How much do you guys weigh longevity vs peak/prime? I'm trying to find a way to strike a balance between the two. My biggest problem right now is doing that and also a balance between winning/individual play. This is how they're ordered on my personal list I'm working on (but constantly changing)
Montana
Manning
Young
Elway
Rodgers
Favre
Brees
Marino
Roethlisberger
Griese
Aikman
Kelly
Wilson
Warner
Stabler
Rivers
Moon
Fouts
Eli
Just know by the end of the day a player could have moved up or down a spot. Not sure what the hell to do with the stat group at 5-8.
Nice list...that's probably about my order as well without the computer rankings. Young would be #2 or #3, and Montana would be #1.
Longevity vs Peak
There's issues with guys who played 20 years and weren't spectacular, who probably shouldn't be ranked above guys who played 10 years and were among the greatest ever. So I try to find a balance between efficiency and volume. That's what I spend all the time doing with the spreadsheet, making adjustments with things like that...when I started it, of course there were all kinds of problems like you see with that PFR Hall of Fame monitor...Matt Ryan over Bart Starr, and crazy things like that.
I created an efficiency rating first...meaning that every QB is reduced to a number. So let's say that Vinny Testaverde is a 1.0 and Joe Montana is a 3.0. Now, if you were to rate QBs using efficiency
only, you might just theorize everyone had a ten-year career and Montana's score is a 30 while Testaverde's score is a 10. Except, you might find that has its own problems when Lamar Jackson surpassed Joe Montana in 2019. So, what if Montana gets the 30 score because he played 10 seasons, but Testaverde doesn't get a 20 for playing 20 seasons. Instead, the effiency is set to something 50%, so anything over the 10 seasons gets you half points...and Testaverde gets a 15 instead. Meanwhile, a guy like Lamar Jackson gets a big reduction for small sample size and his stats don't fully "mature" until he reaches those ten seasons. Championships are always constant in their value, but everything else is subject to this type of review.
Winning vs Individual Play
This is a tough one...I use both winning percentage and adjusted QB rating, as I hope they'll cancel each other out if one of those areas is weaker. But the entire exercise is kind of reduced to this exact issue: how much do you reward quarterbacks for team success? I've tried to even apply a formula to championships....a mediocre QB who is weaker in other categories may only get like 75% of the championship points. And this is why you have to use a few different measures...accolades,, stats, etc. are important as well. A guy like Joe Flacco isn't going to come up as a great QB; his stats and lack of accolades overpower his winning percentage.
I kept getting Warren Moon ranking at like 60-70 overall, so looking at his career and the problem you're describing was the big issue. Sub-.500 quarterback, no championships, and stats that were good but not spectacular. Led me to re-work a bunch of things.
But to make it simple: you can come up with category scores. For example, a guy can be a 1-10 in winning percentage, 1-10 in awards, and 1-10 in stats. Now, arriving at those numbers may be very complicated, depending on which factors you use. But this way, Flacco may be an 8 for winning, but a 2 in accolades and a 3 in stats. With most QBs, there's going to be those checks and balances.
