started quickly and didn’t dig themselves a hole and since their 4-1 start, they’ve lost 4 straight and now have to play the Bears to right the ship. Anyways, those four wins would make the Raiders 9-4 with games left against Chicago, Green Bay, and Detroit. I don’t see them winning any of those three and finishing 9-7.

The Broncos make or break game is next week against the Chargers. It will likely pit 5-5 Denver against 4-6 San Diego trailing 6-4 Oakland. If Denver wins, they can keep pace with the Raiders and keep pressure on them. If San Diego wins, they are back in the hunt since 9 or 10 wins will likely take this division. Let’s just say the Broncos win to get to 6-5 (and Tebow-mania finds a new high); after that they have Minnesota and Chicago followed by New England and Buffalo before finishing with Kansas City. Unless Tebow finds some more magic, I would see 8-8 as a realistic record for them.

The problem with that is this Broncos team has won three straight to get back to 5-5 in a manner that completely defies logic. Can they beat New England? Of course not. Can they beat a team that has been to the AFC title game each of the last two years? Absolutely not… oh wait, they just did.

You have to throw everything out the window when it comes to this team and they will go as far as their defense (led by remarkable rookie Von Miller) and Tim Tebow’s legs can carry them. Can they make it to the playoffs? Yes, I believe they can. In the glance ahead at their upcoming schedules, the only stretch I saw was Denver beating San Diego and if the Chargers lose today, that might not be that much of a stretch. What if Denver beats Buffalo and Oakland loses to Miami or San Diego?

I am a fan of Tim Tebow and it has nothing to do with his religion, his politics, or his ability as a quarterback. I think that he is a nice and humble young man and in this era of professional sports, I cannot possibly ask for anything more.

Kickoffs are just under an hour away so I’m sure some of what I’ve said here will be rendered moot by the end of the day but that’s just one of the many great things about sports; no matter how long you follow a sport or how much you know about it, on any given day, something can happen that completely defies logic.


Packers; 16-0? No
Colts; 0-16? Yes
Broncos; playoffs? No (just barely)
Manning; MVP votes? Absolutely
Rodgers; MVP? I’m not even going to answer that one…
Packers; back-to-back Super Bowl wins? Yes

Quarterback Rating Revisited

Not too long ago, several writers on espn.com starting looking at the difference between white and black quarterbacks and while they never specifically called anyone out for being racist, they came extremely close. In one of these pieces, it was brought up that one of the most common stats used to evaluate a quarterback (QB Rating, a formula that spits out a number between 0 and 158.3 to measure a quarterback’s performance) does not take into account the running ability of a quarterback.

At first, I thought this task was a little on the tall side but eventually I decided to tackle it and while my formula is simplistic, it takes into account total times touching the ball, yardage accumulated, touchdowns scored, and times turning the ball over. Different people will disagree on what they value most from a quarterback but I think that in general we can agree that yards are good (and more yards are better than fewer yards), touchdowns are good, and turnovers are bad. That is the template that I used.

THE SAMPLE

In order to qualify for the rate titles, the Stat-Geeks-That-Be have determined that quarterbacks need to have at least 14 pass attempts per team game or 224 over the course of a full season. For this analysis, only those individual seasons were looked at from 1990-2010. Granted, the 2010 season isn’t over yet but already 30 quarterbacks have thrown the ball more than 224 times and it is this season that has brought up the debate over whether or not the mystical QB Rating is the best way to measure a quarterback. Overall there were 659 such seasons from 1990-2010 with Brett Favre providing 19 of them all by himself.

While this leaves out a good number of quarterbacks that have thrown many passes over the last 21 years, this method compares apples to apples in my opinion. For the most part, backup quarterbacks do not get to throw 224 passes in a season unless the starter suffers a pretty bad injury. Therefore, this sample (for the most part) includes starting quarterbacks only; theoretically the best of the best.

THE METHOD

For this analysis, I wanted to look at as much that shows up in the box score for a quarterback as I could. The main categories that I totaled up were touches, yards, touchdowns, and turnovers.

- Touches included pass attempts, sacks, and rush attempts.
- Yards includes passing yards, rushing yards, and yardage lost on sacks
- Touchdowns included passing and rushing touchdowns
- Turnovers included interceptions and fumbles

I then took these raw numbers and calculated the following rate stats; yards per touch, yards per game, touchdown percentage, and turnover percentage. Once I had those, I compared them to the average of all the quarterbacks that qualified for that season. In other words, Tom Brady’s 2007 season wasn’t compared against Peyton Manning’s 2004 season. For instance, let’s say the average for yards per touch (YPT from now on) was 5.92 (which it was) and a certain player were to have a YPT value of 6.911 (like Tom Brady does this year).

6.911/5.92 = 1.1689
1.1689*100 = 116.89

Therefore, like OPS+ and ERA+ in baseball, I get a number where above 100 is above average and below 100 is below average. Much like quarterback rating, I capped the possible number at 200 (twice as good as league average) and then divided each of the metrics by 4. I know 4 seems like a random number but if you were twice as good as league average in all four metrics, then your MR (Murphy Rating, as I’ve decided to call it) would be an even 200 and I like nice round even numbers. Accordingly, league average is 100, just as it was before.

THE RESULTS

This year, Michael Vick has turned the corner as a quarterback. His QB Rating is 104.3, easily a career high, and his 483 rushing yards already rank 15th for quarterbacks since 1990 and with three games to go if he were to maintain his average, he would go up to 7th. Surely with this dual threat combination, he is having just as good a season as his counterparts that stand like a statue in the pocket and distribute the magic bean.

Nope, this year, Michael Vick ranks just 4th in MR, behind Aaron Rodgers (who is mobile), and two guys that will never be mistaken for track champions, Matt Cassell and Tom Brady. So why is Vick only fourth in by far his best season since being drafted with the number one overall selection? Why do running quarterbacks still not measure up? Well, there are two explanations and one of them is apparently that I am racist.

If any of you reading this know me, you’ll know that’s ridiculous. There is another explanation and it might be a possibly reason why black quarterbacks get paid a little less or why they are continually underrated.

Michael Vick has a better YPT, TD% (touchdown percentage), and yards per game (YPG from now on) than both Aaron Rodgers and Matt Cassell and a better YPT and YPG mark than Tom Brady. Why is he ranked behind them? It’s that fourth metric, the turnover percentage (TO% from now on). Vick has thrown 4 interceptions, the same number as Cassell and Brady and 6 fewer than Rodgers. However, here are their pass attempts this year:

Brady – 425
Rodgers – 410
Cassell – 354
Vick – 294

Now here’s the other part that perhaps wasn’t fully thought through by those who said that the Quarterback Rating needed to be rethought. When Michael Vick tucks the ball and heads upfield, he doesn’t always tuck the ball. I’ve seen many replays where he’s holding the ball at arm’s length as if he’s about to throw the ball well beyond the line of scrimmage. So what, am I saying he can’t hold onto the ball? Not at all, on the contrary, I’m saying it’s much easier for a defender to knock the ball loose. Despite carrying the ball 82 times for 483 yards and 7 touchdowns this year, Vick has fumbled the ball 9 times. When you take that into account, his running ability seems to be mitigated by his turnovers. Why is Aaron Rodgers ranked ahead of Vick? Mostly because Vick has turned the ball over 13 times in a total of 401 touches (rushes, sacks, and pass attempts). Aaron Rodgers has 492 such touches and only 12 turnovers. Matt Cassell is surprisingly high because he is at 395 and 6, respectively, and Brady is number one this year because he has only turned the ball over 6 times and has a total of 474 touches.

In 2006 Michael Vick set the record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,039 and in this sample, that season ranks only 256th (or in the 61st percentile) because he turned the ball over 22 times while providing 22 touchdowns. On top of that, his total yards per touch were very low that year, mostly because his yards per pass attempt was significantly lower (6.4) than his yards per rush attempt (8.4).

THE BEST

If you look at the quarterbacks that did well in this analysis, they do have one thing in common; they can throw the football. If you look at the top of the MR rankings, there are several quarterbacks who could run the ball but they could still throw it. In Steve Young’s best 5 seasons, he ranked 3rd, 7th, 10th, 13th, and 16th in MR and combined to rush for 2,106 yards. His lowest passer rating in those five years was 101.1.

Of the top ten seasons, the average number of passing yards was 3,781 and passing touchdowns was 32.9. By contrast, those ten averaged just 187 rushing yards, a decent total from a quarterback but hardly at the level of a “running” quarterback. Most notable when you’re looking at that top ten list is the fact that those quarterbacks combined for 356 touchdowns and just 130 turnovers.

These are the top ten seasons of the past 20 years:

Name (year)
MR (out of 200)
Touches-Yards-TD-Turnovers

Tom Brady (2007)
163.9
636-4,776-52-14

Peyton Manning (2006)
155.8
594-4,347-35-11

Steve Young (1994)
154.9
550-4,099-42-14

Peyton Manning (2004)
153.8
535-4,494-49-15

Randall Cunningham (1998)
152.8
477-3,704-35-12

Donovan McNabb (2006)
148.9
369-2,719-21-9

Steve Young (1991)
147.3
358-2,853-21-11

Kurt Warner (1999)
144.6
551-4,244-42-22

Tom Brady (2010)
143.5
474-3,276-30-6

Steve Young (1992)
141.1
507-3,850-29-16

SUMMATION

Is it coincidence that black quarterbacks have only two of those ten seasons? Yes, it is. Every action in football has a tradeoff. When you throw a pass, it’s possible that it can get intercepted. When you tuck the ball and run, it’s possible that the ball can get stripped from your hands. Considering that many quarterbacks are taught for their entire careers to avoid interceptions and perhaps aren’t taught at all to properly cradle the ball to protect it from defenders, it shouldn’t be that surprising that quarterbacks have high fumble rates and running quarterbacks have even higher fumble rates.

Of the top 12 rushing seasons by QB’s since 1990, seven of them have fumbled more than 10 times. While Daunte Culpepper rushed for 609 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2002, he also fumbled the ball 23 times.

So the real question is, who would you rather have on your team, a guy who may not make spectacular plays with his feet but turns the ball over about once a game or the guy who will make the highlight reel every Sunday night but will give the ball to the defense 25-30 times in a season?

Am I racist when I say that Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb aren’t as good as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning? Some of you may think so but I don’t think I am. Many people say that success as a quarterback is measured by how many rings you have and while Manning has one and Brady three, McNabb and Vick have combined for zero. Peyton Manning will probably break nearly ever career passing record in the books and will hold them for a very long time. Brady has an excellent shot at a fourth ring this year despite a porous defense. Donovan McNabb is finally finding out what it’s like to play on a team that isn’t studded with Pro Bowlers and Michael Vick has a good shot at a deep run in the playoffs because he is now on a balanced team.

I’m all for using more tools to evaluate quarterbacks, but to put guys like McNabb and Vick in the conversation with Manning and Brady (when considering their careers) is nothing short of ludicrous and that has nothing to do with the color of their skin.

Who is the best QB in NFL history?

It is time once again to reopen one of the largest can of worms for all fans of the NFL; who is the greatest quarterback ever?

There are many ways to measure this so I attempted to come up with another method of determining who the best quarterback is. With all due respect to the many other guys who have played the quarterback position, I limited myself to 10 different players spanning the last 53 years of professional football.

Johnny Unitas
Roger Staubach
Terry Bradshaw
Joe Montana
John Elway
Dan Marino
Steve Young
Brett Favre
Tom Brady
Peyton Manning

One can easily argue that some people don’t belong on this list but this was a first pass. Essentially, I wanted to put together some preconceptions and see which of them held up to statistical scrutiny and which did not.

One of the tools I employed for this analysis I stole from baseball analysis. While OPS+ and ERA+ take into account park factors, my own normalized stats simply compare the rates of these QB’s against the league average over the course of their careers. The reason for this is simple; the game is changing and at the heart of this change are more efficient quarterbacks. In the 1960’s, the overall quarterback rating for the league was 66.4. In the 70’s, it regressed to 62.4, probably due to expansion and the AFL/NFL merger. However, since then, that number in the 80’s, 90, and 00’s has been 71.9, 75.2, and 79.2, respectively, reaching an all-time high of 82.0 last year.

There are many factors that go into that but the important thing is simply to keep in mind that the nature of playing quarterback has changed very much in the past 40 years. This was my first task in my analysis of these ten quarterbacks; normalizing their quarterback rating numbers (from now on, I will abbreviate quarterback rating as RTG). The answer I came up with was to simply compare them with the league averages and like OPS+ and ERA+, multiply them by 100. Therefore, a RTN+ of 100 means a league average quarterback, 125 is 25% better than the average, and 75 is 25% worse.

The results…

133 – Staubach
130 – Young
127 – Montana
122 – Unitas
121 – Manning
118 – Brady
117 – Marino
111 – Favre
109 – Bradshaw
108 – Elway

To me, by far the most surprising place on that list is #10, John Elway. According to this, throughout his career, his passer rating was only 8% better than the league average. Now, before citizens of Denver, CO, hunt me down (because I only live half an hour from downtown) let me say that my analysis tools don’t take into account intangibles or the ability (or lack thereof) to gain yards on the ground. There is no denying that John Elway was a great QB and definitely deserves to be in this discussion… however, when it comes to RTN+, he is #10, not #1.

I decided to use three other pieces to put together this puzzle and feel free to throw things at your computer when you read my choices because I’ll still be writing and you’ll be paying for another computer…

The other three were winning percentage, TD/INT ratio, and yards per game. A quick note in defense of this metrics. Football is a team game but quarterbacks have more influence than any other single player since they touch the ball on every offensive snap (excluding fakes or the recent limited adoption of the Wildcat formation). TD/INT ratio is the most easily defended since it measured a quarterback’s ability to make good decisions against questionable decisions. And, of course, there are exceptions. A pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage and was then intercepted. However, for those, there are also perfectly thrown balls that the defender just makes an extraordinary play in order to make an interception, so given a large enough sample size, these instances usually have a habit of evening themselves out. The last metric, yards per game, is also very much dependent upon the team these QB’s played for. However, many coaches are able to utilize the talent that they have and therefore, better quarterbacks will put up more yards on the stat sheets. I realize that this logic is far from 100% solid, but considering that it is only ¼ of the formula, I feel comfortable including it.

The results were quite interesting. Again, a league average QB would have received a “value”, if you will, of 100 once these metrics are averaged.

142.04 – Tom Brady
141.78 – Roger Staubach
141.03 – Joe Montana
137.37 – Steve Young
134.44 – Peyton Manning
128.00 – Dan Marino
124.15 – Johnny Unitas
118.79 – Brett Favre
115.84 – John Elway
115.51 – Terry Bradshaw

Now, of course, anyone looking to poke holes in my lovely little formula will point out how little wins and losses have to do with quarterback play. Obviously, it is the most important position on the field and has more to do with winning and losing than any other single position but it’s not as if a QB playing well guarantees a win or a QB playing poorly guarantees a loss. All but three of these 10 quarterbacks were helped by the teams that they played on. Only Steve Young, Dan Marino, and Peyton Manning had W%+ marks less than their overall marks shown above. So who benefited the most from playing on good teams? Terry Bradshaw was the runaway #1, followed by Tom Brady and then John Elway.

All of this manipulation of numbers is great but how does this answer the question; who is the best quarterback in NFL history? Before I render a final verdict, I absolutely don’t want to hear anything about “system quarterbacks”. Any good coach knows how to get good results out of his players. Joe Montana and Steve Young were perfect quarterbacks for the West Coast Offense and between the two of them; they won 5 Super Bowls as starters and have two of the highest quarterback ratings in league history. Bill Belichick is one of the best defensive minds in the history of football and I believe that any of these quarterbacks could succeed with him as a head coach.

If you keep the effects the team has on the quarterback (in other words, leave in the win percentage and the yards per game metrics) Tom Brady ranks number 1. However, if you only take into account quarterback rating and TD/INT ratio, Steve Young ranks number 1 and Tom Brady ranks number 4. The answer to this question depends entirely on what statistics you value the most. For me, quarterback rating is the best representation of how well a quarterback plays and the TD/INT ratio measures the ability of a quarterback to make good decisions and good throws versus bad ones. Therefore, the answer can only be Steve Young or Joe Montana. Granted, Young leads Montana by a few points but nobody is close to those two and between them, I have to go with the one that I’ve said for years and is one of the more cliché choices: Joe Montana.