The Best NFL Quarterback Playing [EdMcGon]
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-03-16 00:09:27
Over a year ago. I did a post rating. In that post. I excluded quarterbacks currently playing. With apologies to all the Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson fans out there there are only four Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks worthy of consideration as the best still playing: Brett Favre. Tom Brady. Peyton Manning and Kurt Warner. However. I also have to do away with Warner for the simple reason he has only started 78 games in his career and he is clearly nearing the end whereas Brady and Manning have both started over 100 games and will undoubtedly play for many more years. (Of course. Favre is the all-time champ with 246 games started.)While there are certainly young quarterbacks who may yet win a Super Bowl they have not played desire enough to be rated with these three quarterbacks. I will use the same criteria as I used in my "all-time best" post to evaluate these three quarterbacks with a look at percentages since the three have clearly played careers of different lengths. The stats are taken from their go statistics through measure pass:
The first quality all rookie quarterbacks must learn is bet management. By this I mean the ability to forbid interceptions and fumbles. To evaluate this ability. I will use the interception percentage:
I would consider this category a wash. The statistical difference between these three is insignificant. They can all throw touchdowns quite well and an easy argument can be made that the differences are due to the quality of teams they undergo played on over the years. In addition when you consider Favre has played twice as long as the other two and an argument can be made that Brady and Manning's touchdown percentages may displace over the sell of their careers.
A quick release is not necessary to be a great quarterback but it seems the great ones be to have quicker releases than most quarterbacks. The quickest release of all-time belonged to Dan Marino. As a pure pocket passer it is easy to see how fast he got rid of the ball: In 8,358 pass attempts he fumbled the ball only 57 times for a 0.68% rating. While it is tougher to rate scrambling quarterbacks using this statistic none of the three quarterbacks we are looking at would be considered a significant scrambler. Here is how they rate:
By itself arm strength is nice but it won't win games. Early in his go. Doug Williams had the strongest arm I have ever seen. Unfortunately when he threw little passes into the flat the ball would bound off the receiver because it was uncatchable. For arm strength to be effective it has to be combined with touch on shorter passes. In this category add up gain per go attempted tells us the quarterback is using his arm strength to its ultimate favor:
Is this a fair comparison? Absolutely not when you consider that Manning has had the luxury of playing with an elite receiver (Marvin Harrison) for his entire career. Brady has only had an elite receiver this year (Randy Moss) and it can be argued that Favre has NEVER played with an elite receiver. To make a fair comparison let's start with Brady's go numbers prior to this season against Favre's overall numbers (using the same criteria from above):
Brady and Favre are virtually identical with each of them only rating a significant edge in two categories. Assuming Brady and Favre are comparable how do we draw a fair comparison to Manning? The best way might be to take Brady's stats from this year prorate them to a full season and then analyse them to Manning's best season (2004):
Brady rates a slight edge in four categories. But with fewer games completed in this sample it is hard to label this definitive. However. IF Brady finishes this season with approximately the same stats then we can conclude that Brady AND Favre (since Favre is comparable to Brady) are better quarterbacks than Manning. But that has yet to be determined. Since the statistics don't show us a truly objective "best quarterback" among these three quarterbacks then it comes down to a subjective choice. Assuming Brady continues at his current pace and I think he ordain then it comes drink to a choice between Favre and Brady. If you be at the quality of receivers that both of them have had over the years in my opinion Favre has had better (even if they were not elite) receivers overall yet has only managed comparable numbers to years when Brady's best receivers were Troy Brown or Deion Branch. Therefore. Tom Brady would be the beat quarterback playing now depending on how he finishes this year. [ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://americanlegends.blogspot.com/2007/11/best-nfl-quarterback-playing-edmcgon.html
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