Top NFL Quarterbacks of All Time (by statistical categories)

(last updated on January 22, 2026)

Introduction

The quarterback is the singular position on a football team that can make or break the organization’s success during a game or even a season. The National Football League is no exception to this rule, and in this post, we will cover the NFL’s best quarterbacks of all time.

How is the best QB of all time determined? Great question … we will use some of the stats and figures powered by the Pro-Football-Reference.com database and Stathead.com to find the best signal-callers in NFL history via various categories.

-Completion Percentage

-Passing Yards

-Best Turnover Ratio

-Touchdown Passes

-Championships

So, let’s review the information and compile a list of some of the top quarterbacks of all time.

Highest Completion Percentage

Connecting with teammates on passes is an important task of the signal-caller. It is not just held in high regard, but it is the expectation of the coaches, executives, players, and fans that the quarterback finds an open receiver and hits him in the hands with a spiral every time they drop back. That expectation is unachievable, but the player who completes the most has his team set up to win.

Here are the QBs that have connected with receivers better than everyone else.

This young gun of the Cincinnati Bengals picked up in the pros what he was doing back as a Tiger at LSU, putting passes on the hands of his targeted pass catchers. In six seasons, Joe Burrow has already started 77 games and has the top completion percentage in NFL history. His lofty 68.5% completion number has the fans, coaches, and eligible receivers on the Bengals happy on Sunday afternoons and is a big reason the Bengals are a scary team in the AFC.

Jimmy G. isn’t far below Burrow in pass completion percentage (67.4%). This former New England Patriot, San Francisco 49er, and Las Vegas Raider is now a backup for the Rams and ready to add to what he has done: hit receivers with catchable passes downfield. Garoppolo is about a mere percentage point behind Joe B. of the Bengals but with many more years in the NFL.

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Most Passing Yards Per Game

If we choose to see who has advanced the ball through the air the most in NFL history, we have a great list of legendary huddle bosses to talk about. Let us look first at who has the most productive yardage per game.

Unsurprisingly, the three-time Super Bowl MVP would be at the top of passing yards per game average. The Kansas City Chiefs star manages to float the pigskin downfield for an amazing 285.2 yards average in each game he starts. No wonder this guy wins ball games! That is not to say his teammates and coaches haven’t helped him get to this point, but still, to be able to chuck the rock that much each game makes one’s arm sore just thinking about it.

Another current AFC West quarterback still on the upside of his career plays in the City of Angels wearing a lightning bolt on his helmet. Justin Herbert and his teammates produce 261.3 yards of passing offense per game in games this young man from the Oregon Ducks program starts for LA.

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Best Turnover Ratio

Being a good quarterback means keeping possession of the football by not allowing big mistakes, like throwing an interception. So far in his career, one man has taken better care of the ball than anyone else.

Aaron Rodgers career interception % of 1.4 is the best of all time. What makes it most impressive is how many more passing attempts he has compared to the other top quarterbacks in this category … with the exception of Mr. Brady.

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Most Touchdown Passes

Putting points on the board is another expected function of the team quarterback. The following gentlemen under center and shotgun formation have done that more times than everyone else.

The man who called out “Omaha” more than Nebraska’s Governor was one of the best at reading a defense, changing protections, and sometimes the play at the line. Manning learned from one of the best, his father, Archie Manning, the patriarch of the first family of quarterbacks. Peyton threw for 539 TDs and almost 72,000 yards as he won Super Bowls with two franchises, the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos.

Meanwhile, down in the Bayou … Drew Brees racked up quite the career numbers after going to New Orleans after an early stint in sunny San Diego. Brees was not only the Super Bowl XLIV MVP, but the former Purdue QB also tossed 571 TDs and passed for over 80,000 yards! Brees might have been small compared to many of his peers, but he stands tall as one of the best to play the position ever.

We couldn’t dance our way around this name anymore. Tom Brady is at the top of many categories that we like to look at for metrics of a QB. The most wins, TDs, championships, passing yards, years played, games started, and a partridge in a pear tree all belong to this longtime New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers field boss. There are probably a dozen more categories he leads in, too. It is still amazing that 198 players were taken before him in the 2000 NFL Draft.

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Most Game-Winning Drives and 4th Quarter Comebacks

Who do you want in the huddle when the game is on the line in crunch time? We know that Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are at the top of the list for game-winning drives and late-game rallies. Still, a couple of other signal-callers were comparable in this category, playing fewer games than the two leaders in the clubhouse at comebacks.

Big Ben led the Pittsburgh Steelers to 53 game-winning drives and 41 final-quarter comebacks. He led Pittsburgh for almost two decades, appearing in three Super Bowls and taking home two Lombardi Trophies. Roethlisberger also holds the record for the most 500-yard passing games by a quarterback, reaching the milestone three times.

Another Captain Comeback to consider has a City of Pittsburgh connection. Marino grew up in the Steel City and played on the Pitt Panthers football team, which resulted in him being picked by the Miami Dolphins in the first round of the 1983 NFL Draft. Dan the Man produced 47 game-winning drives during his 17-year NFL career, with 33 comebacks in the game’s waning moments.

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Conclusion

The quarterback throwing the ball has been all that more important in the modern NFL game, and you can see why the men mentioned above have been so important to the success of their respective teams. So, whatever the criteria for determining the greatest quarterback of all time, you can pick your poison with these stalwarts. Visit Pro-Football-Reference.com to analyze all of these stats for yourself.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2023 at 10:51 am and is filed under Top Lists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.