Brad Oremland is a longtime commenter and a fellow football historian. Brad is also a senior NFL writer at Sports Central. There are few who have given as much thought to the history of quarterbacks and quarterback ranking systems as Brad has over the years. Today, he’s contributed this guest post, but also is asking for your feedback. So please, help Brad and help us, in the comments, with your thoughts.
In recent weeks, Football Perspective has hosted some lively discussions about the greatest quarterbacks of all time. I like to think my approach to these issues is balanced, but it begins with statistics. I am always looking for ways to improve my analysis, and Chase has graciously invited me to post the results of my statistical rating system for quarterbacks.
This is not my personal list of the best quarterbacks in history. My subjective list differs, at time significantly, and I’ll post that next month. The list below is purely statistical, with three notable limitations:
1. It measures regular-season statistics only.
2. It covers the years 1946-2014. The modern quarterback position didn’t really exist prior to the mid 1940s.
2b. QBs who played prior to 1946 are omitted, even if they continued to play after the end of World War II. I don’t want a ranking that shows Sammy Baugh 65th, since it’s missing the first decade of his career. Players like Baugh, Sid Luckman, and Bob Waterfield are deliberately excluded.
3. Only seasons in the NFL, AFL, and AAFC count toward these rankings.
My purpose in posting this list is to ask for help. There are a lot of smart readers and commenters at this site, and I want you to critique my results.
I’m not showing my work yet: I’m not looking for a critique of my process, but of my results. Who’s too high? Who’s too low? You can identify individual players, or patterns. Wherever you think I messed up, I want to hear about it. Please keep in mind, though, that this is purely a stat-based list. It doesn’t represent my opinion, and it’s not slanted toward or against individual players or teams.
But just because this system is unbiased, that doesn’t make it perfect. It is definitely not perfect. But I’m comfortable making subjective adjustments, and that may create blind spots that prevent me from improving the formula. I’m asking you to evaluate the list below and judge where you think it is counterintuitive or inaccurate.
Are players from the ’70s overrated? Are contemporary players underrated? What about players from good teams, and players from bad teams? Are running QBs overrated? Underrated? How about game managers vs. downfield bombers? Is the system fair to them? Are one-year wonders overrated? Are compilers overrated? Players who threw a lot of TDs, a lot of interceptions, players who got sacked a lot? Wherever you think the system is off, I’m eager for your feedback.
Hopefully you find this list interesting, and you can expect a fuller explanation of my rankings in the future, but in the meantime, I appreciate your input and assistance. I included each player’s numerical score, which I realize isn’t in context yet, but it can give you a more precise idea than a simple ranking. Troy Aikman, Donovan McNabb, and Joe Namath, for instance, are effectively tied. Below are the top 125 QBs of the modern era, as ranked by my stat-based system:
1. Peyton Manning 51.83 2. Dan Marino 45.73 3. Fran Tarkenton 38.66 4. Johnny Unitas 37.46 5. Joe Montana 34.76 6. Brett Favre 34.69 7. Otto Graham 33.94 8. Drew Brees 31.87 9. Tom Brady 31.80 10. Dan Fouts 30.52 11. Steve Young 29.62 12. John Elway 28.02 13. Sonny Jurgensen 27.51 14. Ken Anderson 27.45 15. Norm Van Brocklin 26.47 16. Y.A. Tittle 26.38 17. Warren Moon 24.20 18. John Brodie 23.35 19. Roger Staubach 22.44 20. Aaron Rodgers 20.41 21. Boomer Esiason 19.95 22. Roman Gabriel 19.11 23. John Hadl 19.04 24. Jim Kelly 18.99 25. Bobby Layne 18.62 26. Jim Hart 18.57 27. Jim Everett 17.70 28. Philip Rivers 17.65 29. Kurt Warner 16.73 30. Tony Romo 16.31 31. Troy Aikman 15.96 32. Donovan McNabb 15.94 33. Joe Namath 15.93 34. Bart Starr 15.74 35. Ben Roethlisberger 15.61 36. Randall Cunningham 15.42 37. Len Dawson 15.35 38. Terry Bradshaw 15.18 39. Vinny Testaverde 15.10 40. Rich Gannon 15.00 41. Norm Snead 14.73 42. Steve McNair 14.62 43. Jeff Garcia 14.55 44. Bert Jones 14.31 45. Trent Green 14.30 46. Charlie Conerly 14.23 47. Daryle Lamonica 14.08 48. Mark Brunell 13.73 49. Joe Theismann 13.68 50. Ken Stabler 13.60 51. Drew Bledsoe 13.50 52. Milt Plum 13.35 53. Charley Johnson 13.34 54. Phil Simms 13.07 55. Billy Wade 12.90 56. Bob Griese 12.41 57. Dave Krieg 12.37 58. Daunte Culpepper 12.359 59. Craig Morton 12.357 60. Steve DeBerg 12.23 61. Brian Sipe 11.994 62. Steve Grogan 11.987 63. Bernie Kosar 11.98 64. Billy Kilmer 11.97 65. Neil Lomax 11.58 66. Matt Ryan 11.08 67. Joe Ferguson 11.02 68. Ron Jaworski 10.983 69. Earl Morrall 10.981 70. Carson Palmer 10.97 71. Eli Manning 10.80 72. Tobin Rote 10.79 73. Matt Hasselbeck 10.69 74. Brad Johnson 10.50 75. Jeff George 10.13 76. Frank Ryan 10.04 77. Don Meredith 9.84 78. Tommy Kramer 9.81 79. Mark Rypien 9.63 80. Danny White 9.49 81. Ken O'Brien 9.34 82. Jim Zorn 9.28 83. Greg Landry 9.201 84. Steve Bartkowski 9.198 85. Doug Williams 9.13 86. Kerry Collins 8.95 87. Jake Plummer 8.88 88. George Blanda 8.83 89. Bobby Hebert 8.78 90. Matt Schaub 8.77 91. Archie Manning 8.59 92. Chris Chandler 8.57 93. Johnny Lujack 8.47 94. Jim Harbaugh 8.43 95. Ed Brown 8.38 96. Jim Plunkett 8.35 97. Jim McMahon 8.16 98. Neil O'Donnell 7.71 99. Lynn Dickey 7.53 100. Frankie Albert 7.51 101. Chad Pennington 7.48 102. Michael Vick 7.46 103. Jeff Blake 7.40 104. Marc Bulger 7.39 105. Bill Kenney 7.37 106. Jeff Hostetler 7.11 107. Bill Nelsen 6.99 108. Steve Beuerlein 6.97 109. Jay Schroeder 6.87 110. Jay Cutler 6.71 111. Richard Todd 6.54 112. Matthew Stafford 6.404 113. Aaron Brooks 6.401 114. Wade Wilson 6.31 115. George Ratterman 6.30 116. Elvis Grbac 6.29 117. Chris Miller 6.25 118. Scott Mitchell 6.19 119. Cam Newton 6.02 120. Stan Humphries 5.96 121. Babe Parilli 5.90 122. Doug Flutie 5.89 123. Jake Delhomme 5.70 124. Bobby Thomason 5.58 125. Brian Griese 5.56
Russell Wilson and Andrew Luck are both over 5.0, and I expect them each to rank in or near the top 100 by this time next year. Both look to me like future Hall of Famers.
I know many of you are familiar with Chase’s stat-based ranking system. He and I use a lot of the same ideas. There are some players who are rated more accurately by Chase’s system than mine, and I believe some are rated better in my system than his. But I hope you’ll try to evaluate this list by what you know about the game, and not simply compared to a different methodology, even one as carefully refined as Chase’s.
I hope you find some value in the list, even though I haven’t yet explained its methodology, but in particular, I offer thanks in advance for any feedback you can offer.