Pro Football Reference Blog

Fantastic compilation of stats, especially the QB records against teams with winning records. It's fairly decent way to judge the best quarterbacks of all time.

Some quick observations:
- former current Eagles QBs Randall Cunningham and Donovan McNabb running 11th and 12th percentage-wise.
- Cunnigham and McNabb about 2 percentage points better than current or future HOFers Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, and Dan Marino.

One bit of curiousity. Jay Fiedler was always hyped as having one of the best winning percentages among active QB's during his days as a Dolphin. I would be most grateful if you could list his win-loss record against winning teams!

I wouldn't equate it to baseball. A pitcher is about 80% of the defense, so he's about 40% responsible for the result, more if he's really on.

A QB is maybe, WAG, 30% of the offense, or 15% responsible. If anybody took QB W-L seriously, Jim Everett would have had 100 fewer starts.

Tom Brady being 55-6 against teams with
losing (which way did you count 8-8?) records says more about the Patriots ability to stay focused than about Brady. I'm glad to see my main man, Milt Plum, on yet another odd list.

I don't know if this too difficult for you, is it possible to put the QB's winning % on the page. Also, wouldn't it be better if you just put regular season win-loss and leave the playoff win-loss to the playoff page.

Bill M.-----You're right about Jim Kelly, and yet they tend to forget that he led 2 Bills teams that were ranked 27th on Defense (out of 28 teams) to the S.B. So he had 2 unofficial records that I'm betting will never be equalled: leading a Team to 4 straight S.B.'s, and leading 2 teams with a defense that bad to a S.B.

Dave----I agree with most of what you say, but I think that a great QB has the ability to make everybody around him play better, thus making it a BETTER TEAM than it would have otherwise been. There are many examples of this over the years. As for Dilfer, he managed to accomplish something that Marino was not able to accomplish. Could Marino have accomplished the same thing with that Ravens Team?? Coach Johnson tried to build a similar Team in Miami and force Marino to "MANAGE" a game much like Dilfer did for Baltimore. Unfortunately, Dan played some of his worst PO games under Coach Johnson. Could Dan have played differently for the Ravens--we will never know.

Dave—-I agree with most of what you say, but I think that a great QB has the ability to make everybody around him play better, thus making it a BETTER TEAM than it would have otherwise been.

Yeah, but the same could be said of a great WR, like Randy Moss, or a great DE, like Michael Strahan, or a great player at any number of different positions. All of them can make their teammates, and by extension, their teams, significantly better. None of them, QBs included, can completely make up for the deficiencies of other players if those other players are sufficiently terrible. If they could, there would be QBs whose teams won the Super Bowl every year of their career. But no QB even gets a Super Bowl ring every other year, over the full course of their career, so there must be some other things that also factor into whether the team wins. And those "other things" are the QB's teammates, coaches, and luck.

Also, you seem to be saying that the QB can somehow influence his team's defense, which seems iffy at best. Now, a QB can play well on offense, and the team can tailor its offensive scheme in such a way that it eases the burden on the defense to some extent. But the QB can't tackle people for them. If the defense just can't tackle for shit, then it won't matter how good the offense is, or how good of a leader the QB is, the team's not winning the Super Bowl. And I don't see why anyone in their right mind would blame the QB for that, other than some dogmatic insistence that the QB get all the credit and/or blame for team performance.

But fine. Suppose the QB can somehow inspire his team's defense to play better football - fire them up before games, convince them to bring more intensity to their play, help them analyze game film more effectively, whatever. Even then, that QB isn't going to get a Super Bowl ring every year. But they might increase the team's probability of winning the Super Bowl in a given year to something like, I don't know, 10%, maybe 15%. According to Doug's 10,000 seasons post (click the link in my name to see it), that would mean the QB would make his team one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the NFL, every year, for his entire career (according to that same post, an average team would have about a 1% chance of winning the Super Bowl).

That seems unrealistically good, but for the sake of argument, let's say a QB might make his team a top 3 team, with a 10% chance at a Super Bowl win, for 10 years. I would consider a QB who did that to be a worthy Hall of Famer, and quite possibly the greatest QB to ever play the game (think Steve Young or Peyton Manning, who both have careers that would fit this profile pretty well). And yet, this QB would have a 20% chance of never winning a single Super Bowl ring.

So, yeah, maybe a QB can make his entire team better, and more likely to win a Super Bowl, but even if he does, it's still not that unlikely for him to finish his career without a ring. And it makes no sense to say that he's not a great QB just because he's one of the 20% of those QBs who doesn't win it all. Then you're just blaming him for having bad luck.

As for Dilfer, he managed to accomplish something that Marino was not able to accomplish.

We're all aware that Dilfer got a Super Bowl ring, and Marino didn't, so you're not telling us anything new. Of course Dilfer's got a ring and Marino doesn't, the whole point of the comparison is to show that the better QB doesn't always get more rings in his career. So when you reply that Dilfer has a ring and Marino doesn't, you're completely failing to address the question.

Coach Johnson tried to build a similar Team in Miami and force Marino to “MANAGE” a game much like Dilfer did for Baltimore.

Yeah, well Coach Johnson didn't build a similar team in Miami. Baltimore's defense allowed 165 points in 2000. That's far better than anything Miami ever managed. The closest Miami got while Marino was there was 242 points in 1990. So, yeah, if Miami's defense had ever been as good as Baltimore's 2000 defense, your argument might be more convincing. But it wasn't, and it isn't. Marino was better than Dilfer, and it's not particularly close (not that I dislike Dilfer. I think he was pretty good, and a lot better than people remember, but he wasn't HOF good, and Marino was).

Excellent back and forth, Alex & Denny. My 2 cents worth: Regarding Dan Marino, his lack of a credible run offense or stout defense did him in. He may have choked in the Super Bowl against the Niners in 1984 (January '85), but he came through against the legendary 1985 Bears.

A good quarterback should be a difference-maker when two teams meet with winning records, whether he is a game manager or a riverboat gambler, assuming the defenses are comparable. That's why I think it's fair to review Jay Fiedler's record as a starter versus winning teams (13-17), as opposed to his record overall (38-23). I'd say a large portion of his wins against losing or even records could be attributed to other factors, such as credible run game (an underrated Lamar Smith, Ricky Williams in his prime) and an above-average defense.

That's why it burned me so much when commentators would announce the active QB W-L stat to pump up Fiedler. It's as if the TV producers figured football fans would be too stupid to realize Fiedler was a fraud.

Thank you, Pro-Football-Reference!

I also think the quarterback doesn't(shouldn't)carry the burden of the teams loss. If you think about the factors of the game, they are endless. Dropped perfect passes, blown calls, environmental flaws(receiver or running back slipping to the ground), blown assignment by a weary lineman late in the game,
skilled player other than quarterback fumbling in a crucial moment, missed field goals or blocked punts. I could list all of the games undesirable possibilities but my fingers would hurt from typing.
I'm a Bears fan and in the season of 2005 Kyle Orton threw for a 10-5 record despite his 9td 13int and miserable 59.7 QB rating not because of his pin point throws or his ability to throw down field to a speed demon. I believe his success was due to the fact that he was difficult study film for because did not have any prestige to prepare for. Orton was unpredictable. Much like the 2000 Baltimore Ravens the 2005 Chicago Bears had a defense that kept up with the targeted record of 165 allowed points up until the end. I believe Orton like Dilfer was blessed with a unpredictability, a solid running game and a defense that could provide the offense with an extra drive or two giving the offense
extra scoring tries. This might not make any sense but the prior argument allowed me to reminisce the would of been great 2005 Bears season. No the QB is not as much a factor as sport guru's lead them to be.

As the person that did this research, I guess I should share some thoughts.

A few years ago I was completely against the idea of a QB's win-loss record being any kind of evaluator of a QB's ability. This was around the time where you couldn't get past a football argument without a Patriot fan bringing up Brady's record. After studying the history of the game some more, I came to the conclusion that it should be part of the evaluation process, but not the first thing to look at (and certainly not the last either).

The things that led me to this conclusion are real-game situations where the ball is in the QB's hands and the team is relying on him. I'm not even talking about a late 2-minute drive to bring the team back. But maybe it's the 1st quarter and you have a 3rd & goal at the 5. The QB drops back and throws just wide of a receiver in the endzone. You have to kick a FG. That's a loss of 4 pts right there because the QB just missed. Then maybe on your next drive, you come out with a pass on 1st down, but the QB misses the hot route and gets sacked for an 8 yard loss. Now it's 2nd and 18 and the drive is toast. Say these things happen a few times in each game, and you're looking at a large amount of missed points. About half of the games in the NFL are decided by 8 pts or fewer. Every drive should be taken with some importance. While many drives will end with dropped passes, missed assignments, skill player fumbles, penalties, etc. A large amount will also end by error of the QB.

Now historically speaking, you'd be hard-pressed to find a great QB that had a losing record in his career. Goalies have records in hockey, and pitchers more famously have records. We know a goalie really isn't responsible for a loss if they give up 1 or 2 goals, but the offense is shutout. We know a pitcher can't win if he isn't getting any runs. We know a QB can't win if the defense is getting destroyed. All of those things are still the same, as the QB/goalie/pitcher have more to do with the outcome of the game than any other player on the field. (Basketball is a different sport in that you really can single out any starter on a team and blame/credit them for losses/wins)

Over the course of a career those things are going to balance themselves out. I think if you put a great QB on a team that was just average or below-average in all areas (coaching, o-line, skill positions, defense, ST's, etc.) they could win 9-10 games and compete in the playoffs. A great QB must get his team in playoff contention. From there, it's up to the team to play great if you're going to win a championship. I see the Super Bowl arguments have crept into here, and I'm not sure why. This is about QB records, not the Super Bowl. Even the Trent Dilfer/Dan Marino argument has came up. How would this topic of QB records suggest Dilfer is better than Marino? He doesn't have more wins nor does he have a higher winning % than Dan.

Take a look at the top 10 QB's in wins and I think it's a legit list. 8 HOFers and it will be 10 when Manning and Favre get in. Brady will be top 10 in this and he'll also be in the HOF, pushing out Warren Moon (probably the least deserving of the top 10). Or if you looked at best winning % with a qualifier of minimum 100 starts. That list also passes the eye test for me.

The fact is you can't look only at stats to judge the best and worst QB's. A W-L record helps to add insight to those numbers. Someone might look at Jeff George's numbers and think, "this guy wasn't so bad, had some good seasons for several teams, why the bad rep?" Well if they factor in his 46-78 record as a starter and that he was a douchebag, it takes some of the air out of those numbers. Makes you start thinking that he might have put up a lot of garbage time stats in his career in losing efforts.

Just to add to Brady's accomplishments, he is number 1 in touchdown-interception ratio all-time and second to Manning in career touchdown passes per game. He also won a Super Bowl in 2003 and 2004 with league high injuries, an all- time lowest ranked rushing attack (27th in 2003) to win a Super Bowl. He did this without a great receiver until Moss came around in 2007 and look what he did when he got a weapon to throw at. He is 4th in career passer rating next to Young, Manning, Warner and Montana. He's the only one of those five to not play with an all-time great receiving tandem through most of his career and he's the only one to play his home games in winter weather. He also threw to 37 different receivers in seven years, twice the number any other QB had to develop chemistry with in the same period of time.