By: Mark Stolte
The quarterback position is one of the most important positions in all of sports. They are the leader/captain of a football team, and the majority of the time are the it factor. When looking at the history of the NFL, there are some great quarterbacks that have ridiculous achievements. With that being said, comparing them without consideration to their help and era would not be fair. So we will take all of this into account. Here is my take on the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
The first thing I did was make sure to evaluate what I see as most important in the fabled debate. The three aspects came out to be Regular Season, Playoffs, and Accolades. Playoffs is the most important, ranked at 50%. Regular season at 40%. Accolades at 10%.
The next thing I did was I measured out the aspects of a QB in each category. The regular season included 50% going towards their stats. These stats were an accumulation of their passing yards per game, passing touchdowns per game, and completion percentage compared to the average of the seasons they played in. So if the average passing yards per game was 250 for a year, and Joe Montana had 265 yards… I subtracted the numbers and divided by the standard deviation to create what they call a Z score in Statistics.
This was done so that the advent of a pass-happy league does not affect the QB because they are being compared to the ones they played against. Coaching was ranked at 17.5%. Coaching was measured by the record they had compared to the average coach in the NFL. Offensive Line ranked at 15%. RB/WR/TE ranked at 12.5%. And defense at 5%. Now of course the negative scores in these categories means the QB had good help. Positive scores mean they were doing it by themselves.
Playoffs changed a little bit. In the playoffs, defense wins championships. So the defense was upped to 15%. Coaching 15%. OLine 12.5%. Weapons 10%. Stats 39%. And of course; the most important part is winning. So superbowl wins are valued at 8.5%.
For accolades we kept it simple. MVPs at 40%. All Pro at 35%. And a famous stat that is gaining some attention: AV ranked at 25%.
While this entire process was extremely grueling, it was also very interesting. Unfortunately these are far from foolproof considering there is limited data on offensive lines in the past and no legitimately appropriate ways to measure quarterback vs weapon success rates. With that being said, here it is…
Tom Brady (84.44)
Peyton Manning (84.15)
Joe Montana (82.79)
Aaron Rodgers (81.76)
Drew Brees (76.87)
Kurt Warner (72.00)
Brett Favre (69.73)
Steve Young (61.90)
Terry Bradshaw (61.76)
Roger Staubach (53.29)
Some things you notice right away. Because I compared per game stats, players were not penalized for short careers and not awarded for longevity. If I were to go back and change some things, I would fix that. Another thing to notice is that Dan Marino and John Elway are not in the top 10. I strongly disagree with that sentiment. Stats do not tell the whole story. That is why this should be only a talking point and not the end all be all ranking. Think of these as the same level as PFF grades.