Postseason Statistics For Each Super Bowl Winning Quarterback

by Chase Stuart on January 23, 2016

In 1974, Terry Bradshaw was not very good. He threw for just 785 yards on 148 pass attempts, while throwing only 7 touchdowns against 8 interceptions. That translates to a 2.92 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt average, which is terrible even for 1974. He ranked 25th in ANY/A among the 32 quarterbacks with at least 120 pass attempts. Given the league average of 3.91, that means Bradshaw finished the year with a Relative ANY/A of -0.99.

That’s the worst of any quarterback who wound up winning the Super Bowl. But that doesn’t mean Bradshaw wasn’t a big part of why Pittsburgh won its first title. He was excellent in the team’s three playoff games, particularly in Pittsburgh’s first win.

Against Buffalo, Bradshaw completed 12 of 19 passes for 203 yards, with 1 TD and no interceptions, and he was not sacked. In the regular season, the Bills pass defense allowed 2.71 ANY/A, making them one of the best in the league. But Bradshaw averaged 11.74 ANY/A over 19 dropbacks, or 171 Adjusted Net Yards over expectation.

The next week, in Oakland, Bradshaw was against above-average. Bradshaw went 8/17 for 95 yards with one touchdown and one interception and no sacks. That may not sound great, but it translates to a 4.12 ANY/A average, which is better than how the average quarterback fared against Oakland that year (2.82). Over 17 attempts, that’s worth 22 ANY over average.

In the Super Bowl against Minnesota, Bradshaw went 9/14 for 96 yards with a touchdown, no interception, and two sacks for 12 yards. That’s a 6.50 ANY/A average against a defense that allowed 3.45 ANY/A during the regular season, so Bradshaw gets credit for producing 49 Adjusted Net Yards over average.

So in the Division Round of the playoffs, Bradshaw was 171 ANY over average; in the conference championship game, he was 22 ANY above average, and then in the Super Bowl, he was 49 ANY over average. So throughout the postseason, he was 242 ANY over average. Among the 49 Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, ^[1]In Super Bowl V, Earl Morrall led the Colts on a second half comeback victory over the Cowboys in relief of Johnny Unitas. Two years later, Bob Griese was the Dolphins starter in Super Bowl VII, … Continue reading that ranks as the 27th best performance. That may not be great, but (1) most Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks have excellent postseasons, and (2) he was one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL during the regular season!

I went ahead and calculated the postseason numbers for the quarterback for the Super Bowl champion in each season. Let’s use Joe Montana in 1989 as an example, since he had the best playoff run ever. Playing for the 49ers, his *regular season* Relative ANY/A was +3.07, which means he was 3.07 ANY/A above average (that, combined with his scorched earth playoff run, is why he ranks number one here).

In the postseason, he threw 84 pass attempts. Montana didn’t play in the Wildcard round, but he provided 233 ANY of value over expectation — i.e., based on his opponent’s ANY/A allowed during the regular season — in that game. In the NFCCG, he was at +130, and in the Super Bowl, he was at +280. That totals to 643 ANY of value added in the postseason, the best ever.

Rk	Quarterback	Year	Team	RANY/A	Att	Wildcard	Div	CCG	SB	Total
1	Joe Montana	1989	SFO	3.07	84		233	130	280	643
2	Joe Flacco	2012	BAL	0.39	132	152	214	55	163	584
3	Joe Montana	1988	SFO	1.17	97		127	218	203	548
4	Troy Aikman	1992	DAL	1.49	96		120	142	211	473
5	Terry Bradshaw	1978	PIT	2.02	82		189	51	224	464
6	Aaron Rodgers	2010	GNB	1.77	140	77	207	-1	166	449
7	Jim McMahon	1985	CHI	1.25	70		181	62	169	412
8	Kurt Warner	1999	STL	3.13	125		223	-7	178	394
9	Bart Starr	1966	GNB	4.08	59		0	220	149	369
10	Phil Simms	1986	NYG	0.03	61		148	24	196	368
11	Joe Theismann	1982	WAS	1.15	95	167	85	52	42	347
12	Steve Young	1994	SFO	2.87	91		38	86	223	347
13	Terry Bradshaw	1979	PIT	1.28	86		116	90	135	341
14	Doug Williams	1987	WAS	2.28	86		35	43	252	329
15	Eli Manning	2011	NYG	1.55	171	139	137	-8	62	329
16	Drew Brees	2009	NOR	2.66	104		144	56	122	323
17	Ken Stabler	1976	OAK	3.38	73		112	68	141	321
18	Troy Aikman	1995	DAL	1.81	84		117	105	99	321
19	Jim Plunkett	1980	OAK	-0.22	104	30	-146	168	244	297
20	Ben Roethlisberger	2005	PIT	2.19	99	167	52	156	-88	287
21	John Elway	1998	DEN	1.81	90		108	19	158	285
22	Bart Starr	1967	GNB	0.50	84		125	39	119	283
23	Mark Rypien	1991	WAS	3.16	79		-46	185	135	274
24	Eli Manning	2007	NYG	-0.70	128	90	82	24	71	267
25	Joe Namath	1968	NYJ	1.74	81		0	128	138	265
26	Brett Favre	1996	GNB	1.47	78		20	148	90	258
27	Terry Bradshaw	1974	PIT	-0.99	52		171	22	49	242
28	Joe Montana	1981	SFO	1.25	95		141	50	50	242
29	Joe Montana	1984	SFO	2.93	116		-12	22	227	237
30	Len Dawson	1969	KAN	0.40	67		83	73	78	234
31	Troy Aikman	1993	DAL	2.01	89		82	122	20	225
32	Johnny Unitas	1970	BAL	0.33	61		87	111	-3	195
33	Tom Brady	2004	NWE	1.29	88		-42	137	97	192
34	Roger Staubach	1977	DAL	2.48	70		53	48	81	182
35	Jeff Hostetler	1990	NYG	0.87	83		63	35	75	173
36	Terry Bradshaw	1975	PIT	1.39	62		-63	70	164	171
37	Tom Brady	2003	NWE	0.74	126		6	18	142	166
38	John Elway	1997	DEN	1.32	102	65	70	27	-2	160
39	Russell Wilson	2013	SEA	1.22	75		-9	68	97	157
40	Brad Johnson	2002	TAM	1.21	99		12	86	44	141
41	Trent Dilfer	2000	BAL	-0.74	83	54	17	44	22	137
42	Ben Roethlisberger	2008	PIT	-0.50	97		36	108	-12	132
43	Tom Brady	2014	NWE	1.34	139		55	9	55	119
44	Roger Staubach	1971	DAL	3.88	61		76	-37	64	103
45	Jim Plunkett	1983	RAI	0.14	88		83	-27	43	99
46	Bob Griese	1973	MIA	1.91	33		94	-39	41	96
47	Tom Brady	2001	NWE	0.20	102		2	11	40	53
48	Peyton Manning	2006	IND	2.55	159	-71	-42	90	64	41
49	Earl Morrall	1972	MIA	2.74	28		4	2	0	6

Peyton Manning was not very good during the 2006 postseason — at least statistically — and it shows here. In fact, he has perhaps the worst passing stats of any Super Bowl winning quarterback, when you consider the number of pass attempts he had verus Morrall. That said, it’s not like Manning was bad in the playoffs: he still ranked as above-average, in large part because his last three games came against the top three pass defenses in the NFL. After adjusting for average, Manning was bad by Super Bowl winning QB standards, but still above average. Interestingly enough, Tom Brady 2001 is just behind him, and even Brady 2014 isn’t too far behind.

Also pretty interesting: the worst two Super Bowl performances by the winning quarterback, at least by this method, came from Ben Roethlisberger. We all remember how much he struggled in Super Bowl XL, but I suppose years of watching his game-winning drive and touchdown to Santonio Holmes has overshadowed the rest of his performance in Super bowl XLIII. Roethlisberger was great on the last drive (6/8, 83, 1) but he was just 15 of 22 for 173 yards with no touchdowns and an interception against a pass defense that ranked 26th in the NFL.

Anyway, I’m of course more interested in your thoughts. There’s a lot of fun and useful data in here, I hope, so enjoy!

I will also leave one disclaimer: these are based purely on stats, and obviously stats don’t capture everything. One clear example is Jim Plunkett’s 1980 playoffs. A quick look at his line shows a disaster in the division round — a -146 score is in fact the worst in any single game by any quarterback in the table — followed by two great games. Plunkett was no star (hey, he was below-average during the regular season), but he deserves a pass here. His Division round game came in Cleveland in one of the worst weather games ever, and that ended in Red Right 88.

References[+]

References
↑1	In Super Bowl V, Earl Morrall led the Colts on a second half comeback victory over the Cowboys in relief of Johnny Unitas. Two years later, Bob Griese was the Dolphins starter in Super Bowl VII, but threw just 15 passes all postseason; that’s because Morrall — yes, that Morrall — was the team’s starter for most of the year and in the playoffs, finishing the postseason with 24 passes. I’ve decided to count Unitas as the Colts 1970 starter and Morrall as the Dolphins 1972 starter.

Tagged as: Super Bowl

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