What do you give to the man who already has everything? How about a Comeback Player of the Year Award?

Right now, the choice for AP Comeback Player of the Year is a two-horse race between Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson. If Manning wins the award, it will put him in pretty rare territory: he’d be just the fourth player to, over the course of a career, be named by the Associated Press as the Most Valuable Player of the Year, Comeback Player of the Year, and Super Bowl MVP. Can you name the first three?

Below is one hint for each of the three players who have won all three awards.

On Wednesday, I explained the methodology for grading each quarterback in each season. Yesterday, I came up with an all-time career list of the best quarterbacks based on their regular season play. Today, a look at playoff performances.

Using the same formula, we can grade each quarterback in each game and adjust for era ^[1]Note that I do not have individual playoff sack data prior to 2008, so I am using pro-rated sack numbers based on team sack data.. However, it should be obvious that the sample sizes here are incredibly small, and the stats are even less likely to tell the true story when looking at just one game. Strength of schedule becomes a significant factor here, as well. But, caveats aside, there’s a lot we can do with playoff data. For example, we can rank every quarterback performance in Super Bowl history:

Rk	QB	Tm	Opp	SB	W/L	Att	Pyd	TD	INT	CY	CYP	VAL
1	Joe Montana	SFO	MIA	19	W	35	331	3	0	406	11	272
2	Steve Young	SFO	SDG	29	W	36	325	6	0	431	11.1	264
3	Troy Aikman	DAL	BUF	27	W	30	273	4	0	381	12.3	258
4	Joe Montana	SFO	DEN	24	W	29	297	5	0	397	13.3	256
5	Kurt Warner	STL	TEN	34	W	45	414	2	0	447	9.7	225
6	Jim Plunkett	OAK	PHI	15	W	21	261	3	0	320	14.5	219
7	Phil Simms	NYG	DEN	21	W	25	268	3	0	323	12.4	216
8	Doug Williams	WAS	DEN	22	W	29	340	4	1	358	11.6	211
9	John Elway	DEN	ATL	33	W	29	336	1	1	331	11	181
10	Jim McMahon	CHI	NWE	20	W	20	256	0	0	284	11.6	174
11	Joe Montana	SFO	CIN	23	W	36	357	2	0	351	9	165
12	Jake Delhomme	CAR	NWE	38	L	33	323	3	0	325	8.8	146
13	Tom Brady	NWE	CAR	38	W	48	354	3	1	369	7.7	141
14	Terry Bradshaw	PIT	DAL	13	W	30	318	4	1	266	7.8	140
15	Mark Rypien	WAS	BUF	26	W	33	292	2	1	287	8.7	128
16	Terry Bradshaw	PIT	RAM	14	W	21	309	2	3	214	10.2	123
17	Bart Starr	GNB	KAN	1	W	23	250	2	1	224	8.7	121
18	Terry Bradshaw	PIT	DAL	10	W	19	209	2	0	200	9.5	121
19	Aaron Rodgers	GNB	PIT	45	W	39	304	3	0	348	8.3	118
20	Brett Favre	GNB	NWE	31	W	27	246	2	0	268	8.1	111
21	Drew Brees	NOR	IND	44	W	39	288	2	0	321	8	107
22	Ken Stabler	OAK	MIN	11	W	19	180	1	0	183	8.7	103
23	Troy Aikman	DAL	PIT	30	W	23	209	1	0	218	8.7	91
24	Kurt Warner	ARI	PIT	43	L	43	377	3	1	329	7.3	87
25	John Elway	DEN	NYG	21	L	37	304	1	1	270	6.5	81
26	Bart Starr	GNB	OAK	2	W	24	202	1	0	182	6.5	79
27	Joe Montana	SFO	CIN	16	W	22	157	1	0	188	7.8	76
28	Tom Brady	NWE	PHI	39	W	33	236	2	0	259	7.4	75
29	Joe Namath	NYJ	BAL	3	W	28	206	0	0	195	6.5	68
30	Peyton Manning	IND	NOR	44	L	45	333	1	1	308	6.8	67
31	Ken Anderson	CIN	SFO	16	L	34	300	2	2	254	6.4	67
32	Jeff Hostetler	NYG	BUF	25	W	32	222	1	0	234	6.9	66
33	Bob Lee	MIN	OAK	11	L	9	81	1	0	100	10.9	65
34	Roger Staubach	DAL	MIA	6	W	19	119	2	0	140	6.7	63
35	Steve McNair	TEN	STL	34	L	36	214	0	0	208	5.6	61
36	Eli Manning	NYG	NWE	46	W	40	296	1	0	302	7	61
37	Terry Bradshaw	PIT	MIN	9	W	14	96	1	0	104	6.5	59
38	Kurt Warner	STL	NWE	36	L	44	365	1	2	287	6	55
39	Roger Staubach	DAL	PIT	13	L	30	228	3	1	161	4.6	53
40	Jim Kelly	BUF	NYG	25	L	30	212	0	0	205	6.6	52
41	Jim Plunkett	RAI	WAS	18	W	25	172	1	0	174	6.4	48
42	Roger Staubach	DAL	DEN	12	W	25	183	1	0	142	4.8	45
43	Brad Johnson	TAM	OAK	37	W	34	215	2	1	210	6.2	45
44	Earl Morrall	BAL	DAL	5	W	15	147	0	1	102	6.8	43
45	Ben Roethlisberger	PIT	ARI	43	W	30	256	1	1	209	6.5	37
46	Bob Griese	MIA	MIN	8	W	7	73	0	0	63	7.9	34
47	Brett Favre	GNB	DEN	32	L	42	256	3	1	240	5.6	34
48	Daryle Lamonica	OAK	GNB	2	L	34	208	2	1	181	4.9	32
49	Fran Tarkenton	MIN	MIA	8	L	28	182	0	1	141	4.5	31
50	Gary Kubiak	DEN	NYG	21	L	4	48	0	0	45	10.2	25
51	Troy Aikman	DAL	BUF	28	W	27	207	0	1	159	5.5	21
52	Tom Brady	NWE	NYG	46	L	41	276	2	1	261	6.1	20
53	Len Dawson	KAN	GNB	1	L	27	211	1	1	135	4.2	19
54	Trent Dilfer	BAL	NYG	35	W	25	153	1	0	154	5.5	17
55	Tom Brady	NWE	STL	36	W	27	145	1	0	154	5.3	14
56	Len Dawson	KAN	MIN	4	W	17	142	1	1	97	4.9	10
57	Gary Kubiak	DEN	SFO	24	L	3	28	0	0	25	6.8	7
58	Frank Reich	BUF	WAS	26	L	1	11	0	0	10	9.4	5
59	Steve Young	SFO	DEN	24	W	3	20	0	0	20	6.5	5
60	Vince Ferragamo	RAM	PIT	14	L	25	212	0	1	127	4.4	4
61	Danny White	DAL	DEN	12	W	2	5	0	0	3	1.1	4
62	Matt Hasselbeck	SEA	PIT	40	L	49	273	1	1	234	4.5	3
63	Ben Roethlisberger	PIT	GNB	45	L	40	263	2	2	211	5.1	2
64	Bill Musgrave	SFO	SDG	29	W	1	6	0	0	6	5.2	0
65	Fran Tarkenton	MIN	OAK	11	L	35	205	1	2	132	3.7	-4
66	Babe Parilli	NYJ	BAL	3	W	1	0	0	0	0	-0.4	-5
67	Zeke Bratkowski	GNB	KAN	1	W	1	0	0	0	-1	-0.8	-5
68	Jay Schroeder	WAS	DEN	22	W	1	0	0	0	-1	-0.6	-6
69	Pete Beathard	KAN	GNB	1	L	5	17	0	0	7	1.3	-6
70	Tony Banks	BAL	NYG	35	W	1	0	0	0	-1	-0.7	-6
71	Eli Manning	NYG	NWE	42	W	34	255	2	1	182	4.9	-8
72	Bob Griese	MIA	WAS	7	W	11	88	1	1	44	3.4	-8
73	Peyton Manning	IND	CHI	41	W	38	247	1	1	184	4.7	-10
74	John Elway	DEN	GNB	32	W	22	123	0	1	98	4.3	-12
75	Don Strock	MIA	WAS	17	L	3	0	0	0	-3	-0.9	-17
76	Steve Fuller	CHI	NWE	20	W	4	0	0	0	-3	-0.6	-23
77	Ron Jaworski	PHI	OAK	15	L	38	291	1	3	146	3.8	-28
78	Joe Theismann	WAS	MIA	17	W	23	143	2	2	74	2.8	-33
79	Dan Marino	MIA	SFO	19	L	50	318	1	2	219	4.1	-33
80	Elvis Grbac	SFO	SDG	29	W	1	0	0	0	-30	-28.2	-36
81	Johnny Unitas	BAL	NYJ	3	L	24	110	0	1	65	2.7	-37
82	David Woodley	MIA	WAS	17	L	14	97	1	1	28	1.9	-37
83	Donovan McNabb	PHI	NWE	39	L	51	357	3	3	249	4.5	-40
84	Norris Weese	DEN	DAL	12	L	10	22	0	0	-18	-1.6	-42
85	Gale Gilbert	SDG	SFO	29	L	6	30	0	1	-17	-2.7	-44
86	Gary Cuozzo	MIN	KAN	4	L	3	16	0	1	-32	-9.6	-46
87	Johnny Unitas	BAL	DAL	5	W	9	88	1	2	-12	-1.3	-47
88	Tom Brady	NWE	NYG	42	L	48	266	1	0	219	4.1	-53
89	Bob Griese	MIA	DAL	6	L	23	134	0	1	30	1.3	-58
90	Boomer Esiason	CIN	SFO	23	L	25	144	0	1	78	2.6	-65
91	Jim Kelly	BUF	DAL	28	L	50	260	0	1	182	3.4	-66
92	Stan Humphries	SDG	SFO	29	L	49	275	1	2	189	3.7	-67
93	Ben Roethlisberger	PIT	SEA	40	W	21	123	0	2	45	2	-67
94	Tony Eason	NWE	CHI	20	L	6	0	0	0	-40	-5.6	-72
95	Roger Staubach	DAL	PIT	10	L	24	204	2	3	37	1.2	-78
96	Chris Chandler	ATL	DEN	33	L	35	219	1	3	91	2.5	-79
97	Joe Kapp	MIN	KAN	4	L	25	183	0	2	39	1.4	-81
98	John Elway	DEN	WAS	22	L	38	257	1	3	93	2.2	-90
99	Rex Grossman	CHI	IND	41	L	28	165	1	2	54	1.9	-90
100	Steve Grogan	NWE	CHI	20	L	30	177	1	2	56	1.6	-105
101	Jim Kelly	BUF	DAL	27	L	7	82	0	2	-72	-9.3	-107
102	Joe Theismann	WAS	RAI	18	L	35	243	0	2	73	1.8	-112
103	Craig Morton	DAL	BAL	5	L	26	127	1	3	-2	-0.1	-112
104	Fran Tarkenton	MIN	PIT	9	L	26	102	0	3	-33	-1.3	-127
105	Earl Morrall	BAL	NYJ	3	L	17	71	0	3	-64	-3.8	-136
106	Frank Reich	BUF	DAL	27	L	31	194	1	2	16	0.5	-137
107	Neil O'Donnell	PIT	DAL	30	L	49	239	1	3	122	2.3	-147
108	Billy Kilmer	WAS	MIA	7	L	28	104	0	3	-48	-1.6	-159
109	Drew Bledsoe	NWE	GNB	31	L	48	253	2	4	74	1.4	-178
110	John Elway	DEN	SFO	24	L	26	108	0	2	-22	-0.7	-182
111	Rich Gannon	OAK	TAM	37	L	44	272	2	5	35	0.7	-212
112	Craig Morton	DEN	DAL	12	L	15	39	0	4	-157	-9	-214
113	Jim Kelly	BUF	WAS	26	L	58	275	2	4	30	0.5	-269
114	Kerry Collins	NYG	BAL	35	L	39	112	0	4	-124	-2.9	-335

If you type Montana’s name into the search box, you can see that he has the 1st, 4th, 11th and 27th best performance in Super Bowl history. The best performance in a losing effort goes to Jake Delhomme, who shredded the Patriots secondary in the second half of Super Bowl XXXVIII (he began the game 1 for 9 for 1 yard). The worst performance in a winning effort, unsurprisingly, goes to Ben Roethlisberger in Super Bowl XL, although Joe Theismann against the Dolphins gets an honorable mention. Worst performance overall goes to Kerry Collins, although Craig Morton’s 4 interceptions and 39 yards on 15 attempts against his former team in Super Bowl XII could give Collins a run for his money.

What about best championship game performances in the pre-Super Bowl era?

Rk	QB	Tm	Opp	Year	W/L	Att	Pyd	TD	INT	CY	CYP	VAL
1	Tobin Rote	DET	CLE	1957	W	19	280	4	0	380	19	304
2	Sid Luckman	CHI	WAS	1943	W	26	286	5	0	386	14.8	248
3	Otto Graham	CLE	RAM	1950	W	33	298	4	1	292	7.7	236
4	Sammy Baugh	WAS	CHI	1937	W	33	335	3	1	320	9.7	228
5	Harry Newman	NYG	CHI	1933	L	19	209	2	1	204	10.7	197
6	Charlie Conerly	NYG	CHI	1956	W	10	195	2	0	232	22.1	192
7	Bart Starr	GNB	NYG	1961	W	17	164	3	0	224	13.2	152
8	Otto Graham	CLE	DET	1954	W	12	163	3	2	193	12.9	135
9	Frank Ryan	CLE	BAL	1964	W	18	206	3	1	212	11.2	132
10	Norm Van Brocklin	RAM	CLE	1951	W	6	128	1	0	148	24.7	129
11	Tobin Rote	SDG	BOS	1963	W	15	173	2	0	226	13.1	127
12	Sid Luckman	CHI	NYG	1941	W	12	160	0	0	160	13.3	125
13	George Blanda	HOU	LAC	1960	W	31	301	3	0	361	11.6	123
14	Charlie Conerly	NYG	BAL	1958	W	14	187	1	0	190	11.6	122
15	Arnie Herber	GNB	NYG	1938	L	14	123	1	0	143	10.2	117
16	Johnny Unitas	BAL	NYG	1959	W	29	264	2	0	267	7.4	115
17	Charlie O'Rourke	CHI	WAS	1942	L	7	128	0	0	128	18.3	105

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Yesterday, I explained the methodology behind the formula involved in ranking every quarterback season in football history. Today, I’m going to present the career results. Converting season value to career value isn’t as simple as it might seem. Generally, we don’t want a player who was very good for 12 years to rank ahead of a quarterback who was elite for ten. Additionally, we don’t want to give significant penalties to players who struggled as rookies or hung around too long; we’re mostly concerned with the peak value of the player.

What I’ve historically done — and done here — is to give each quarterback 100% of his value or score from his best season, 95% of his score in his second best season, 90% of his score in his third best season, and so on. This rewards quarterbacks who played really well for a long time and doesn’t kill players with really poor rookie years or seasons late in their career. It also helps to prevent the quarterbacks who were compilers from dominating the top of the list. The table below shows the top 150 regular season QBs in NFL history using that formula, along with the first and last years of their careers, their number of career attempts (including sacks and rushing touchdowns), and their career records and winning percentages (each since 1950). For visibility reasons, I’ve shown the top 30 quarterbacks below, but you can change that number in the filter or click on the right arrow to see the remaining quarterbacks.
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In 2006, I took a stab at ranking every quarterback in NFL history. Two years later, I acquired more data and made enough improvements to merit publishing an updated and more accurate list of the best quarterbacks the league has ever seen. In 2009, I tweaked the formula again, and published a set of career rankings, along with a set of strength of schedule, era and weather adjustments, and finally career rankings which include those adjustments and playoff performances.

If nothing else, that was three years ago, so the series was due for an update. I’ve also acquired more data, enabling me to tweak the formula to better reflect player performance. But let’s start today with an explanation of the methodology I’m using. To rank a group of players, you need to decide which metric you’re ordering the list by. I’ll get to all of the criteria I’m not using in a little bit, but the formula does use each of the following: pass attempts, passing touchdowns, passing yards, interceptions, sacks, sack yards lost, fumbles, fumbles recovered, rush attempts, rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. Most importantly, the formula is adjusted for era and league.

So where do we begin? We start with plain old yards per attempt. I then incorporate sack data by removing sack yards from the numerator and adding sacks to the denominator ^[1]I have individual sack data for every quarterback since 1969. For seasons before then, I have team sack data going back to 1949. For seasons before 1950, I ignored sacks; for seasons between 1950 … Continue reading. To include touchdowns and pass attempts, I gave a quarterback 20 yards for each passing touchdown and subtracted 45 yards for each interception. This calculation — (Pass Yards + 20 * PTD – 45 * INT – Sack Yards Lost) / (Sacks + Pass Attempts) forms the basis for Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, one of the key metrics I use to evaluate quarterbacks.

For purposes of this study, I did some further tweaking. I’m including rushing touchdowns, because our goal is to measure quarterbacks as players. There’s no reason to separate rushing and passing touchdowns from a value standpoint, so all passing and rushing touchdowns are worth 20 yards and are calculated in the numerator of Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. To be consistent, I also include rushing touchdowns in the denominator of the equation. This won’t change anything for most quarterbacks, but feels right to me. A touchdown is a touchdown.
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Let’s start with some trivia before moving to today’s post:

• Only two quarterback-receiver pairs have ever topped the 10,000 yard mark. Can you name them?

  Hint:	SelectShow
  The same quarterback was part of both pairs.

• Only two receivers (minimum: 7,000 yards) gained at least 93% of their career receiving yards from one quarterback. Do you know who they are?

  Hint:	SelectShow
  The same quarterback was part of both pairs, but this is a different quarterback than from question 1.

• Two of the men in the top ten in career receiving yards can credit the same quarterback account for more of their yards than any other passer. Can you name that quarterback?

  Hint	SelectShow
  The receivers won a Super Bowl ring, but the quarterback never did.

• Can you name the receiver who gained over 10,000 yards in his career, but the quarterback from whom he gained the most yards was… Quincy Carter?

  Hint	SelectShow
  Spoiler: Quincy Carter wasn’t very good.

• Among the top twenty-five leaders in career receiving yards, can you guess which player was the only one to fail to catch at least 20% of his yards from a single quarterback?

  Hint	SelectShow
  One of his quarterbacks was Dan Marino.

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No, this article isn’t an article about quarterbacks squaring off against ancient Greek mathematicians. Today, we’re going to look at quarterback win-loss records and see how they compare to their Pythagorean win-loss records.

Over 30 years ago, Bill James wrote that, on average, baseball teams’ true strengths could be measured more accurately by looking at runs scored and runs allowed than by looking at wins and losses. Since then, sports statisticians have applied the same thinking to all sports. The formula to calculate a team’s Pythagorean winning percentage is always some variation of:

(Points Scored^2) / (Points Scored ^2 + Points Allowed^2)

With the exponent changing from 2 to whatever number best fits the data for the particular sport. In football, that number is 2.53. We can look, for example, at the Pythagorean records for each team in the league last season, and line it up against their actual record:

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Happy 4th of July! Before you head to your barbecue, I’d recommend you take a look at the incredible document our founders signed 236 years ago.

As far as football goes, today’s a good time for a data dump. The table below shows the career passing leaders for each franchise, organized by when the current leader last played for that team.

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Fifteen days into its infancy, Football Perspective has published fifteen posts. If you are enjoying the site, be sure to check back every day for a new post. You can also become one of the 850+ people to “like” Football Perspective on Facebook. You can also follow me on twitter. Enough of a site update: on to today’s post.

Unlike most sports writers, I don’t know a lot about what will happen this season. But there’s one thing I do know: the Denver Broncos aren’t going to rank 32nd again in pass attempts again. The Tebow Broncos, an offense with an inexperienced quarterback and a confused offensive coordinator, completed just 217 passes last season. That was the lowest in the league, and the lowest since the ’09 Jets, a team that boasted the number one rushing attack and defense in the league — and Mark Sanchez.

Setting aside those years where the league scheduled more games in the following season, the table below shows the teams with the largest increase in completions from one year (that’s the year listed in the table) to the next:

Year	Tm	Cmp N	Cmp N+1	Difference	QB Year N	QB Year N+1	HC Year N	HC Year N+1
1978	SFO	190	361	171	Steve DeBerg	Steve DeBerg	Pete McCulley [1]In 1978, the 49ers fired McCulley after 9 games and Fred O'Connor coached the rest of the season.	Bill Walsh
2000	TAM	237	362	125	Shaun King	Brad Johnson	Tony Dungy	Tony Dungy
2004	ARI	299	419	120	Josh McCown	Kurt Warner	Dennis Green	Dennis Green
1998	CHI	284	404	120	Erik Kramer	Shane Matthews	Dave Wannstedt	Dick Jauron
1993	NWE	289	405	116	Drew Bledsoe	Drew Bledsoe	Bill Parcells	Bill Parcells
2000	CIN	207	322	115	Akili Smith	Jon Kitna	Dick LeBeau [2]In 2000, Bruce Coslet was the Bengals coach to start the season, but he resigned after three straight blowouts to begin the year.	Dick LeBeau
1957	PHI	99	214	115	Bobby Thomason	Norm Van Brocklin	Hugh Devore	Buck Shaw
2006	ATL	222	336	114	Michael Vick	Joey Harrington	Jim Mora	Bobby Petrino
1983	MIA	254	367	113	Dan Marino	Dan Marino	Don Shula	Don Shula
1994	DET	250	362	112	Dave Krieg	Scott Mitchell	Wayne Fontes	Wayne Fontes
1978	BAL	202	313	111	Bill Troup	Greg Landry	Ted Marchibroda	Ted Marchibroda
2008	MIN	267	377	110	Gus Frerotte	Brett Favre	Brad Childress	Brad Childress
2008	SEA	262	372	110	Seneca Wallace	Matt Hasselbeck	Mike Holmgren	Jim Mora
1989	HOU	295	399	104	Warren Moon	Warren Moon	Jerry Glanville	Jack Pardee
2001	SEA	258	361	103	Matt Hasselbeck	Matt Hasselbeck	Mike Holmgren	Mike Holmgren
1988	NWE	199	302	103	Doug Flutie	Steve Grogan	Raymond Berry	Raymond Berry
1979	HOU	195	296	101	Dan Pastorini	Ken Stabler	Bum Phillips	Bum Phillips
1996	SEA	261	359	98	Rick Mirer	Warren Moon	Dennis Erickson	Dennis Erickson
1999	PHI	235	331	96	Doug Pederson	Donovan McNabb	Andy Reid	Andy Reid
1993	MIN	315	409	94	Jim McMahon	Warren Moon	Dennis Green	Dennis Green
1985	CLE	222	315	93	Bernie Kosar	Bernie Kosar	Marty Schottenheimer	Marty Schottenheimer
1993	NOR	274	366	92	Wade Wilson	Jim Everett	Jim Mora	Jim Mora
1992	DEN	258	350	92	John Elway	John Elway	Dan Reeves	Wade Phillips
1972	PHI	184	275	91	John Reaves	Roman Gabriel	Ed Khayat	Mike McCormack
1950	GNB	140	231	91	Tobin Rote	Bobby Thomason	Gene Ronzani	Gene Ronzani
2011	DEN	217	–	–	Tim Tebow	Peyton Manning	John Fox	John Fox

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