KRC Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 I was listening to the replay of Late Hits on NFL Radio on the way into work this morning. They were talking about an article on Pro Football Reference, listing the All-Time worst quarterbacks. So, I thought I would check it out. Being a football history buff, I thought that it would be an interesting topic. The first thing that struck me while reading the article, which plays into a pet peeve of mine, is that it is not actually "all-time," but just a limited subset of time. It just shows ignorance on the part of the writer to use a reference like that when they know full well that they are only using a small amount of data. [/rant] While at the site, they also added an article on the Best QBs of all time. The errors in this are far more striking and it just goes to show that you cannot solely use statistics to evaluate quarterbacks. For example, this author is using arbitrary numbers to compensate for touchdowns and interceptions. The fact that the author specifically mentioned that it does not take into account the quality of the team around him should raise red flags as to the validity of the data. Compound that with his results and you can see that there is a lot missing from the statistics in determining the best/worst quarterback. Let's look at the top 10 worst and best quarterbacks: Worst: Joey Harrington Rick Mirer David Carr Ryan Leaf Frank Tripucka Mike Taliaferro Gary Huff Kim McQuilken Alex Smith Kent Nix For what it's worth, Dennis Shaw was rated as the worst quarterback in Bills history according to the author's methods. Now, using their analysis, Trent Dilfer is the 16th worst quarterback of "All-Time." Now, this is a guy who has made it to a Pro Bowl, has been ranked in the top 10 (and even top 5) in passing categories at one point in his career. He is ranked worse than, say, Gary Marangi? Hell, he was the starting quarterback for the Ravens when they won their Super Bowl. Even though he had a lot of interceptions and was sacked a lot, he still does not even belong in the discussion of worst "ever." Let's get to their top 10 list of the best of "all-time." Best: Dan Marino Peyton Manning Steve Young Fran Tarkenton Joe Montana Dan Fouts Johnny Unitas Ken Anderson Roger Staubach Len Dawson Otto Graham is ranked 14th. A guy who took his team to 10 straight championship games and won seven of them is ranked 14th? How many quarterbacks do you know that took their team to the championship game EVERY year they played? 14th? Tittle is 25th? A full 21 spots below Tarkenton? Don't get me wrong. Tarkenton was a good quarterback and legitimate arguments can be made to say he was great, but that much greater than Tittle? McNabb better than Bradshaw? Culpepper better than Kelly? Hell, they have Kurt Warner a full 16 spots better than Kelly. Now, who would you rather have: Brett Favre or Ken Anderson? So, this whole exercise just goes to show that statistics are only a portion of the equation. When you rate quarterbacks on statistics alone, this is what you get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Senator Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 Regardless, I would still like to take this opportunity - and every other opportunity - to say that JP Losman sucks. I hate him. Signed, Bill from NYC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justnzane Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 Regardless, I would still like to take this opportunity - and every other opportunity - to say that JP Losman sucks. I hate him. Signed, Bill from NYC ...and since all NFL QB's suck so bad, the Bills should never draft another DB in the first round Signed, Bill from NYC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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