Content Post All-Time QB Rankings / QB Hall of Fame Monitor

[Deus Irae]

Wow, that’s awesome. What a throwback and great read.

Yeah, I like that article a lot, because I think it does a good job laying out the cases. It's a bit dated, in terms of Brady and Manning, but we, as armchair analysts/fans have that information at our fingertips.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Update: I have an alternative color scheme based on team uniforms (it wasn't that difficult to enter the RGB codes into Excel, and it automatically applies that format to the row based on the team uniform you specify). There's the option to use the other one scheme as well, if htis one is too bright and busy. I'm hoping this will make it a little easier to follow the numbers across the rows. I was about to go a step further and show the total score, followed by the three index scores, neatly next to each other as a nice overview of the player. That's when my old, trust friend Excel 2010 had enough of my excessive conditional formatting (jersey colors) and decided to crash every time I try to add a new column now.

But it pushed me forward to the first step of uploading to Google Sheets, so I'm in the process of fixing some conversion problems, on track though to make it shareable as soon as it works. The adjustable controls need to be a lot more intuitive and offer some explanation tot.

Let me know what you think of this color scheme...I don't know if it's too bright. I tried like five dfiferent combinations (one had a variation of light and dark jersey styles, but dark backgrounds never work well with spreasheets and data.)

The other thing is, when you look at all the controls, adjustments scores, it's very hard to comprehend what's happening. So, I need to make it a lot easier to see what's happening with these parameters.

One thing I'd like to do is tie it to a percentage, so you know if you're cranking up the relative strength of championships, or passer rating, it's X% of the total point calculation based on the entire population. So if you want to double how much peak performance is worth, maybe it's going from 5% of the total to 10%. A pie chart would really come in handy here, so that you can see what an impact it's making rather than just adjusting something from 60% to 80% with no idea what impact it's making. I'd love to be able to show the relative points/ ranking changes based on your adjustments with a green/red points indicator...you'd be able to see which playes are moving up or down based on the changes, and then when you press update, the rankings will update again and you can then adjust again.

Finally, you'll notice that Brady is at 49.99 points; I've actually made that the max, so that if a player exceeds 49.99, a percentage is applied to the raw total to keep it at 49.99 and no higher; that gets applied proportionately to every player. This way, we'll have some consistency. If you jack up a setting so that you get 100 points for an MVP award, it's giong to bring that down to scale, so it will help relative to other players who don't have as many MVP awards (extreme in this case), but you'll still see all player scores between 0-49.99. This way, everyone's rankings can be scaled and compared to each other.

Also disclaimer @Deus Irae ... these are not updated rankings, just format I think it”s actually missing some formulas so is particularly off right now.

 

[Zarozzor]

Update: I have an alternative color scheme based on team uniforms (it wasn't that difficult to enter the RGB codes into Excel, and it automatically applies that format to the row based on the team uniform you specify). There's the option to use the other one scheme as well, if htis one is too bright and busy. I'm hoping this will make it a little easier to follow the numbers across the rows. I was about to go a step further and show the total score, followed by the three index scores, neatly next to each other as a nice overview of the player. That's when my old, trust friend Excel 2010 had enough of my excessive conditional formatting (jersey colors) and decided to crash every time I try to add a new column now.

But it pushed me forward to the first step of uploading to Google Sheets, so I'm in the process of fixing some conversion problems, on track though to make it shareable as soon as it works. The adjustable controls need to be a lot more intuitive and offer some explanation tot.

Let me know what you think of this color scheme...I don't know if it's too bright. I tried like five dfiferent combinations (one had a variation of light and dark jersey styles, but dark backgrounds never work well with spreasheets and data.)

The other thing is, when you look at all the controls, adjustments scores, it's very hard to comprehend what's happening. So, I need to make it a lot easier to see what's happening with these parameters.

One thing I'd like to do is tie it to a percentage, so you know if you're cranking up the relative strength of championships, or passer rating, it's X% of the total point calculation based on the entire population. So if you want to double how much peak performance is worth, maybe it's going from 5% of the total to 10%. A pie chart would really come in handy here, so that you can see what an impact it's making rather than just adjusting something from 60% to 80% with no idea what impact it's making. I'd love to be able to show the relative points/ ranking changes based on your adjustments with a green/red points indicator...you'd be able to see which playes are moving up or down based on the changes, and then when you press update, the rankings will update again and you can then adjust again.

Finally, you'll notice that Brady is at 49.99 points; I've actually made that the max, so that if a player exceeds 49.99, a percentage is applied to the raw total to keep it at 49.99 and no higher; that gets applied proportionately to every player. This way, we'll have some consistency. If you jack up a setting so that you get 100 points for an MVP award, it's giong to bring that down to scale, so it will help relative to other players who don't have as many MVP awards (extreme in this case), but you'll still see all player scores between 0-49.99. This way, everyone's rankings can be scaled and compared to each other.

Also disclaimer @Deus Irae ... these are not updated rankings, just format I think it”s actually missing some formulas so is particularly off right now.

View attachment 31007

I think adding the color scheme is a good idea. Makes it “pop” more and a little easier to see which player you’re looking at.

I have some free time today so I’m looking forward to getting started on my spreadsheet.

 

[Tony2046]

I think you're doing great. There's not really a way to quantify "If there was one game for all the money, I'd rank the guys I most/least like to have on my team/against my team in this order...", or "I'd crap myself if we had a 3 point lead and this QB got the ball with 2 minutes left and all his timeouts". All the data in the world isn't going to make you say "Ehh... screw Mahomes, I'm just glad it's not Stafford back there", if you see where I'm going.

This and your previous post ( regarding flashes vs longevity) combined is, imo, the reason why PM cannot be above Staubach.

Edit to add that I've enjoyed this thread and love what you guys are doing. So this wasn't a criticism or anything.

 

[Tony2046]

I like this idea, but it creates a problem for high-longevity QBs. Assuming here that a prime counts as 5 consecutive years, rather than 5 best years (these instead would be peaks). How do you measure Brady's prime? His best statistical seasons are spread out all over the place (07, 10, 11, 16, 17, 20), whereas his prime is, IMO, 2014 - 2018. The same could be said of Manning (03 - 06 vs. 12 - 14), Elway (late 80's vs. 95 - 98) and Rogers (early 2010s vs. 2020).

Good point.

 

[Tony2046]

Update: I have an alternative color scheme based on team uniforms (it wasn't that difficult to enter the RGB codes into Excel, and it automatically applies that format to the row based on the team uniform you specify). There's the option to use the other one scheme as well, if htis one is too bright and busy. I'm hoping this will make it a little easier to follow the numbers across the rows. I was about to go a step further and show the total score, followed by the three index scores, neatly next to each other as a nice overview of the player. That's when my old, trust friend Excel 2010 had enough of my excessive conditional formatting (jersey colors) and decided to crash every time I try to add a new column now.

But it pushed me forward to the first step of uploading to Google Sheets, so I'm in the process of fixing some conversion problems, on track though to make it shareable as soon as it works. The adjustable controls need to be a lot more intuitive and offer some explanation tot.

Let me know what you think of this color scheme...I don't know if it's too bright. I tried like five dfiferent combinations (one had a variation of light and dark jersey styles, but dark backgrounds never work well with spreasheets and data.)

The other thing is, when you look at all the controls, adjustments scores, it's very hard to comprehend what's happening. So, I need to make it a lot easier to see what's happening with these parameters.

One thing I'd like to do is tie it to a percentage, so you know if you're cranking up the relative strength of championships, or passer rating, it's X% of the total point calculation based on the entire population. So if you want to double how much peak performance is worth, maybe it's going from 5% of the total to 10%. A pie chart would really come in handy here, so that you can see what an impact it's making rather than just adjusting something from 60% to 80% with no idea what impact it's making. I'd love to be able to show the relative points/ ranking changes based on your adjustments with a green/red points indicator...you'd be able to see which playes are moving up or down based on the changes, and then when you press update, the rankings will update again and you can then adjust again.

Finally, you'll notice that Brady is at 49.99 points; I've actually made that the max, so that if a player exceeds 49.99, a percentage is applied to the raw total to keep it at 49.99 and no higher; that gets applied proportionately to every player. This way, we'll have some consistency. If you jack up a setting so that you get 100 points for an MVP award, it's giong to bring that down to scale, so it will help relative to other players who don't have as many MVP awards (extreme in this case), but you'll still see all player scores between 0-49.99. This way, everyone's rankings can be scaled and compared to each other.

Also disclaimer @Deus Irae ... these are not updated rankings, just format I think it”s actually missing some formulas so is particularly off right now.

View attachment 31007

Any list with PM over RS seems wrong but that could be because of me being biased.

 

[stinkypete]

I think what hurts PEDton is his lack of clutch play. I recently posted somewhere that I saw SI's, NFLN's, NFL Films' and Bleacher Report's top ten clutch QB rankings from a few years ago and he was only on one of them.

Brady, Montana, Elway, Unitas, Starr & Marino made all four lists.
Graham, Staubach, Stabler & Young made three of the lists.
Aikman, Bradshaw, Namath & P Manning made one list each.

As for his and Brady's chokes (your word not mine) there's a huge difference between them. Brady had 3 one and dones out of 18 playoffs. PEDton had 9 one and dones out of 15 playoffs. Your comparison of the two QB's is pretty stinky Pete.

I'm not attempting to compare Brady to Manning. The distance between Brady and Manning, in my mind, is greater than the distance between Manning and whoever you put at #10 on the list.

My issue is that this board over-emphasizes Manning's most un-clutch moments, and under-emphasizes those of other QBs, see Montana, Joe.

 

[stinkypete]

The tiers we posted are a good guide post. This project has forced me to look closer at a lot of the numbers and performances. For example, I didn't realize just how great Fran Tarkenton and Norm Van Brocklin were during their eras. Here are my personal ranks right now with comments about the what the data weighting...but definitely subject to change.

1. Brady
2. Montana
3. Graham (he moved down a slot upon further research; his NFL-only stats are very dominant but not superhuman)
4. Starr
5. Unitas
6. Staubach (he has moved up my personal rankings, too, due to amazing era-adjusted performance)
7. Manning (There may be some bias here, but he never led his team to a title; the thing is, do we also scrutinize the title performances of other guys? Not likely...we just call them championships, so I acknowledge there's some unfair bias due to my direct observations)
8. Young (I can adjust for him losing years of his career wasting away as a backup; it's harder for the computer rankings to apply that consistently.)
9. Luckman (I had always ranked Baugh over Luckman, but other than consensus, I don't see any reason to)
10. Baugh
---
Now, as we know, we're really in a class of trade-offs where these opinions about these guys can change based on your daily thoughts re: longevity vs short-term dominance and some other factors...but just my preference today:

11. Dawson (he did everything necessary to be ranked here; most underappreciated QB in history; his peak season, which is high, was after the merger, confirming he shoul get full appreciation for AFL years)
12. Elway
13. Rodgers
14. Marino
15. Bradshaw
16. Brees (the peak aspect is important to me, and he has never been there)
17. Tarkenton

After that, I'm really down to some pretty big guesses due to a lack of full understanding. but just a few notes from the data feedback:

Layne - Passer rating pretty terrrible compared to what you'd expect; he's a good case to study and figure out what's missing because passer rating might be further off than usual

Aikman - He only has a 57% career winning pct. I don't see how he's a top 20 and maybe not even top 25

Van Brocklin - I don't know too much about him, but he gets huge era-adjusted performance grades

Griese - Era-adjusted stats show he's a much better QB than people give him credit for

Danowski and Thompson are both Hall of Fame snubs; both are short on experience (5/6 years), but they racked up more championship, accolade, and performance points during that time than some other guys who got in

If Manning didn't lead the '06 Colts to a title, who did? I don't recall Bob Sanders single-handedly overcoming a 21 - 3 lead in the 2006 AFCC game.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

If Manning didn't lead the '06 Colts to a title, who did? I don't recall Bob Sanders single-handedly overcoming a 21 - 3 lead in the 2006 AFCC game.

Semantics.

 

[Zarozzor]

I’m curious what everyone’s criteria for their greatest quarterbacks list is?

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Any list with PM over RS seems wrong but that could be because of me being biased.

It would be cool if you could tell the system, as a rule, that one player must rank higher than another player. The system would then find the categories where that player has the advantage and increase the relative value and decrease it where’s a disadvantage. So with this case, it would place a lot of emphasis on postseason win differential and decrease the value of awards (MVPs, All-Pros). Also could award heavier for efficiency over longevity, the idea that winning two Super Bowls in 9 seasons is better than winning two in 17 seasons.

In terms of those areas where Staubach is ahead of Manning, those didn’t exist on the original spreadsheet and have been added, which is how Staubach has closed the gap since then. So, it’s always good to get opinions like this and forces me to look for the data that can back up the opinion.

 

[venecol]

I’m curious what everyone’s criteria for their greatest quarterbacks list is?

1. Didn't use HGH
2. Didn't send pics of your **** to chicks
3. Didn't t-bagg in the locker room
4. Didn't try to rape anyone
5. Didn't marry a woman that sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard
That's a start.

 

[sean10mm]

Didn't score only 3 points in the divisional round game the year the offensive rules were changed in your favor because your team's owner whined about them.

Divisional Round - Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots - January 16th, 2005 | Pro-Football-Reference.com

Indianapolis Colts 3 at New England Patriots 20 on January 16th, 2005 - Full team and player stats and box score

www.pro-football-reference.com

 

[Tony2046]

It would be cool if you could tell the system, as a rule, that one player must rank higher than another player. The system would then find the categories where that player has the advantage and increase the relative value and decrease it where’s a disadvantage. So with this case, it would place a lot of emphasis on postseason win differential and decrease the value of awards (MVPs, All-Pros). Also could award heavier for efficiency over longevity, the idea that winning two Super Bowls in 9 seasons is better than winning two in 17 seasons.

In terms of those areas where Staubach is ahead of Manning, those didn’t exist on the original spreadsheet and have been added, which is how Staubach has closed the gap since then. So, it’s always good to get opinions like this and forces me to look for the data that can back up the opinion.

Not sure. I think my personal list is just biased based on my experiences and not any real analytical criteria. What you're doing is awesome. I'm really enjoying this. Although I would add an "eye test" or "popular vote" element to your chart for shyts and giggles. Because that would capture what stats won't. Public perception.

I didn't grow up in New England and traveled around with my dad from base to base. The cowboys were on tv a lot and the Patriots were rare to see. So I saw a lot of Staubach.

Anyway I was just a kid back then so my views between Staubach and PM are based on Childhood memories and a Patriots nemesis.

So you're kind of forcing me to reanalyze my position. Although, at the moment, I'd still rank my mom ahead of PM.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

After trying to figure out for a week why I'm so off on the scores for Namath and Blanda (both giving up really ****ty scores), I finally realized the AFL averge passer rating was significantly less than the NFL average passer rating.

 

[Zarozzor]

After countless tweaks and trying to balance things, I'm taking a break from mine until I can figure out how to better balance it. Three big issues:

- No matter what I tweaked, Manning would always be as high as #2 and never lower than #5.

- Favre and Elway always came ahead of Staubach and Young. I usually value longevity more than the average person, but not in this case. I know that the latter two were better than the former two, no matter what the longevity gap was. This one was my biggest issue because I can live with Peyton in the 4-6 range.

- Brees and Marino both fell about to where I wanted them so that part was good. But now I feel if I dropped the winning factor any, Peyton would be #2 with a pretty sizeable gap over #3. And then I would run into the issue of yeah, Staubach and Young move up, but then Brees and Marino get a big boost which I don't want at all.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

After countless tweaks and trying to balance things, I'm taking a break from mine until I can figure out how to better balance it. Three big issues:

- No matter what I tweaked, Manning would always be as high as #2 and never lower than #5.

- Favre and Elway always came ahead of Staubach and Young. I usually value longevity more than the average person, but not in this case. I know that the latter two were better than the former two, no matter what the longevity gap was. This one was my biggest issue because I can live with Peyton in the 4-6 range.

- Brees and Marino both fell about to where I wanted them so that part was good. But now I feel if I dropped the winning factor any, Peyton would be #2 with a pretty sizeable gap over #3. And then I would run into the issue of yeah, Staubach and Young move up, but then Brees and Marino get a big boost which I don't want at all.

This is formula based?

Lol on Manning. Dude, I've been burning the midnight oil trying to figure out how to deal with this problem...that last unearned championship is really a killer in terms of trying to de-rank him without screwing up everything else. He does have that 14-13 playoff record to attack, but there's only so much you can do with that.

Young and Staubach excel in era-adjusted efficiency stats. Both are incredibly dominant, even amongst other all-time greats, and that's where Favre is merely okay and Elway is pretty bad in comparisons to other guys near him on the list.

All that said, I have a prorated season each for Young and Staubach, one for USFL experience and one for Navy experience. It just takes their average year and adds one more...but if I removed that, they'd be very close to Elway and Favre, and I might have to remove it for consistency. So, yes, it's tough.

Both Young and Staubach started when they were around 30 years old. That is one heck of a handicap; think of everything that guys like Elway, Brees, Manning, etc. had already accomplished by that age and the head starts they had. And Staubach and Young are still hanging around despite that.

I also don't value longevity much, or try not to, but I think the problem is the missed opportunities for more championships and postseason success. Staubach probably would have won SB5 if Halas had played him over Morton; Young would have been dominating almost anyehwere in the league for those 4-5 years and certainly could have stepped in for Montana and been the face of the dynasty much sooner. But quantifying all of this is tough; it's mainly theoretical, even though we have strong reason to believe it would have happened.

 

[Zarozzor]

This is formula based?

Lol on Manning. Dude, I've been burning the midnight oil trying to figure out how to deal with this problem...that last unearned championship is really a killer in terms of trying to de-rank him without screwing up everything else. He does have that 14-13 playoff record to attack, but there's only so much you can do with that.

Young and Staubach excel in era-adjusted efficiency stats. Both are incredibly dominant, even amongst other all-time greats, and that's where Favre is merely okay and Elway is pretty bad in comparisons to other guys near him on the list.

All that said, I have a prorated season each for Young and Staubach, one for USFL experience and one for Navy experience. It just takes their average year and adds one more...but if I removed that, they'd be very close to Elway and Favre, and I might have to remove it for consistency. So, yes, it's tough.

Both Young and Staubach started when they were around 30 years old. That is one heck of a handicap; think of everything that guys like Elway, Brees, Manning, etc. had already accomplished by that age and the head starts they had. And Staubach and Young are still hanging around despite that.

I also don't value longevity much, or try not to, but I think the problem is the missed opportunities for more championships and postseason success. Staubach probably would have won SB5 if Halas had played him over Morton; Young would have been dominating almost anyehwere in the league for those 4-5 years and certainly could have stepped in for Montana and been the face of the dynasty much sooner. But quantifying all of this is tough; it's mainly theoretical, even though we have strong reason to believe it would have happened.

Yep, this one was based off of a formula instead of studying everyone’s career and then ranking them off of my personal opinion and what I value.

I do feel like if Manning never won that second championship, he wouldn’t “break” the whole winning/stats/accolade balance. But since the formula doesn’t take into account how a player won a ring, he does.

Maybe I’ll play around with the era-adjusted rating some more. I did include black ink, which Staubach and Young have a huge advantage over someone like Elway in, but it still didn’t work.

Yeah I suppose when I say longevity, what I mean is that Staubach and Young missed at least 5 more years each for a chance to add to their winning. When it comes to longevity with a guy like Rivers, that doesn’t really mean anything to me because all he was doing was accumulating career stats instead of pumping out 60%-70% winning seasons or making deep playoff runs. And I have no doubt that Staubach and Young would have had more high-level seasons. But like you said, it never happened so it’s hard to implement it in a formula.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Here's a Manning de-ranking using some of the ideas in this thread. I've adjusted the values to make this the default for now. It doesn't reallly matter about the default setting, but it seems like this is closer to what we think.

Postseason rating amplified (this is win/loss differential)
Accolades/trophies faded out

I actually like the top 10 here; after that, it starts to show some cracks with Mahomes being the glaring example, along with Warner, Thieismann, Stabler, etc. Problems get worse after 25. On another note, Marino is constantly passed by Griese, so I'll have to look at that, but it isn't just due to this configuration.



Just for fun, here's one that's completely stripped of longevity...it only uses passer rating and win pct as an efficiency model with zero multiplier for career wins added; and then it also calculates the achievements (championships, playoff success, awards) based on a per-season average amount.



Hopefully I'll have a better interface soon so breakdown why it comes out like this. Surprisingly, it isn't Mahomes's passer rating/stats that puts him up there; it's his winning percentage and that he's been been to two SBs. If you put him and Brady, on a per-year comparison and then build out, you'd have Mahomes in year 19 (where Brady is now) with 6-7 Super Bowls, a higher franchise score (basicallly a wins-added metric) and like a +20 playoff differential.

 

[Zarozzor]

Here's a Manning de-ranking using some of the ideas in this thread. I've adjusted the values to make this the default for now. It doesn't reallly matter about the default setting, but it seems like this is closer to what we think.

Postseason rating amplified (this is win/loss differential)
Accolades/trophies faded out

I actually like the top 10 here; after that, it starts to show some cracks with Mahomes being the glaring example, along with Warner, Thieismann, Stabler, etc. Problems get worse after 25. On another note, Marino is constantly passed by Griese, so I'll have to look at that, but it isn't just due to this configuration.

View attachment 31028

Just for fun, here's one that's completely stripped of longevity...it only uses passer rating and win pct as an efficiency model with zero multiplier for career wins added; and then it also calculates the achievements (championships, playoff success, awards) based on a per-season average amount.

View attachment 31026

Hopefully I'll have a better interface soon so breakdown why it comes out like this. Surprisingly, it isn't Mahomes's passer rating/stats that puts him up there; it's his winning percentage and that he's been been to two SBs. If you put him and Brady, on a per-year comparison and then build out, you'd have Mahomes in year 19 (where Brady is now) with 6-7 Super Bowls, a higher franchise score (basicallly a wins-added metric) and like a +20 playoff differential.

Great work.

Perhaps I need to implement the adjusted passer rating and winning % into mine to get Staubach and Young to move up. That should also drop Elway and Favre some because they’re way too high at the moment.

Looks like Brees is consistently behind Brady, Manning, and Rodgers on all of these (we already knew that though.) But it’s almost a lock Mahomes passes him and a high probability that Wilson does as well.