Checkdowns: Biggest Declines/Improvements in Quarterback Records

by Chase Stuart on April 10, 2016

Over the last week, I’ve looked at the biggest quarterback declines and quarterback turnarounds when it comes to career records. But there were some limitations in those studies, so today, I want to use a new method.

I assigned 20 games of .500 play — i.e., a 10-10 record — to each quarterback’s record after every start of his career. Then I checked to see which quarterbacks had the biggest declines/improvements in record/rest-of-career record using these metrics.

Let’s take Marc Bulger as an example. He started 95 games in his career. At one point, he was 28-11, which is a 0.718 winning percentage. For the rest of his career, he went 13-43, for a 0.232 winning percentage. If we add 20 games of .500 play to his first stint, that makes him 38-21, which translates to a 0.644 winning percentage. For his rest of career, his record would go down as 23-53, a 0.303 adjusted winning percentage. That’s an adjusted winning percentage decline of 0.341, the most of any quarterback in history.

Quarterback	Starts	Early Rec	Early Win%	ROC Rec	ROC Win%	Early AdjW%	ROC AdjW%	Diff
Marc Bulger	95	28-11	0.718	13-43	0.232	0.644	0.303	-0.341
Mike Livingston	75	13-2	0.867	18-41-1	0.308	0.657	0.356	-0.301
Roman Gabriel	157	73-34-6	0.673	13-30-1	0.307	0.647	0.367	-0.279
Marc Wilson	60	31-16	0.660	1-12	0.077	0.612	0.333	-0.279
Bert Jones	96	42-26	0.618	5-23	0.179	0.591	0.313	-0.278
Matt Ryan	126	56-21	0.727	18-31	0.367	0.680	0.406	-0.275
Jack Kemp	105	59-23-3	0.712	6-14	0.300	0.671	0.400	-0.271
Daunte Culpepper	100	11-2	0.846	30-57	0.345	0.636	0.374	-0.263
Doug Flutie	66	35-16	0.686	3-12	0.200	0.634	0.371	-0.262
Kurt Warner	115	34-8	0.810	32-41	0.438	0.710	0.452	-0.258
Mark Rypien	78	42-18	0.700	5-13	0.278	0.650	0.395	-0.255
Donovan McNabb	161	96-52-1	0.648	2-10	0.167	0.630	0.375	-0.255
Johnny Unitas	186	116-56-4	0.670	2-8	0.200	0.653	0.400	-0.253
Joe Kapp	48	23-11-3	0.662	1-10	0.091	0.605	0.355	-0.250
Milt Plum	103	44-18-2	0.703	12-23-4	0.359	0.655	0.407	-0.248
Bobby Hebert	100	53-31	0.631	3-13	0.188	0.606	0.361	-0.245
Danny White	92	59-23	0.720	3-7	0.300	0.676	0.433	-0.243
Rex Grossman	47	17-5	0.773	8-17	0.320	0.643	0.400	-0.243
Bernie Kosar	108	40-23-1	0.633	13-31	0.295	0.601	0.359	-0.242
Steve Spurrier	38	13-10-1	0.563	0-14	0.000	0.534	0.294	-0.240
Colin Kaepernick	47	24-10	0.706	3-10	0.231	0.630	0.394	-0.236
George Blanda	104	42-24-1	0.634	11-26	0.297	0.603	0.368	-0.235
Len Dawson	159	90-46-8	0.653	4-11	0.267	0.634	0.400	-0.234
Chad Henne	53	7-3	0.700	11-32	0.256	0.567	0.333	-0.233
Danny Kanell	24	8-2-1	0.773	2-11	0.154	0.597	0.364	-0.233
Philip Rivers	160	87-53	0.621	5-15	0.250	0.606	0.375	-0.231
Kyle Orton	82	27-12	0.692	15-28	0.349	0.627	0.397	-0.230
Ken Stabler	146	82-31-1	0.724	14-18	0.438	0.690	0.462	-0.229
Zeke Bratkowski	47	9-5	0.643	7-25-1	0.227	0.559	0.330	-0.229
Y.A. Tittle	135	77-44-3	0.633	1-8-2	0.182	0.615	0.387	-0.227
Mike Tomczak	73	19-3	0.864	23-28	0.451	0.690	0.465	-0.226
Pat Haden	55	29-9-1	0.756	6-10	0.375	0.669	0.444	-0.225
Jim Hart	180	69-47-5	0.591	18-41	0.305	0.578	0.354	-0.224
Tom Brady	223	166-47	0.779	6-4	0.600	0.755	0.533	-0.222
Bob Avellini	50	21-14	0.600	2-13	0.133	0.564	0.343	-0.221
Jon Kitna	124	11-4	0.733	39-70	0.358	0.600	0.380	-0.220
Bart Starr	157	80-36-5	0.682	14-21-1	0.403	0.656	0.438	-0.219
Jay Fiedler	60	34-15	0.694	3-8	0.273	0.638	0.419	-0.218
Ron Jaworski	143	49-27	0.645	24-42-1	0.366	0.615	0.397	-0.218
Joe Namath	129	58-45-4	0.561	4-18	0.182	0.551	0.333	-0.218
Steve Bono	42	24-7	0.774	4-7	0.364	0.667	0.452	-0.215
Vince Ferragamo	53	24-14	0.632	3-12	0.200	0.586	0.371	-0.215
Jim Everett	153	30-20	0.600	34-69	0.330	0.571	0.358	-0.214
Kyle Boller	47	20-16	0.556	0-11	0.000	0.536	0.323	-0.213
Aaron Brooks	90	36-34	0.514	2-18	0.100	0.511	0.300	-0.211
Trent Edwards	33	10-5	0.667	4-14	0.222	0.571	0.368	-0.203
Aaron Rodgers	119	76-33	0.697	4-6	0.400	0.667	0.467	-0.200
Mark Brunell	151	44-23	0.657	34-50	0.405	0.621	0.423	-0.198
John Hadl	167	77-59-9	0.562	5-17	0.227	0.555	0.357	-0.197
James Harris	41	20-7	0.741	5-9	0.357	0.638	0.441	-0.197

Also of note: Matt Ryan checks in at #6 in this study, ^[1]Minimum 10 games in both the early and rest-of-career stretches. thanks to a 18-31 record after starting his career at 56-21.

Now let’s look at things the other way, ^[2]Subject to that same 10-game minimum for each stretch., where Steve Young will be our guiding force. The Hall of Fame quarterback began his career for the Bucs with a 3-16 record; he then lost his first start with San Francisco, too. At that point, he had a 0.150 career winning percentage, and an adjusted winning percentage of 0.325. But for the rest of his career, he went 91-32, for a 0.740 winning percentage and a 0.706 adjusted winning percentage. That’s an improvement of 0.381 adjusted winning percentage points, the most ever.

Quarterback	Starts	Early Rec	Early Win%	ROC Rec	ROC Win%	Early AdjW%	ROC AdjW%	Diff
Steve Young	143	3-17	0.150	91-32	0.740	0.325	0.706	0.381
Peyton Manning	265	3-13	0.188	183-66	0.735	0.361	0.717	0.356
Bart Starr	157	3-16-1	0.175	91-41-5	0.682	0.338	0.659	0.322
Troy Aikman	165	3-18	0.143	91-53	0.632	0.317	0.616	0.299
Joe Montana	164	3-8	0.273	114-39	0.745	0.419	0.717	0.297
Billy Kilmer	114	11-29	0.275	50-23-1	0.682	0.350	0.644	0.294
Dan Pastorini	117	5-27	0.156	51-34	0.600	0.288	0.581	0.292
Jim Kelly	160	4-13	0.235	97-46	0.678	0.378	0.656	0.278
Bob Griese	151	8-19-2	0.310	84-37-1	0.693	0.388	0.665	0.278
Jake Plummer	136	30-52	0.366	39-15	0.722	0.392	0.662	0.270
Cam Newton	78	9-19	0.321	36-13-1	0.730	0.396	0.664	0.268
Steve DeBerg	140	24-67-1	0.266	29-19	0.604	0.308	0.574	0.265
Earl Morrall	102	30-32-2	0.484	33-4-1	0.882	0.488	0.750	0.262
Warren Moon	203	8-31	0.205	94-70	0.573	0.305	0.565	0.260
Jim McMahon	97	5-9	0.357	62-21	0.747	0.441	0.699	0.258
Aaron Rodgers	119	5-10	0.333	75-29	0.721	0.429	0.685	0.257
Terry Bradshaw	158	8-13	0.381	99-38	0.723	0.439	0.694	0.255
Carson Palmer	159	57-71	0.445	26-5	0.839	0.453	0.706	0.253
Fran Tarkenton	239	62-86-4	0.421	62-23-2	0.724	0.430	0.682	0.252
Alex Smith	121	18-31	0.367	50-21-1	0.701	0.406	0.658	0.252
Dan Fouts	171	3-20-1	0.146	83-64	0.565	0.307	0.557	0.250
Bill Nelsen	74	2-11	0.154	38-20-3	0.648	0.364	0.611	0.247
Tom Flores	67	7-20	0.259	24-12-4	0.650	0.362	0.600	0.238
Don Meredith	85	9-17-2	0.357	39-16-2	0.702	0.417	0.649	0.233
Jim Plunkett	144	29-49	0.372	43-23	0.652	0.398	0.616	0.218
Tobin Rote	115	34-58-3	0.374	14-5-1	0.725	0.396	0.613	0.217
Y.A. Tittle	135	2-8	0.200	76-44-5	0.628	0.400	0.610	0.210
Bert Jones	96	3-15	0.167	44-34	0.564	0.342	0.551	0.209
Sonny Jurgensen	149	56-71-7	0.444	13-2	0.867	0.451	0.657	0.206
Randall Cunningham	135	2-7-1	0.250	80-45	0.640	0.417	0.621	0.204
Jeff Garcia	116	4-16	0.200	54-42	0.563	0.350	0.552	0.202
Phil Simms	159	9-16	0.360	86-48	0.642	0.422	0.623	0.201
Tony Banks	78	13-29	0.310	22-14	0.611	0.371	0.571	0.200
Joe Theismann	124	31-32	0.492	46-15	0.754	0.494	0.691	0.197
Jack Trudeau	49	0-12	0.000	19-18	0.514	0.313	0.509	0.196
Bubby Brister	75	1-10	0.091	36-28	0.563	0.355	0.548	0.193
Gus Frerotte	93	30-42-1	0.418	15-5	0.750	0.435	0.625	0.190
Babe Parilli	102	5-15	0.250	44-31-7	0.579	0.375	0.564	0.189
Ryan Fitzpatrick	105	25-49-1	0.340	18-12	0.600	0.374	0.560	0.186
Frank Ryan	87	7-8-2	0.471	50-19-1	0.721	0.486	0.672	0.186
Tom Brady	223	7-3	0.700	165-48	0.775	0.567	0.751	0.184
Trent Dilfer	113	8-19	0.296	50-36	0.581	0.383	0.566	0.183
Drew Brees	216	9-17	0.346	115-75	0.605	0.413	0.595	0.182
Bill Munson	66	7-20-4	0.290	20-14-1	0.586	0.373	0.555	0.182
Gary Cuozzo	40	2-8	0.200	19-11	0.633	0.400	0.580	0.180
John Friesz	38	7-21	0.250	6-4	0.600	0.354	0.533	0.179
John Elway	231	4-6	0.400	144-76-1	0.654	0.467	0.641	0.174
John Hadl	167	1-9	0.100	81-67-9	0.545	0.367	0.540	0.173
Lynn Dickey	111	16-38-2	0.304	29-25-1	0.536	0.355	0.527	0.171
Brian Griese	83	2-8	0.200	43-30	0.589	0.400	0.570	0.170

What do you think? Is 20 games of .500 play the right number? And, whether it is or isn’t, what stands out to you?

References[+]

References
↑1	Minimum 10 games in both the early and rest-of-career stretches.
↑2	Subject to that same 10-game minimum for each stretch.

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