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You can see how & where rules effected the game. Arguably some of the biggest came around 1980 when OL'm could start to use their hands/arms in pass pro.
Some of the old timers we're talking about ...
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I love watching Sonny
Very cool to see how far QB's have come with their drops, footwork. Just a different game. These guys were just making it work, trial & error, by any means. Today kids are funneled through elite schools & camps. Have trainers, mentors, former pros help them. Amazing to see how far it's game in a lot of respects.
That’s a great chart of passer rating leaders.
And it demonstrates that each generation has created a new standard by roughly the same ratio as the last one. So while Patrick Mahomes is awesome, what he’s doing is similar to what Sid Luckman, Sonny Jurgensen, Steve Young also did.
One thing I like to take into account is how the all-time leaderboard looked when these guys retired.
Yes, that period around 1980 is huge. The Mel Blount rule changes a lot, in my opinion, and the QB protection rules start to increase. Mel Blount Rule has arguably the biggest impact since 1933 when a forward pass is allowed anywhere behind LOS (previously had to drop back past five yards.)
History of NFL Rules
www.sportsattic.com
I watched A Football Life with Sonny Jurgensen after you and someone else in this thread wrote about him. Very informative. An incredible player…seems like another unfortunate victim of coaches thinking they’re more important than star QBs. Sonny should have gotten that nod over Kilmer.