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

[Deus Irae]

Is anything universally accepted anymore with "flat earthers" and Qanons running around? Lmao

Universal wasn't intended to mean truly universal in this case. There's always going to be a percentage of the people who don't buy in. It's a matter of having vast general acceptance.

 

[venecol]

Don't let @Ice_Ice_Brady fool you, all these factors are being used to ensure Brees never makes it to the top 10. Nothing else matters.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Don't let @Ice_Ice_Brady fool you, all these factors are being used to ensure Brees never makes it to the top 10. Nothing else matters.

I just created a new index score: it penalizes a quarterback for having a receding hairline. Peyton and Brees are the unfortunate bearers of this penalty, but in the end, it's all about the truth.

But in seriousness, I think this type of peak rating is the reason I always tend to put Brees in a lower class than top-tier greats. It isn't about MVP awards or Super Bowls about why I've just never seen him in that high elite class. He was great in 2009 but still a level - or even two levels - below where other guys have been. At least that's what I think now; let's see what the numbers show.

 

[Deus Irae]

You're right...but you're someone with clear passion and knowledge about the QB position. If the rankings aren't capturing something important, I think it's important to investigate it and at least try to make it adjustable.

With Marino, I do hope/suspect that a lack of peak score that's a big part of why he's not moving up despite any type of adjustment attempts; I think it's something that we know intuitively about him, that he was so great in the mid-80s, there should be some mechanism to account for that. This is why I like getting your feedback. Feel free to rant and rave all you want...all points are good points beause we need all the perspectives we can get. And I like doing this; I'm looking to keep building this and expanding its options rather than closing up shop and sending out some finalized list.

With Marino/Elway, I get what you're saying about why there should be some way to rank them over "the very good but not historically great Big 3" of Rodgers, Brees, and Favre, other than just saying "okay, I'm just going subjective here." I sent you a response last night, and then I woke up today, did some other things, and it clicked that peak score might be what was missing there. That's the thing: there are probably actual data points that support what you're pointing out here, and what others are pointing out...they may be hard to find and aren't showing up with the more traditional input data I've been using, but there's probably something that I'm missing. I want to have a system that's efficient and as simple as possible but accuracy is the most important factor and that sometimes means more complexity.

What I'd love to have in the end is not some end-all, be-all list, but some fairly intuitive adjustments that allow you to fine tune the rankings. And if we can solve the Marino problem, we're likely going to have solved a lot of other problems as well, as we'll have the ability to adjust those out too.

There are other other guys on the list whose peaks are being undervalued, so this option should exist; it's another way to likely water down Eli; another way to likely bridge the gap between Staubach/Young and Manning; and it's a way to leapfrog players who just don't excite you...someone like Roethlisberger or to some degree Brees. Someone's peak play is often the very reason we started getting excited about the NFL to begin with...much like a Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan effect; it's important for the sport itself.

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.

 

[Zarozzor]

Another important thing I look at is how good was a quarterback at leading their team to a Top/Top 10 Offense.

The first sheet is ranked by points scored, and has the first 20 quarterbacks on @Ice_Ice_Brady spreadsheet minus Baugh and Luckman with Aikman and Van Brocklin added in their place. Keep in mind the older guys will have inflated numbers because of the amount of teams in the league.

The second sheet is ranked by DVOA. It only goes back to 1984 at the moment so I used estimated numbers for 1981-1983. Personally I think this is the stat that best measures how good an offense was.

A season was counted if the quarterback started at least 50% of their teams games.

Points Scored



DVOA

 

[BaconGrundleCandy]

@Deus Irae
@Bleedthrough

What about a peak rating score to account for someone like Marino? Adjusting his passer rating for era, his 1984 season will be right up there with the best and if you emphasize that score, he should move up the list. I think without having something like that for Marino, we ae blending him with guys who didn't make a historical impact with some extremely high peak play.

I'm a peak guy and always take it into account when looking it things so I'm all for it. Consistency is great and a separator of sorts but peak shines a different light.

Also I'm of the belief that playing the QB position is like a barter system - a give & take.

For example ... Russell Wilson. Wilson could play behind the best OL in football but chooses to except pressure in exchange for a big play. So he's taking sacks consciously.

Maybe you could look at Sack %
Stand alone or take off a few points for each 40 sack season for example?

YPA
Again stand alone or a bonus for each time a QB lead the league or was top10?

INT %
Again stand alone or maybe take away a few points for leading the league or top 10 finishes

Peak performance(s)

Performance(s) against top 5-10
defenses

A lot to asked, especially the top 5-10 defenses but I think the position is so hard to define or put a number on. I'd be very interested in seeing just those factors included. Maybe add something else after, play around but I think those would give an interesting look.

 

[BobDigital]

View attachment 30879
Right now I think I'd go with these

AA Tier (1-6)
Brady (AA)
Montana (AA)
Graham (AA)
Unitas (AA)
Starr (AA)
Manning (AA)

These 6 are a lock for me right now. Brady is #1 and anyone who says otherwise is not worth wasting your breath over. I'll hear arguments over the next 5 in any order but I think it should be some order of Graham/Montana at #2 and #3. Then Starr, Unitas, Manning in some order from #4-#6.

AA Tier (?)
Baugh (AA*)
Luckman (AA*)

Like I said earlier, I personally don't/can't rank these two. As you said, there are tons of question marks about win/loss information and whether or not they started games/how much they played quarterback during certain games. If ranking these though, I agree about the 7-15 range.

AB/BA Tier
Young (BA)
Staubach (AB)
Favre (BA)
Brees (BA)
Rodgers (BA)
Elway (AB)

I lean Staubach at #7 and Young at #8. Staubach was more of a winner, but both of these guys won games and absolutely dominated as passers in relation to their peers.

The next 4 can honestly be put in any order and I don't have an issue but looking over everything right now I would order them as Rodgers, Favre, Brees, Elway. Ask me again in a week and I may have that order jumbled up.

B+B+/A-A- Tier (10-20) - Dawson’s Creek
Dawson

Agree with you here. I think he can be slotted anywhere in that range.

AC/CA Tier (15-20) - Half Great
Marino (CA)
Tarkenton (CA)
Bradshaw (AC)
Roethlisberger (AC)
Layne (AC)

No objections here either. If I had to order these 5 right now I think I'd go

Bradshaw
Marino
Roethlisberger
Layne
Tarkenton

I could see Kelly, Wilson and Aikman in the above tier also, though Aikman may be pushing it.

I don't tend to rank guys who played mostly in the pre superbowl era. I just haven't seen enough tape of them. Using tiers I'd rank the QBs like this. these tiers are within the context of the HOF. You can be in D tier and still be a HOFer. Also I'll be ranking them in order as well within their tiers.

Brady A+
Montana A
Staubach A
Young B
Elway - B-
P. Manning - B-
Brees - C+
Rodgers C+
Favre C
Marino C
Warner C-
Kelly C-
Bradshaw C-
Roethlisberger C-
Tarkenton D+
Aikman D+
Griese D
Moon D-

TBD: Wilson (almost) Mahomes (give him 7 more years). If I had to project where I think they will end up ranking..... Wilson C/C- and Mahomes A/A-

Notes: Elway 5th is kind of a a hard call. As there are several issues with him. His only super bowl wins are due to his team cheating the cap and he wasn't an amazing field general or accurate passer IMO. But he did have the IT factor to a degree to go along with his considerable talents.

Manning is ranked as my 6th overall QB in the SB era, which is higher than I've ever had him. I still believe he is a choker, but his regular season success speaks for itself, and it isn't impossible if not for Brady and the Patriots he may have more than 3 rings (although he was kind of carried to both of his. Him moving so high has more to do with my opinion on others falling than my opinion of him rising. It isn't like anyone below him is particularly clutch AND was very dominant in the regular season.

Brees over Rodgers is an interesting choice. Rodgers just has the feeling of being the more special player, but this year sold me on putting Brees above him. It was one of Rodgers best years, but when push came to shove and things got hard he folded AGAIN. His inability to beat good teams when down is real. Brees doesn't give off the same dread Rodgers does, but at least he seems more consistent no matter who he plays, and unlike Rodgers who needs to have excuses made for his playoff failings, Brees has some very real excuses that fit. A lot of bad luck.

Part of me hates to put guys like Bradshaw and Aikman so low. But in reality, they were carried to a lot of their super bowl wins. They had some clutch moments along the way, but the game in game out stuff just doesn't hold up enough for them to be higher. I wonder if they would have been 'as clutch' if they didn't have those super teams and great offensive weapons to make plays for them.

 

[Zarozzor]

I don't tend to rank guys who played mostly in the pre superbowl era. I just haven't seen enough tape of them. Using tiers I'd rank the QBs like this. these tiers are within the context of the HOF. You can be in D tier and still be a HOFer. Also I'll be ranking them in order as well within their tiers.

Brady A+
Montana A
Staubach A
Young B
Elway - B-
Manning - B-
Brees - C+
Rodgers C+
Favre C
Marino C
Warner C-
Kelly C-
Bradshaw C-
Roethlisberger C-
Tarkenton D+
Aikman D+
Griese D
Moon D-

TBD: Wilson (almost) Mahomes (give him 7 more years)

If I had to project where I think they will end up ranking..... Wilson C and Mahomes A-

Interesting. My list would look a lot different if I made it Super Bowl era only.

 

[venecol]

Because of the old phrase:
“Behind every great man is a great woman," there needs to be a trophy wife (MILF) factor.

@Ice_Ice_Brady please post pics of their wives and we get to rate them. Negative points for those that have >3 kids or use HGH.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Another important thing I look at is how good was a quarterback at leading their team to a Top/Top 10 Offense.

The first sheet is ranked by points scored, and has the first 20 quarterbacks on @Ice_Ice_Brady spreadsheet minus Baugh and Luckman with Aikman and Van Brocklin added in their place. Keep in mind the older guys will have inflated numbers because of the amount of teams in the league.

The second sheet is ranked by DVOA. It only goes back to 1984 at the moment so I used estimated numbers for 1981-1983. Personally I think this is the stat that best measures how good an offense was.

A season was counted if the quarterback started at least 50% of their teams games.

Points Scored
View attachment 30894


DVOA
View attachment 30896

Great stuff here. I should integrate these into the chart.

It looks like Marino has the biggest discrepancy, as his DVOA is more favorable than PPG. Roethlisberger to a lesser degree. I'm curious what's being missed there; both of those guys are also lower in adjusted passer rating than you'd expect too.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Because of the old phrase:
“Behind every great man is a great woman," there needs to be a trophy wife (MILF) factor.

@Ice_Ice_Brady please post pics of their wives and we get to rate them. Negative points for those that have >3 kids or use HGH.

Lauren Tannehill is probably #1.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Here is the list so far of peak score. It's a simple formula. Take the QB's passer rating for that year, subtract it from league average, multiply by 0.1.

@BaconGrundleCandy This is more of a general gauge of how great each guy was at his peak, even if that was for one season. I'm not really going for a deep dive here about what was actually the best season, how we value things like interceptions, sacks, rushing yards, etc. I'd be interested in getting some more advanced stats/metrics for QBs, as I realize that passer rating is a simple, formula with big assumptions and pretty big flaws, though I've found it's easier to find and compare, and that it does a good job of ballparking these things. I'm definitely open to more metrics, though.

I'm sure that, for example, you could argue Manning at 3.83 wasn't better than Brady at 3.46, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find an argument when two players are separated by an entire point.

Mahomes is at #42 and Jackson at #32; shows how much recency bias and inflated passing stats miss historical context.

While I like that we can see some awesomeness near the top of the list, what's interesting to me is when you start getting into the 30s and below on the list; the peak rating may be a lot more useful in boosing their points, so we can certainly account for Matt Ryan's peak season over Philip Rivers's peak season, and we can move Bert Jones up the list; I think that's important when stacking these guys up.

For guys prior to 1967, and especially for prior to 1950, I'm using a sliding adjustment for their scores, which I'm going to get into later today and hopefully get some opinions on the idea...

 

[Zarozzor]

Great stuff here. I should integrate these into the chart.

It looks like Marino has the biggest discrepancy, as his DVOA is more favorable than PPG. Roethlisberger to a lesser degree. I'm curious what's being missed there; both of those guys are also lower in adjusted passer rating than you'd expect too.

It makes me wonder if it’s possible that they aren’t as good in PPG because of playing tough defenses and/or playing more of a grind it out game (more to do with Ben than Marino with the latter.)

It’s definitely interesting though.

 

[venecol]

Lauren Tannehill is probably #1.

Pics????

 

[Zarozzor]

Here is the list so far of peak score. It's a simple formula. Take the QB's passer rating for that year, subtract it from league average, multiply by 0.1.

@BaconGrundleCandy This is more of a general gauge of how great each guy was at his peak, even if that was for one season. I'm not really going for a deep dive here about what was actually the best season, how we value things like interceptions, sacks, rushing yards, etc. I'd be interested in getting some more advanced stats/metrics for QBs, as I realize that passer rating is a simple, formula with big assumptions and pretty big flaws, though I've found it's easier to find and compare, and that it does a good job of ballparking these things. I'm definitely open to more metrics, though.

I'm sure that, for example, you could argue Manning at 3.83 wasn't better than Brady at 3.46, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find an argument when two players are separated by an entire point.

Mahomes is at #42 and Jackson at #32; shows how much recency bias and inflated passing stats miss historical context.

While I like that we can see some awesomeness near the top of the list, what's interesting to me is when you start getting into the 30s and below on the list; the peak rating may be a lot more useful in boosing their points, so we can certainly account for Matt Ryan's peak season over Philip Rivers's peak season, and we can move Bert Jones up the list; I think that's important when stacking these guys up.

For guys prior to 1967, and especially for prior to 1950, I'm using a sliding adjustment for their scores, which I'm going to get into later today and hopefully get some opinions on the idea...

View attachment 30905

Nice work. Not surprised to see Staubach at the top. Marino’s 1984 season at 12 is interesting as well because you usually hear it called the greatest passing season ever.

 

[stinkypete]

I’ve seen people on the RealGM NBA forum use Peak (best season) and Prime (5 best seasons) in their formula. Might be worth a try to see if it changes anything?

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).

 

[Zarozzor]

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).

I think if someone were to do prime with this, they would need to take their 5 best seasons even if they're spread out. And like you said, then you run into the problem of do you just choose the 5 best seasons stat wise, or their 5 best seasons total regardless of the stats?

Because even though Brady's 2007 and 2010 are considered by a lot of people to be his best seasons, there is no quarterback in history I would take over Brady from 2014-2018. Never felt more confident in a player. And I actually think 2016 Brady was his peak even though the stats say 2007 or 2010.

 

[venecol]

Here is the list so far of peak score. It's a simple formula. Take the QB's passer rating for that year, subtract it from league average, multiply by 0.1.

@BaconGrundleCandy This is more of a general gauge of how great each guy was at his peak, even if that was for one season. I'm not really going for a deep dive here about what was actually the best season, how we value things like interceptions, sacks, rushing yards, etc. I'd be interested in getting some more advanced stats/metrics for QBs, as I realize that passer rating is a simple, formula with big assumptions and pretty big flaws, though I've found it's easier to find and compare, and that it does a good job of ballparking these things. I'm definitely open to more metrics, though.

I'm sure that, for example, you could argue Manning at 3.83 wasn't better than Brady at 3.46, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find an argument when two players are separated by an entire point.

Mahomes is at #42 and Jackson at #32; shows how much recency bias and inflated passing stats miss historical context.

While I like that we can see some awesomeness near the top of the list, what's interesting to me is when you start getting into the 30s and below on the list; the peak rating may be a lot more useful in boosing their points, so we can certainly account for Matt Ryan's peak season over Philip Rivers's peak season, and we can move Bert Jones up the list; I think that's important when stacking these guys up.

For guys prior to 1967, and especially for prior to 1950, I'm using a sliding adjustment for their scores, which I'm going to get into later today and hopefully get some opinions on the idea...

View attachment 30905

So it's definitive, Aaron Rodgers is better than Tom Brady.

Thank you.

 

[Deus Irae]

Just to throw another monkey in the wrench (Yes, I know that I'm killing the expression)....


Different systems/styles in the same era will also result in theoretically unfair comparisons. Brady Manning in the early-mid 2000s is an example of this. Manning & Co. were, along with teams like the Rams, heavily oriented towards a high powered passing offense, despite having top end RBs who were capable of dominating games. Meanwhile, the New England Bradys were a much more cautious offense, focusing much more on a tight running game augmented with a lot of passes of a sort that made them essentially runs, as a complimentary part of a much more defensive oriented team.

So, naturally, that's going to have the ability to create an issue with something like passer rating, where passing yards are used as a metric. And, naturally, it's got the potential to make formulaic input an unfair comparison.

 

[Pape]

Marino is a puzzler. A more modern day Joe Namath to a degree. Lots of yards, lots of tds... and I make mention of Namath simply because of one parallel ... First to 4k and first to 5k...