You Are Here > Pro-Football-Reference.com > PFR Blog > NFL and College Football Analysis
Of the new front page, which features some random games and random players, and a random team. It changes daily, and the randomizer is rigged to choose more interesting games, players, and teams more often than non-interesting ones. Sometimes I run it a few times until I really like the “random” choices it makes.
Any other ideas for things to do with that middle column?
So I finally sit down to watch the “Top Ten Tight Ends of All-Time” on the NFL Network, which has been airing over the last month. Full disclosure: I am from Kansas City and have watched Gonzalez his whole career. He is one of my all-time favorite players. He’s a great team player and team leader, he practices hard, he sacrifices for the team, he blocks well in the running game, can run and make plays in the open field, and catches touchdown passes and makes tough catches in traffic. I settle into a comfortable spot on the couch, the kids are napping, and I have a few moments to bask in the glory that will be Tony Gonzalez appearing somewhere at the top of this list. It’s like the NFL Draft, my team may not be drafting for a while, and I’m comfortable knowing this, but I am going to enjoy the lead up.
The list leads off with Antonio Gates is Number 10. Okay, he’s been pretty dominant recently, but we still do not know where his career will end up. Probably a little low, but debateable.
Number 9 is Mark Bavaro. Interesting. By career numbers probably shouldn’t be on this list, but again, debateable.
Number 8 is . . . Tony Gonzalez? What? My day is ruined. Am I crazy for having thought Gonzalez would be considered one of the best of all-time? He holds the tight end records for career receptions and touchdowns, and will pass Shannon Sharpe for most yards early next year. It’s not like he is sticking around past his prime to just pad stats either. He was second team all-NFL in 2007, and played in a pro bowl for the ninth straight season (another tight end record). After this shock to the system, I can’t even listen to what they are saying on the show, I’m so amazed.
So I get up and go to the laptop, pull up this website called pro-football-reference.com, and start comparing some numbers. And I am getting even madder. Bavaro and Gonzalez next to each other? To me, this is like saying Terrell Davis should be next to Walter Payton and Jim Brown on the all-time running back list.
Next up at #7 is Dave Casper. My blood pressure improves just a little bit. Casper had a nice career and was the dominant tight end of the late 1970’s. Well-deserved on this list, just not in front of Gonzalez. The brief improvement in mood is immediately reversed by the revelation of Jackie Smith at #6. Talk about revisionist history. Why not just put Jay Novacek in front of Gonzalez instead? You know how many times Smith was acknowledged as the best tight end in the league by all-pro voting? The same number as me. Gonzalez–five times. You would have to engage in some serious “I walked to school uphill both ways, and every player was so much better back in my day” thinking to justify this ranking of Smith ahead of Gonzalez. Jackie Smith was a good tight end and had a nice long career, but he certainly was no Tony Gonzalez.
The remaining top five were (in order) Ozzie Newsome, Shannon Sharpe, Mike Ditka, Kellen Winslow, and John Mackey. I could continue to complain and rant, but let’s get to some objective analysis first. Probably the best place to start, similar to what I talked about in comparing Jackie Smith to Gonzalez, is how the tight end was perceived at the time he was playing. Tight end is a unique position, in the sense that we have some statistics and can see how many receptions and touchdowns the tight end scored. But it also entails other things that aren’t measured by statistics directly, such as how the tight end affected the game plan, and how good or bad of a blocker he was for the running game–all things that are part of the job description. Also, I wasn’t around to see Ditka, Mackey, Smith, or Casper, and I have some vague memories of Winslow in the 1981 playoff game against the Dolphins.
So I’m not going to rely on my own opinions. And I’m surely not going to rely on the opinions of someone thirty years after the fact, particularly about a former teammate or contemporary that they are biased towards, as absence may tend to make the heart grow fonder. No, I’m going to rely on what writers and other people said about each tight end at the time they were playing, as represented by all-pro voting. This is especially important because it allows us to see how a tight end was perceived, beyond his raw numbers, when he was playing.
Just for fun, I decided to use my Approximate Value method to come up with a post-merger all-franchise team for each franchise. I’ll post them by division.
Previous Divisions:
Here are the rules:
1. The AV systems gives a player a score for each player season. To combine these into a career number, I take 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his second-best season, plus 90% of his third-best season, and so on.
2. I’m only comfortable (for now) applying the AV methodology to post-merger seasons. Players who debuted before the merger, however, are included if their post-merger seasons alone merit inclusion. In this case, they have a ‘+’ after their AV score to remind you that their career AV is (probably) higher than the number shown.
3. To avoid 4-3/3-4 issues, I gave each defense 12 players, including two DT/NTs, two DEs, two OLBs, and two ILB/MLBs.
4. Because of the slippery and changing nature of defining what a fullback is, I simply decided to go with two RB/FBs, instead of an RB and an FB.
As with most things AV-related, this series of posts is mostly just for fun, but I’m also curious to hear feedback from long-time followers of the teams about things that look fishy.
QB Steve Bartkowski 69 RB William Andrews 68 RB Warrick Dunn 50 WR Terance Mathis 57 WR Alfred Jenkins 53 TE Alge Crumpler 49 T Mike Kenn 98 T Bob Whitfield 68 G Bill Fralic 54 G R.C. Thielemann 47 C Jeff Van Note 75+ DT Mike Lewis 50 DT Travis Hall 40 DE Claude Humphrey 77+ DE Jeff Merrow 52 ILB Jessie Tuggle 74 ILB Keith Brooking 62 OLB Greg Brezina 60+ OLB Don Hansen 44+ CB Rolland Lawrence 69 CB Deion Sanders 47 SS Ray Brown 45 FS Scott Case 47
QB Steve Beuerlein 44 RB DeShaun Foster 28 RB Tim Biakabutuka 25 WR Muhsin Muhammad 63 WR Steve Smith 54 TE Wesley Walls 49 T Jordan Gross 32 T Chris Terry 23 G Matt Campbell 20 G Mike Wahle 17 C Frank Garcia 27 DT Kris Jenkins 55 DT Brentson Buckner 30 DE Julius Peppers 61 DE Mike Rucker 55 ILB Sam Mills 36 ILB Dan Morgan 30 OLB Kevin Greene 32 OLB Lamar Lathon 31 CB Eric Davis 35 CB Chris Gamble 25 SS Mike Minter 55 FS Deon Grant 22
QB Archie Manning 70 RB Deuce McAllister 51 RB Dalton Hilliard 47 WR Eric Martin 65 WR Joe Horn 61 TE Hoby Brenner 48 T Willie Roaf 75 T Stan Brock 65 G Jim Dombrowski 48 G Brad Edelman 35 C John Hill 44 DT Derland Moore 55 DT La’Roi Glover 43 DE Wayne Martin 66 DE Jim Wilks 63 ILB Sam Mills 74 ILB Vaughan Johnson 59 OLB Rickey Jackson 106 OLB Pat Swilling 79 CB Dave Waymer 61 CB Johnnie Poe 41 SS Sammy Knight 37 FS Tom Myers 49
QB Doug Williams 45 RB James Wilder 62 RB Warrick Dunn 53 WR Kevin House 40 WR Mark Carrier 36 TE Jimmie Giles 48 T Paul Gruber 61 T Rob Taylor 34 G Ian Beckles 27 G George Yarno 22 C Tony Mayberry 46 DT Warren Sapp 105 DT David Logan 41 DE Lee Roy Selmon 81 DE Simeon Rice 62 ILB Hardy Nickerson 70 ILB Shelton Quarles 56 OLB Derrick Brooks 134 OLB Cecil Johnson 47 CB Ronde Barber 98 CB Mike Washington 45 SS John Lynch 76 FS Cedric Brown 44
On Tuesday, I looked at the best regular season QBs ever. On Wednesday, I looked at the best playoff QBs ever. On Thursday, I looked at the best SB QBs ever. Today, I’m going to combine that all into a look at the best “Overall” QBs ever.
As I noted yesterday, I only have the post-season data for QBs from 1967 to 2006, and I don’t have any sack data for any QB in any playoff game. That’s going to make for some incomplete analysis, but I figure something is better than nothing.
We can take a look at the “new” 50 best seasons by a QB in NFL history. I calculated that by taking a QB’s regular season adjusted net yards above average rating, and then added in his weighted playoff adjusted net yards above average rating. The list does change a bit — Joe Montana’s 1989 season vaults into the top two. (I manually calculated Brady’s 2007 playoffs numbers since I knew his season would be high on the list, but I didn’t do it for any other QB’s 2007 post-season). Troy Aikman now has three spots in the top 50, and Mark Rypien’s 1991 jumps into the top ten.
year Reg Post Ovr Dan Marino 1984 2098 328 2426 Joe Montana 1989 1277 916 2193 Steve Young 1994 1407 721 2128 Peyton Manning 2004 1885 199 2084 Kurt Warner 1999 1490 531 2021 Joe Montana 1984 1267 581 1848 Otto Graham 1953 1808 0 1808 Steve Young 1992 1611 181 1791 Mark Rypien 1991 1257 503 1760 Tom Brady 2007 1817 - 86 1730 Ken Anderson 1981 1318 398 1716 Troy Aikman 1992 713 885 1598 Daryle Lamonica 1968 1012 562 1574 Daunte Culpepper 2004 1388 150 1538 Sid Luckman 1943 1499 0 1499 John Brodie 1970 1360 137 1496 Bert Jones 1976 1506 - 58 1448 Roger Staubach 1971 1144 296 1439 Ken Stabler 1976 985 447 1433 Dan Fouts 1981 1399 33 1432 Steve Young 1993 1262 149 1411 Drew Brees 2006 1248 162 1410 Randall Cunningham 1998 1324 80 1405 Kurt Warner 2001 1189 214 1403 Roger Staubach 1977 1031 369 1400 Joe Montana 1988 503 887 1390 Ken Anderson 1975 1292 94 1387 Terry Bradshaw 1978 669 712 1381 Jeff Garcia 2000 1354 0 1354 Milt Plum 1960 1344 0 1344 George Blanda 1961 1342 0 1342 Troy Aikman 1995 833 504 1337 Joe Theismann 1983 1142 182 1323 Jim Kelly 1990 733 572 1306 Len Dawson 1962 1297 0 1297 Brett Favre 1996 707 585 1292 Peyton Manning 2003 1220 60 1280 Peyton Manning 2006 1396 -117 1279 Peyton Manning 2005 1189 80 1269 Brett Favre 1995 1040 225 1265 Johnny Unitas 1964 1225 0 1225 Warren Moon 1990 1214 0 1214 Jim McMahon 1985 504 707 1211 Dan Fouts 1982 1275 - 76 1198 Sammy Baugh 1947 1167 0 1167 Len Dawson 1966 1164 0 1164 Troy Aikman 1993 852 307 1159 Bart Starr 1966 1158 0 1158 Joe Montana 1983 993 159 1152
In addition to Aikman’s increased presence on the list, Joe Montana has four seasons in the top 50 now. Terry Bradshaw’s 1978 rises up the list, too. It’s probably not too surprising that those guys won a bunch of Super Bowls.
Of course, we can also calculate the career ratings for each QB using the same method. Once again, be cognizant that this list is incomplete for any QB that had a post-season game outside of 1967-2006, and to the extent that they were good at avoiding sacks in playoff games, they’ll be slightly undervalued here. I put an asterisk next to guys who may have had some playoff games not counted. I also included the QB’s regular season rank from Tuesday’s list.
When people say someone is the best, or worst, Super Bowl champion of all time, you rarely know what they mean. Such a statement could mean that someone was the best QB for the course of his career, and he happened to win a Super Bowl. Think Peyton Manning. Or, it could ask who was the best QB in the season his team happened to win the Super Bowl? Think Mark Rypien or Kurt Warner. Still, it might refer to who had the best post-season run, en route to his team winning the Super Bowl. Someone like Jim Plunkett comes to mind. Finally,the statement might be incredibly literal, meaning he’s the best QB to win a Super Bowl, based on his Super Bowl performance. Maybe Doug Williams or Phil Simms.
You’d be surprised how many examples we have of QBs ranking all over the map based on which metric we use. But let’s start with a ranking of the regular season performances by all 43 Super Bowl winning QBs. I say 43 and not 42 because I’m going to count Unitas and Morrall as both winning SB V, mostly to avoid an unnecessary sidetrack as to who really deserves the credit. I think it’s Morrall, but who cares.
The following is the list of the career values of each QB that has won a Super Bowl, along with the year in which he got his ring. The list is sorted by the regular career value standard, measured against the league average. But I also added in the QB’s career value if you measure the guy’s career against three-fourths of the league average, as often that better comports with our general feelings about a guy.
Car 3/4Val Year 7946 13229 2006 Peyton Manning 7739 11712 1994 Steve Young 7006 11836 1989 Joe Montana 7006 11836 1984 Joe Montana 7006 11836 1981 Joe Montana 7006 11836 1988 Joe Montana 6211 10616 1970 Johnny Unitas 5680 8169 1971 Roger Staubach 5680 8169 1977 Roger Staubach 5604 8554 1969 Len Dawson 5107 12029 1996 Brett Favre 4123 10064 1997 John Elway 4123 10064 1998 John Elway 4101 7080 1967 Bart Starr 4101 7080 1966 Bart Starr 4004 7278 1999 Kurt Warner 3845 7917 2004 Tom Brady 3845 7917 2003 Tom Brady 3845 7917 2001 Tom Brady 3339 6478 1968 Joe Namath 2919 7299 1993 Troy Aikman 2919 7299 1995 Troy Aikman 2919 7299 1992 Troy Aikman 2799 5924 1978 Terry Bradshaw 2799 5924 1979 Terry Bradshaw 2799 5924 1975 Terry Bradshaw 2799 5924 1974 Terry Bradshaw 2785 5338 1973 Bob Griese 2785 5338 1972 Bob Griese 2723 5059 1970 Earl Morrall 2294 5098 1976 Ken Stabler 2285 4954 1991 Mark Rypien 1992 5409 1982 Joe Theismann 1892 4439 1987 Doug Williams 1840 5969 2002 Brad Johnson 1810 6071 1986 Phil Simms 1359 3849 1985 Jim McMahon 1184 3739 1990 Jeff Hostetler 1153 2992 2005 Ben Roethlisberger 273 3251 1983 Jim Plunkett 273 3251 1980 Jim Plunkett - 875 1382 2007 Eli Manning -1275 1684 2000 Trent Dilfer
So yes, you can say with some solid backing that Trent Dilfer was the worst QB to ever win a Super Bowl (and Eli will pass Dilfer very soon on the 3/4 list; he just doesn’t have enough attempts yet). But a couple of number one picks — Manning and Plunkett — aren’t that far behind him. Eli’s a pretty polarizing figure, especially after the Super Bowl, so I’ll avoid discussing his career for now. But Jim Plunkett’s a guy who had an entirely mediocre career but happened to be the first pick in the draft and win two Super Bowls. Now he happened to play very well in those post-seasons, but as far as regular season QBs go, Plunkett was your definition of average, statistically.
In case you haven’t checked out the blog in a couple of days, here’s a quick recap. On Friday, I explained the methodology I used to rank every regular season for every QB ever, and how I compiled his career rating. On Monday, I argued for Joey Harrington as the worst QB in NFL history, at least in a relative sense of receiving the most playing time while producing the least impressive stats. And then yesterday, I ranked the top 75 QBs in NFL history, leaving Dan Marino as the greatest regular season QB ever. Today, notwithstanding Jim Mora’s wrath, I want to talk about playoffs. I’m not kidding you. Playoffs.
Whenever I’ve done a study analyzing NFL QBs, a frequent complaint is that I ignore post-season data. Part of the reason is simplicity — I’ve got a long file of individual seasons, but a less complete and separate file of post-season seasons. It’s easy to compare everyone across the board based on regular season numbers, while incorporating post-season data is tricky. Let me go through a few problems.
1) What weight do I give to post-season data? Do I weigh each playoff game equally, or give more weight to the later round games? What weights should be assigned? What standard should I compare the players against — the league average for the post-season that year, or the league average for the regalar season that year? Should the QB’s rating in that year’s regular season matter?
2) Sample size issues. You might get one game against a terrific defense, or a game in a blizzard. Over the course of 10 regular seasons, I assume that those things even out. To the extent that they don’t, I believe people subjective adjust the numbers, anyway (i.e., move Fouts and Anderson down because of their innovative offensive systems, move Elway up because of his weak supporting cast, and maybe move someone like Favre up because he plays in Green Bay).
3) I only have post-season data for QBs from 1967-2006, and I don’t have sacks data for any of those games. I think that’s a pretty significant problem, but it’s not fatal. Pretty soon I’ll get the 2007 data into my database, but I didn’t want to let that delay me from posting.
4) Mostly, I thought that because the system was complicated enough, and because there would be some very real gripes with the method no matter what I chose, I took the hassle minimization approach. To be frank, I also feel that for the most part, post-season performances are overrated. Guys get way too much credit for post-season wins and losses, in my opinion, and it really overshadows the talent or ability of the QB.
But I thought it over some more. I don’t have to focus on wins or losses at all. I could look simply at the QB’s stats, and nothing more. For someone like Montana, the post-season makes up a very substantial part of his career — he has 732 post-season attempts and 5,391 regular season attempts. So I’m effectively excluding over 10% of his career by ignoring the playoffs. Of course, you could do that and he still comes out as a top five QB.
That said, I’m going to go forward with some post-season analysis in the same way I did the best and worst QB analysis — comparing the QB to the league average QB from the regular season that year. I’m going to assume, which is quite wrong, that no QB was ever sacked in the post-season from 1967 to 2006, and that no post-season games before 1967 were ever played. It’s unfortunate, and often incomplete data is worse than no data, but I’m going to cave to demand here.
So… which QB had the best post-season of all time? No matter how you slice it, it was Joe Montana in 1989. But the guy who ranks #2 on the list might surprise you.
Before the 2006 season, I wrote about the best quarterbacks of all time. With some more data on my hands, I decided to update that post. On Friday I discussed the methodology used, and yesterday, I ranked the worst quarterbacks in league history.
A couple of reminders. One, I ignored all post-season data, at least for now, mostly because it’s a complicated issue that’s worth separating out for a day. Later on this week, I plan to revisit post-season data. Two, on the list of the greatest QBs ever, I’m including sack data, and rushing yards, and using the league average as my baseline. Occasionally, though, I’ll use some other requirements when the rankings change substantially as a result.
What was the greatest season in QB history? It’s been almost a quarter-century, but Dan Marino’s 1984 season still stands alone. Sure, Marino averaged 8.51 adjusted yards per pass and 8.11 adjusted net yards per pass, but a few other QBs have topped that. What makes Marino’s season so amazing was that he kept that pace up for over 564 passes, in an era where the league average QB threw for just 4.61 adjusted net yards per attempt.
Peyton Manning and Tom Brady don’t come far behind, with their 2004 and 2007 seasons ranking second and third, respectively. Right behind those years is Otto Graham’s 1953 season, an oft forgotten yet incredible season. Graham averaged 9.41 AY/A while the rest of the NFL averaged only 3.40 adjusted yards per attempt. The table below shows the top 50 seasons by all QBs in NFL history. Remember, the second to last category, “RY4.0″, shows how many adjusted rushing yards over 4.0 yards per carry that each QB had that season:
Two years ago I wrote up a post about the worst quarterbacks of all time. Today I’ll be updating that post, while tomorrow I’ll be writing about the best quarterbacks of all time. To save myself some headaches, I’ve separated out the methodology for ranking the QBs into a separate post. That’s pretty much required reading if you want to understand how the rankings were derived.
For starters, it always bugs me how much time NFL fans spend discussing the best quarterbacks ever, and how little time we spend discussing the worst QBs ever. Let’s start with the worst single season of all time.
I doubt anyone alive today remembers the name Bud Schwenk. That’s what happens when you throw 295 passes, and complete 126 of them to your team and 27 of them to the opponents. Yes, Bud Schwenk averaged an impressive 0.69 adjusted yards per pass attempt, while the league average outside of Scwhenk was 4.25 adjusted yards per pass (After 1969, every QB will be ranked by his net adjusted yards per attempt, but we don’t have reliable individual sack data from before then). Schwenk singlehandedly dropped the league average to 3.23 AY/A, which might have misled readers into seeing how bad he really was.
Six years later, Jack Jacobs was nearly as bad, averaging negative yards per pass attempt but on over 100 fewer passes. Ineptitude kept Jacobs from passing (sliding behind?) Schenk.
And the third worst QB season of all time? You need to fast forward 51 years, to 1999. Check out this stat line:
Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD Int Sk SkYd ANY/A LgAvg ANY/A 201 381 52.8 2111 9 24 27 152 2.38 4.87
Plummer, in 1999, “contributed” 1,017 fewer yards to the Cardinals than the league average QB would have brought to the table. As far as modern seasons go, Plummer’s ‘99 stands as the worst. Here’s a list of the 25 worst seasons by any QB:
As I alluded to earlier, by-distance breakdowns of (most) kickers since 1960 have been added. We did this primarily because George Blanda’s page didn’t have enough stuff on it already.
Also, for each franchise, we’ve added a nifty little grid that shows the team’s starting lineup for each season. I think these pages are fun to just get lost in, but they’re also handy if you want to, say, quickly see how many pro bowl linemen Eric Dickerson played with while on the Rams (answer: lots).
Finally, we’ve added for each franchise a complete list of pro bowlers and first-team all-pros who earned those honors while playing for that franchise. Here are all Dolphin all-pros and pro bowlers, for example.
Both of these last two are available from any franchise’s main index page.
While I’ve got you here, I may as well hint at some more sports-reference news: within the next month or so, we’ll be launching a brand-new site. It’s not college-sports-reference.com, although we’re making some progress on that as well and there is no reason to expect we won’t meet our “Coming in 2008″ projection. It’s something new. As always, I’ll keep you up to date right here at the p-f-r blog.
A couple of years ago, I ran a post here titled “The Best QB of All Time.” It was a pretty popular and controversial post, so that’s reason enough to run it again every couple of years. All next week, I’ll be running posts on the best and worst QBs of all time. Fortunately for me, I’ve got a whole lot more data (and brains) at my disposal now than I did two years ago. The biggest change, by far, is the addition of every QB in NFL history, as opposed to just QBs since 1970.
For those that don’t remember, here’s the basic summary. We start with each QB’s adjusted yards per attempt average. AY/A is simply passing yards, adjusted by adding 10 yards for every passing TD and subtracting 45 yards for every interception. It’s a neat, relatively simple stat that does a nice job of approximating how good a QB was in a given season. Obviously this isn’t going to be perfect, as QBs on bad teams will be undervalued, while those that play with great WRs and offensive lines will be overvalued. For now, I’m just going to have to throw up my hands and so, ‘oh well.’ Additionally, of course, there’s no adjustment whatsoever for playoff performance.
To rank QBs in a single season, I simply took each QB’s AY/A ratio, subtracted the league average AY/A ratio, and then multiplied that difference by the QB’s number of attempts. This does a nice job of balancing the trade-off between compilers and guys that excelled for a short period of time.
For example…
Just for fun, I decided to use my Approximate Value method to come up with a post-merger all-franchise team for each franchise. I’ll post them by division.
Here are the rules:
1. The AV systems gives a player a score for each player season. To combine these into a career number, I take 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his second-best season, plus 90% of his third-best season, and so on.
2. I’m only comfortable (for now) applying the AV methodology to post-merger seasons. Players who debuted before the merger, however, are included if their post-merger seasons alone merit inclusion. In this case, they have a ‘+’ after their AV score to remind you that their career AV is (probably) higher than the number shown.
3. To avoid 4-3/3-4 issues, I gave each defense 12 players, including two DT/NTs, two DEs, two OLBs, and two ILB/MLBs.
4. Because of the slippery and changing nature of defining what a fullback is, I simply decided to go with two RBs, instead of an RB and an FB.
As with most things AV-related, this series of posts is mostly just for fun, but I’m also curious to hear feedback from long-time followers of the teams about things that look fishy.
QB Jim Hart 87+ RB Ottis Anderson 68 RB Terry Metcalf 53 WR Roy Green 66 WR Mel Gray 63 TE Jackie Smith 46+ T Dan Dierdorf 86 T Luis Sharpe 74 G Conrad Dobler 43 G Bob Young 42+ C Tom Banks 58 DT Eric Swann 44 DT Bob Rowe 40+ DE Ron Yankowski 43 DE Michael Bankston 38 ILB Eric Hill 47 ILB Ronald McKinnon 43 OLB E.J. Junior 52 OLB Mark Arneson 51 CB Roger Wehrli 96+ CB Aeneas Williams 82 SS Tim McDonald 39 FS Kwamie Lassiter 27
QB Jim Everett 67 RB Marshall Faulk 88 RB Lawrence McCutcheon 73 WR Isaac Bruce 98 WR Torry Holt 93 TE Bob Klein 34+ T Orlando Pace 96 T Jackie Slater 92 G Tom Mack 71+ G Dennis Harrah 64 C Doug C. Smith 63 DT Larry Brooks 77 DT Merlin Olsen 76+ DE Jack Youngblood 122 DE Fred Dryer 77+ ILB Jack Reynolds 69 ILB Carl Ekern 52 OLB Isiah Robertson 90 OLB Jim Youngblood 57 CB LeRoy Irvin 69 CB Todd Lyght 54 SS Dave Elmendorf 71 FS Nolan Cromwell 71
QB Steve Young 129 RB Roger Craig 85 RB Garrison Hearst 58 WR Jerry Rice 151 WR Terrell Owens 81 TE Brent Jones 67 T Harris Barton 79 T Keith Fahnhorst 78 G Randy Cross 75 G Guy McIntyre 56 C Jesse Sapolu 66 DT Bryant Young 92 DT Michael Carter 67 DE Tommy Hart 63+ DE Cedrick Hardman 58 ILB Mike Walter 46 ILB Frank Nunley 43+ OLB Keena Turner 59 OLB Charles Haley 55 CB Ronnie Lott 101 CB Jimmy Johnson 71+ SS Tim McDonald 49 FS Merton Hanks 60
QB Dave Krieg 78 RB John L. Williams 74 RB Shaun Alexander 68 WR Steve Largent 103 WR Brian Blades 58 TE Itula Mili 22 T Walter Jones 90 T Steve August 47 G Chris Gray 45 G Edwin Bailey 42 C Robbie Tobeck 34 DT Cortez Kennedy 98 DT Joe Nash 77 DE Jacob Green 80 DE Jeff Bryant 70 ILB Fredd Young 40 ILB Lofa Tatupu 35 OLB Chad Brown 55 OLB Keith Butler 50 CB Dave Brown 62 CB Patrick Hunter 40 SS Kenny Easley 64 FS Eugene Robinson 67
This post will do for field goal kicking essentially what Chase’s recent series of posts did for return games. It will also introduce some new data that’s soon to hit the main part of p-f-r.
Let’s start by looking at Tony Franklin 1979, Kevin Butler 1985, and Matt Stover 2006.
FGA FGM PCT
======================================
Matt Stover 2006 30 28 93.3%
Kevin Butler 1985 37 31 83.8%
Tony Franklin 1979 31 23 74.2%
I’m now going to make a case that Franklin’s season was the best of the three. You never saw that coming, did you?
The obvious observation to make here is that field goal kicking percentages have been rising consistently for a long time. And that’s right. Here are the league-wide field goal percentages since the posts were moved to the back of the end zone in 1974:
1974 0.606 1975 0.642 1976 0.595 1977 0.583 1978 0.631 1979 0.631 1980 0.634 1981 0.659 1982 0.689 1983 0.715 1984 0.717 1985 0.722 1986 0.686 1987 0.705 1988 0.717 1989 0.725 1990 0.744 1991 0.735 1992 0.726 1993 0.774 1994 0.790 1995 0.774 1996 0.801 1997 0.781 1998 0.796 1999 0.777 2000 0.796 2001 0.763 2002 0.776 2003 0.792 2004 0.808 2005 0.810 2006 0.814 2007 0.830
So we might compute as follows: in 1979, an average kicker would have made 19.6 out of 31 field goals. Franklin made 23, so he was about 3.4 field goals above average. Using similar computations on Stover and Butler, we get this:
Yesterday, we looked at the simple rating system for each team. One of the nice things about the SRS is that we can also break it down into components, such as offense and defense. To be sure, these are far from perfect — points scored is just a proxy for offense, and points allowed is just a proxy for defense. But for the most part, they’re pretty good.
We can include the offensive strength of schedule ratings, too. The Pittsburgh Steelers scored 393 points last year, and the average team scored 343 points, meaning Pittsburgh scored 2.9 PPG more than average. But the Steelers played the Rams, the Cardinals, the Dolphins, Cincinnati twice, Denver, and Cleveland twice. That’s half their schedule against really bad defenses, all of whom allowed more than 3 PPG above average (which you can see on the second chart). The Steelers offensive SOS (i.e., the quality of the defenses the Steelers’ offense faced) was just under 2.0 PPG easier than average, which means the Steelers were “morally” about 0.9 PPG better at scoring points than average. The table below shows every team’s grade.
A couple of years ago, Doug described the Simple Ranking System, which is a basic method of ranking just about anything. You can use it to rank NFL teams, as well as NFL offenses and defenses. Here’s a quick description of the system:
To refresh your memory, it’s a system that’s been around forever and is extremely basic compared some of the other power rating systems out there. But I like it because it’s easy to understand. An average team will have a rating of zero. An above average team will have a positive rating while a below average team will have a negative rating. Every team will have a rating that is the equal to their average point margin plus the average of their opponent’s ratings, so the teams’ ratings are all interdependent: the Colts’ rating depends upon the ratings of all their opponents, which depends upon the ratings of all their opponents (some of which are the Colts), and so on.
The ‘07 Eagles outscored their opponents by 36 points, or 2.3 PPG. The Eagles had a really difficult schedule, playing nine games against the Patriots, Seahawks, Packers, Giants, Cowboys and Redskins. The Eagles’ average opponent was 3.0 PPG better than average, so we can estimate that the Eagles must have been 5.3 theoretical points better than a league average team.
Ovr Rat SOS nwe 20.1 0.4 ind 12.0 0.3 dal 9.5 1.3 gnb 9.0 0.0 sdg 8.8 0.8 jax 6.8 0.1 phi 5.3 3.0 pit 5.2 -2.5 was 4.5 3.0 min 3.8 0.4 nyg 3.3 1.9 sea 1.8 -4.6 chi 1.2 2.1 tam 1.2 -2.8 ten 0.7 0.5 hou 0.0 0.3 cle - 1.1 -2.3 cin - 2.4 -2.1 nor - 2.5 -2.0 det - 3.6 2.6 nyj - 3.7 1.7 ari - 3.9 -4.3 den - 3.9 1.6 buf - 4.1 2.3 kan - 5.5 1.4 car - 5.8 -0.8 oak - 6.0 1.2 bal - 6.7 0.1 mia - 8.4 2.3 atl -10.6 -0.9 sfo -11.9 -2.9 ram -13.0 -2.0
The Patriots’ +20.1 is by far the highest of all time. The ‘91 Redskins were +16.6, the ‘85 Bears at +15.9, and only three other teams were +15.0 or higher. The Patriots had a plus/minus differential of +19.7which is of course amazing; but incredibly, New England accomplished that against an above average schedule.
The Eagles, Redskins, Lions, Bills, Dolphins and Bears all faced rough schedules in 2007; I suspect that all those teams will be at least somewhat undervalued in 2008 because of that. Conversely, the Seahawks and Cardinals had incredibly easy schedules last year. Is it even going out on a limb anymore to say that Arizona will be overvalued this year?
The SRS has a lot of uses, including some predictive ability for the next season.
Many of the posts here at the blog contain some serious analysis. This, unfortunately, will not be one of them. I should also add that the opinions and bad jokes contained herein do not necessarily reflect the views of Pro-Football-Reference.com or its parent corporation, Sports Reference, LLC.
Today, I am going to discuss John David Booty. But I’m not going to focus on his measurables, such as the size of Booty. Nor am I going to pontificate on his intangibles, like pocket presence, ability to maintain mechanics under pressure, or release, to assess how frequently Booty will be hit, smacked or sacked in the NFL. And I’m certainly not going to address his ability to wiggle or shake (or lack thereof). No, I’m going to explore the question “what is in a quarterback’s name?” Or in Mr. Booty’s case, two names.
The two named individual has a long and storied tradition, from former Presidents to children’s fairy tale writers to professional bowlers. The music industry, particularly the Country and Western wing, is a popular destination for the person sporting two names. Such singers have given us timeless classics like “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother”, “Achy Breaky Heart”, and “Just a Gigolo.” Acting is another field where two- named persons figure prominently. Tommy Lee Jones, Billy Bob Thornton, and Edward James Olmos. Police Chief Carlin from Fletch. Lando Calrissian and the voice of Darth Vader. The original Rusty, Farmer Ted, the Brain, and Gary. Doogie Howser. Stringfellow Hawke. Okay, so maybe not all Oscar-worthy performances, but certainly they had an impact on my youth.
What then, of the two named quarterback? When the Vikings selected John David Booty in the fifth round of the 2008 draft, they revived the lineage of the two named quarterback, which had been dormant since Billy Joe Hobert last turned in his unread playbook for good following the 2001 season. Okay, so maybe it’s not so long and storied.
On Monday and Tuesday, I looked at some of the best seasons by returners in league history. As noted yesterday, Josh Cribbs’ 2007 season was truly remarkable. He added 486 more adjusted yards than the league average kickoff returner would have produced, and another 136 adjusted yards above what the league average punt returner would have compiled with the same number of returns. Those 622 adjusted yards over average was the single highest total by any one player since the merger.
year KR VAL PR VAL RET VAL Josh Cribbs 2007 486 136 622 Michael Lewis 2002 297 211 508 Dante Hall 2003 266 211 477 Mike Nelms 1981 347 123 470 Brian Mitchell 1994 242 181 423 Mel J. Gray 1991 247 175 422 Billy Johnson 1977 118 283 401 Mel J. Gray 1994 347 42 389 Billy Johnson 1975 76 312 388 MarTay Jenkins 2000 392 - 9 383 Terrence McGee 2005 373 0 373 Derrick Mason 2000 208 158 366 Tyrone Hughes 1993 178 182 360 Ron J. Brown 1985 359 0 359 Eddie Brown 1976 108 249 357 Brian Mitchell 2002 222 134 356 Eddie Drummond 2004 220 129 348 Raymond Clayborn 1977 340 0 340 Ron Smith 1973 155 173 328 Jerome Mathis 2005 356 - 30 325 Jerry Azumah 2003 325 0 325 Glyn Milburn 1995 260 61 321 Brian Mitchell 1995 227 89 316 Cecil Turner 1970 322 - 9 314 Tim Brown 1988 288 25 313
When comparing returners to returners, using adjusted yards (adjusted meaning simply giving an additional ten yards for every TD score) compared to league average works well as a measure of accomplishment and value. But what if we want to compare returners to QBs? Well, that’s a little more complicated.
For example, here’s a list of the top ten QBs in yards over average last year, using adjusted yards per attempt compared to the league average.
Yesterday, we looked at a way to measure the value of a good or bad return team, and some of the best return teams of all time. To start today, here are the top 50 individual kickoff returner seasons since the merger:
kr kryd krtd AY/KR LGKR KR_VAL year team 59 1809 2 31.00 22.77 486 2007 cle Josh Cribbs 82 2186 1 26.78 22.00 392 2000 crd MarTay Jenkins 46 1391 1 30.46 22.34 373 2005 buf Terrence McGee 28 918 3 33.86 21.04 359 1985 ram Ron J. Brown 54 1542 2 28.93 22.34 356 2005 htx Jerome Mathis 37 1099 0 29.70 20.32 347 1981 was Mike Nelms 45 1276 3 29.02 21.31 347 1994 det Mel J. Gray 28 869 3 32.11 21.47 340 1977 nwe Raymond Clayborn 41 1191 2 29.54 21.62 325 2003 chi Jerry Azumah 23 752 4 34.43 22.18 322 1970 chi Cecil Turner 20 707 1 35.85 22.18 313 1970 clt Jim Duncan 40 1067 2 27.18 19.47 308 1992 atl Deion Sanders 51 1428 2 28.39 22.37 307 1998 det Terry Fair 51 1382 1 27.29 21.29 306 1999 cin Tremain Mack 58 1541 2 26.91 21.70 302 2001 sdg Ronney Jenkins 46 1314 1 28.78 23.06 301 1971 gnb Dave Hampton 70 1807 2 26.10 21.85 297 2002 nor Michael Lewis 35 1022 1 29.49 22.18 292 1970 ram Alvin Haymond 36 982 1 27.56 19.46 292 1989 pit Rod Woodson 41 1098 1 27.02 20.00 288 1988 rai Tim Brown 46 1304 2 28.78 22.58 285 2006 nyj Justin Miller 36 992 1 27.83 19.97 283 1980 nwe Horace Ivory 33 998 1 30.55 22.02 281 1996 car Michael Bates 47 1181 1 25.34 19.46 277 1989 dal James Dixon 30 924 1 31.13 23.11 275 1972 chi Ron Smith 30 892 2 30.40 21.29 273 1999 ram Tony Horne 32 968 3 31.19 22.77 269 2007 htx Andre' Davis 49 1293 2 26.80 21.31 269 1994 sdg Andre Coleman 52 1370 3 26.92 21.77 268 2004 buf Terrence McGee 57 1478 2 26.28 21.62 266 2003 kan Dante Hall 31 866 1 28.26 19.80 262 1986 nor Mel J. Gray 58 1509 2 26.36 21.85 261 2002 nyj Chad Morton 47 1269 0 27.00 21.47 260 1995 den Glyn Milburn 68 1718 2 25.56 21.77 258 2004 kan Dante Hall 36 962 0 26.72 19.57 258 1983 mia Fulton Walker 39 1082 3 28.51 22.00 254 2000 atl Darrick Vaughn 47 1291 3 28.11 22.77 251 2007 nyj Leon Washington 70 1791 0 25.59 22.02 250 1996 nor Tyrone Hughes 22 675 1 31.14 19.84 249 1984 nyj Bobby Humphery 36 929 0 25.81 18.95 247 1991 det Mel J. Gray 60 1577 1 26.45 22.34 246 2005 nyj Justin Miller 47 1281 0 27.26 22.08 243 1997 car Michael Bates 57 1497 2 26.61 22.37 242 1998 gnb Roell Preston 58 1478 0 25.48 21.31 242 1994 was Brian Mitchell 43 1148 1 26.93 21.31 242 1994 dal Kevin Williams 36 1011 1 28.36 22.54 239 1973 was Herb Mul-Key 56 1431 2 25.91 21.70 236 2001 car Steve Smith 63 1556 2 25.02 21.31 233 1994 nor Tyrone Hughes 53 1345 0 25.38 21.04 230 1985 min Buster Rhymes 28 812 1 29.36 22.18 230 1970 mia Mercury Morris
The first thing that has to stand out from that list is just how awesome Josh Cribbs was last year. His 2007 season stands alone in the pantheon of great kickoff return seasons. He brought in nearly 500 more adjusted yards than an average kickoff returner would have last season, given 59 returns.
A bit surprising, perhaps, is the appearance of only one Deion Sanders season. Mel Gray appears on the list thrice, while Terrence McGee, Justin Miller, Michael Bates, Dante Hall and Tyrone Hughes appear two times, each. And while Brian Mitchell is only on there once, he also has the 51st and 52nd best seasons.
What about the worst kickoff return seasons?
Which teams have had the best return games since the merger? How have punt returns and kickoff returns changed over the years? How in the world did the 2007 Chicago Bears returners wind up in the bottom five of one list and the top five of another? And finally, did you know the greatest return season since the merger happened last year? Sit back, relax, and get ready to hear about some returners.
Let’s begin with some league wide data on kickoff returns. The main stats — kickoff returns, kickoff return yards and kickoff return TDs — do a pretty great job on capturing the ability of a kickoff returner. Unfortunately, our database currently does not have kickoff return fumbles separated out from regular return fumbles. So to rate kickoff returns, we’re going to use adjusted yards per kickoff return, which I’m pretty sure I just created. The same logic applies to adjusted yards per kickoff return as it does to adjusted yards per pass attempt — a touchdown is worth about ten yards. So the formula is simply (Kickoff Return Yards + 10 * Kickoff Return Touchdowns) / Kickoff Returns. Practically, this has little effect compared to simply using yards per kickoff return, but it’s Just Plain Right, so that’s what we’ll do.
KR KR Yd Y/KR KR TD AY/KR 2007 2037 46132 22.65 25 22.77 2006 2037 45908 22.54 9 22.58 2005 2137 47626 22.29 12 22.34 2004 2155 46740 21.69 17 21.77 2003 2161 46595 21.56 13 21.62 2002 2205 48020 21.78 17 21.85 2001 1997 43233 21.65 10 21.70 2000 2040 44727 21.93 15 22.00 1999 2035 43196 21.23 13 21.29 1998 1857 41357 22.27 18 22.37 1997 1890 41587 22.00 14 22.08 1996 1919 42164 21.97 9 22.02 1995 2043 43767 21.42 9 21.47 1994 1842 39096 21.22 16 21.31 1993 1381 26888 19.47 4 19.50 1992 1393 27059 19.42 6 19.47 1991 1487 28094 18.89 8 18.95 1990 1632 31228 19.13 6 19.17 1989 1725 33473 19.40 9 19.46 1988 1695 33820 19.95 8 20.00 1987 1681 32664 19.43 6 19.47 1986 1693 33447 19.76 7 19.80 1985 1732 36363 20.99 8 21.04 1984 1744 34544 19.81 5 19.84 1983 1781 34816 19.55 3 19.57 1982 975 19589 20.09 2 20.11 1981 1709 34681 20.29 5 20.32 1980 1764 35143 19.92 8 19.97 1979 1781 36110 20.28 6 20.31 1978 1633 34915 21.38 7 21.42 1977 1374 29396 21.39 11 21.47 1976 1527 32743 21.44 2 21.46 1975 1471 32993 22.43 7 22.48 1974 1390 30812 22.17 4 22.20 1973 1264 28394 22.46 10 22.54 1972 1284 29613 23.06 6 23.11 1971 1335 30694 22.99 9 23.06 1970 1280 28235 22.06 15 22.18
As you can see, kickoff return averages tell a somewhat interesting story — check out the breakdown:
Over here, you can find a link to the 2007 statistical leaders. For example, the table below shows how many adjusted yards per pass attempt each QB (minimum 214 pass attempts) had last season. For those that don’t remember, adjusted yards per pass is calculated by taking a QB’s total passing yards, adjusting them by adding 10 points for every touchdown pass and subtracting 45 points for every interception, and dividing those adjusted yards by pass attempts.
Quarterback Att PYds TD INT AY/A Tom Brady 578 4806 50 8 8.56 David Garrard 325 2509 18 3 7.86 Ben Roethlisberger 404 3154 32 11 7.37 Jeff Garcia 327 2440 13 4 7.31 Peyton Manning 515 4040 31 14 7.22 Tony Romo 520 4211 36 19 7.15 Brett Favre 535 4155 28 15 7.03 Donovan McNabb 473 3324 19 7 6.76 Matt Schaub 289 2241 9 9 6.66 Matt Hasselbeck 562 3966 28 12 6.59 Jay Cutler 467 3497 20 14 6.57 Kurt Warner 451 3417 27 17 6.48 Derek Anderson 527 3787 29 19 6.11 Carson Palmer 575 4131 26 20 6.07 Drew Brees 652 4423 28 18 5.97 Jon Kitna 561 4068 18 20 5.97 Philip Rivers 460 3152 21 15 5.84 Chad Pennington 260 1765 10 9 5.62 Jason Campbell 417 2700 12 11 5.58 Joey Harrington 348 2215 7 8 5.53 Sage Rosenfels 240 1684 15 12 5.39 Damon Huard 332 2257 11 13 5.37 Brian Griese 262 1803 10 12 5.20 Cleo Lemon 309 1773 6 6 5.06 Rex Grossman 225 1411 4 7 5.05 Eli Manning 529 3336 23 20 5.04 Kyle Boller 275 1743 9 10 5.03 Trent Edwards 269 1630 7 8 4.98 Tarvaris Jackson 294 1911 9 12 4.97 Vince Young 382 2546 9 17 4.90 Marc Bulger 378 2392 11 15 4.83 Brodie Croyle 224 1227 6 6 4.54 Kellen Clemens 250 1529 5 10 4.52 Trent Dilfer 219 1166 7 12 3.18
You might recall that last year, I wrote a post on Rearview Adjusted Yards per Attempt, where I adjusted the yards per attempt numbers for strength of schedule. Well I’m going to do that again this year. The math is pretty complicated, but can be found in the link to last year’s post. But I adjust each QB and each defense for strength of schedule, to get a true rating for each QB and defense. Let’s start with the defenses, first.
I was looking through the new leaderboards, including the yearly fumbles category, when I noticed that there sure seemed to be a lot of running backs from the late seventies and early eighties with lots of fumbles. Turns out there were 32 different running back seasons between 1978 and 1985 where a running back had 10 or more fumbles. Since 1990, there have been a grand total of three: Cleveland Gary (1990), Garrison Hearst (1995) and Travis Henry (2002).
So I decided to dig a little deeper, to see if this was really a trend, and if so, when it began. Thanks to the new database, I was able to pull all seasons since 1970 by a player who played running back or fullback during his career, with fumble info. Now, I cannot tell how many fumbles are due to rushing attempts, receptions, or kick returns or punt returns. Certainly, some of the fumbles by players listed as running backs are occurring on special teams plays, so the first thing I did was find the league-wide running back fumble rates for all touches, where a touch constitutes any play for which a back might have fumbled–rush attempts + receptions + punt returns + kickoff returns. Here is the yearly data for fumble rates on all running back touches, reported as Fumble Rate Per 100 Touches: