NFL All-Time Passer Rating Leaders - time adjusted

[DFWJC]

As we all know, NFL Passer ratings have been steadily drifting up for several decades now.
For example, the average of the top 15 passer ratings was:
76 in 1970
90 in 2000
103 in 2019

It's a big reason why the current leaderboard for career passer rating is so skewed to active players.

You can take the average rating of any year vs the current rating and come up with a real adjustment to these numbers.

Here is a TIME-ADJUSTED list of the NFL's Career Passer Rating leaders.
You'll find it makes much more sense if you want to measure players across eras.

Top 20 (of 100)

1. Graham
2. Young
3. Montana
4. Mahomes
5. Dawson
6. Jorgenson
7. Anderson
8. Rodgers
9. Staubach
10. Starr
11. Tarkenton
12. P Manning
13. Warner
14. Wilson
15. Romo
16. Brady
17. Brees
18. Unitas
19. Fouts
20. Marino

 

[ScipioCowboy]

Wasted Romo’s career. Thankfully we’re not making the same mistake with Dak.

 

[DFWJC]

21-50

21) B Jones
22) Pennington
23) Rivers
24) Kelly
25) Cousins
26) Garcia
27) Theismann
28) Griese
29) Stafford
30) Van Brocklin
31) Roethlisberger
32) Meredith
33) Prescott
34) Ryan
35) Favre
36)Gabriel
37) Tittle
38) Lomax
39) Morrell
40) White
41) Culpepper
42) Gannon
43) Kosar
44) T Green
45) Kreig
46) Eason
47) Esiason
48) Brodie
49) Hostetler
50) OBrien

 

[conner01]

Interesting way to adjust for era

 

[big dog cowboy]

Where's Aikman? Not in the top 50???

 

[DFWJC]

51) McNair
52) B Johnson
53) Elway
54) Wentz
55) Brunell
56) Moon
57) Schuab
58) Cunningham
59) ODonnell
60) Aikman
61) Simms
62) Morton
63) Bartowski
64) Goff
65) Garrard
66) McNabb
67) Carr
68) Luck
69) Kaepernick
70) George
71) Herbert
72) Tannehill
73) Greise
74) McMahon
75) A Smith

I think I'll stop here.

If anyone wants to know of someone not on the list, just ask

This could be done in many ways but it does apply the actual raw numbers and then uses a ratio to adjust to.

 

[CalPolyTechnique]

Sorry, I like the idea but I can’t see how in any comprehensible way Otto Graham, playing in the 1940s and 50s, can be rated #1 overall.

 

[mattjames2010]

Young's 1994 season, in my humble opinion, is the greatest season a QB has had in NFL history. I think he was the perfect QB outside of the injuries.

 

[DFWJC]

Interesting way to adjust for era

These guys can float up or down a few slots depending on if I use a moving average to smooth out the odd years...say plus/minus 3 years (so 1980 would include average of 1978-82) or just use the actual number for that year.

 

[DFWJC]

Sorry, I like the idea but I can’t see how in any comprehensible way Otto Graham, playing in the 1940s and 50s, can be rated #1 overall.

That's just how the number washed out. Really, he was penalized because I stopped increasing the adjustment in 1970...so anyone who's average year was before then could be higher.

These are just numbers, not at all my personal rankings.
I make no personal opinion at all on this.

Fwiw, a lot of experts do rank Graham near the top on their all-time QB lists. Some even number 1.

I could just do the list without any player who's average year of service was before 1970. Still squeezes Staubach in there but drops out some others.

 

[DFWJC]

Where's Aikman? Not in the top 50???

57 or 60th..depending on year used.
He had some truly great years but also so some pretty awful ones, unfortunately. That's just how the number fell out

His actual rating was 81.6 and his adjustment was 1.146...gettin him up to 93.55.

Everyone knows, his numbers were always lower due to how that offense was designed.

Depending on how the adjustment is made, he could go up or down as many as a dozen slots...there's a big clutter in that range. Elway, lot of greats

 

[DFWJC]

Top 20 with the numbers

1. Graham (113.9)
2. Young (112.4)
3. Montana (110.2)
4. Mahomes (109.8)
5. Dawson (108.6)
6. Jorgenson (108.6)
7. Anderson (107.2)
8. Rodgers (107.1)
9. Staubach (107)
10. Starr (105.9)
11. Tarkenton (105.7)
12. P Manning (104.5)
13. Warner (104)
14. Wilson (104)
15. Romo (103.3)
16. Brady (103.1)
17. Brees (103.1)
18. Unitas (102.8)
19. Fouts (102.5)
20. Marino (102.4)

 

[JD_KaPow]

As we all know, NFL Passer ratings have been steadily drifting up for several decades now.
For example, the average of the top 15 passer ratings was:
76 in 1970
90 in 2000
103 in 2019

It's a big reason why the current leaderboard for career passer rating is so skewed to active players.

You can take the average rating of any year vs the current rating and come up with a real adjustment to these numbers.

Here is a TIME-ADJUSTED list of the NFL's Career Passer Rating leaders.
You'll find it makes much more sense if you want to measure players across eras.

Top 20 (of 100)

1. Graham
2. Young
3. Montana
4. Mahomes
5. Dawson
6. Jorgenson
7. Anderson
8. Rodgers
9. Staubach
10. Starr
11. Tarkenton
12. P Manning
13. Warner
14. Wilson
15. Romo
16. Brady
17. Brees
18. Unitas
19. Fouts
20. Marino

You're not doing it by subtracting the two raw numbers, are you? Because passer rating is not a linear measure. Better to compare be standard deviations above/below.

 

[DFWJC]

Top 20 (of 100)

1. Graham --HOF
2. Young --HOF
3. Montana --HOF
4. Mahomes -Super Bowl MVP
5. Dawson --HOF
6. Jorgenson --HOF
7. Anderson --crickets
8. Rodgers --future HOF
9. Staubach --HOF
10. Starr --HOF
11. Tarkenton --HOF
12. P Manning --future HOF
13. Warner --HOF
14. Wilson --Super Bowl MVP
15. Romo --broadcaster dude
16. Brady --future HOF
17. Brees --future HOF
18. Unitas --HOF
19. Fouts --HOF
20. Marino --HOF

 

[Section446]

I've honestly never put much into QBR, you know a great QB when you see one, don't need statistics to tell you they're great.

 

[DFWJC]

You're not doing it by subtracting the two raw numbers, are you? Because passer rating is not a linear measure. Better to compare be standard deviations above/below.

No. Good question, and of course not.

Rolling average/SD (2 or 4 seasons front and back) of top 15 each year, the current PR ( I used was 101 but real average was 102 in 2019 so could use that) as the denominator and rolling ave as the numerator to get the factor.
Could be done many ways and would result in slight movement up or down for various players.

Mainly it got guys like Staubach (who is 48th in real Passer rating) or Montana and others, up closer to where common sense says they are.

 

[AbeBeta]

As we all know, NFL Passer ratings have been steadily drifting up for several decades now.
For example, the average of the top 15 passer ratings was:
76 in 1970
90 in 2000
103 in 2019

It's a big reason why the current leaderboard for career passer rating is so skewed to active players.

You can take the average rating of any year vs the current rating and come up with a real adjustment to these numbers.

Here is a TIME-ADJUSTED list of the NFL's Career Passer Rating leaders.
You'll find it makes much more sense if you want to measure players across eras.

Top 20 (of 100)

1. Graham
2. Young
3. Montana
4. Mahomes
5. Dawson
6. Jorgenson
7. Anderson
8. Rodgers
9. Staubach
10. Starr
11. Tarkenton
12. P Manning
13. Warner
14. Wilson
15. Romo
16. Brady
17. Brees
18. Unitas
19. Fouts
20. Marino

A big reason for the passer rating being so low is that back in the day, starting QBs might throw 3 or 4 picks an no one would bat an eye. I recall watching Ken Stabler toss 7 in a game. He remained the starter and was named to the pro bowl that year.

 

[zerofill]

Wasted Romo’s career. Thankfully we’re not making the same mistake with Dak.

No in our case, we are doing exactly the opposite... wasting the team.

 

[Section446]

No in our case, we are doing exactly the opposite... wasting the team.

#truth

 

[DFWJC]

A big reason for the passer rating being so low is that back in the day, starting QBs might throw 3 or 4 picks an no one would bat an eye. I recall watching Ken Stabler toss 7 in a game. He remained the starter and was named to the pro bowl that year.

But it really is a steady increase every year for 40 years.
The increase is as much or more from 2000-2019 and it was from 1970-1989

What you say is true about ints. But no era sands out really as worse except for very small windows of 2-3 years

Even the amazingly accurate Aikman had a lot of ints in the 90s.