Quarterbacks 1930-1970

SumnerH

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So I just posted about how good Sammy Baugh was in another thread; a lot of that can be chalked up to a different era (you're not going to see a QB who's also the top punter and top CB by interceptions in the league these days), but the fact that he's got a season in the top 5 all time by completion percentage (over 70%) in the 1940s is pretty interesting when none of the rest of the top 100 are pre-1975 (and 95% of the top of 100 are post 1990).

Recently I've seen some pushback on Unitas really being as good as the legend. Growing up, he and Starr were idolized. How good were they? How do they compare to someone like Jurgensen, who seems to have maybe crept ahead of them in esteem in recent years? And how do you evaluate pre-1970s QB's, especially after about 1930 or so (but feel free to discuss earlier if they're comparable)? Who are the top 10, in what order? How do you compare Otto Graham with Steve Young historically?
 

Super Nomario

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The excellent (though somewhat Brady-hating) football blog Football Perspective is doing a "wisdom of the crowds" poll on greatest QBs right now. Some interesting stuff in the comments, including some folks who stump pretty hard for Graham:

http://www.footballperspective.com/wisdom-of-crowds-quarterback-edition-2017/

To me, it's amazing that when you look at the NFL passer rating all-time leaders being dominated by modern QBs (thanks to modern pass-interference rules), you see guys like Jay Cutler and Matt Stafford leaving old school players like Johnny Unitas and John Elway in the dust.

But there is one old-time name that made the top 20 -- Otto Graham, who was active from 1946-1955 and had a career rating of 86.6. After him the oldest guy in the top 20 is Joe Montana. Looking at the top 100, I don't see any other player who played during the 1940s. This got me curious about the average passer rating by decade and I found this --

1940s: 47.8
1950s: 58.8
1960s: 69.4
1970s: 65.2
1980s: 74.4
1990s: 77.3
2000s: 80.1

Having a passer rating of 86.6 in the 40s would be like a modern player having a career passer rating of 145.1 and in the 50s, it would be the equivalent of a career rating of 118.0! That would leave Peyton Manning (career rating of 97.3), Tom Brady (career rating of 96.3), Drew Brees (career rating of 95.3), Joe Montana (career rating of 92.3) and Dan Marino (career rating of 86.4) in the dust!

And even though the public likes to rate QBs by championships, that doesn't stop him -- he's got 7 championships and still has the the record for the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback at 81% (record of 114-20-4) and still has the NFL record for career average yards gained per pass attempt, with 8.98.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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I'd be interesting to know more about Baugh's 1945 season, when he completed > 70% of his throws. He only completed over 60% in one other season in his career (putting aside his last year when he only threw 33 passes). So what did Washington do differently in 1945? I imagine the competitiveness of the league changed a bit during WWII, but if that was the big factor you'd think it would have shown up in 1944 too. And if they ran a different scheme in 1945 that allowed Baugh to be unusually accurate (maybe more short passes for example), did they stop running it afterward? He had one of the worst seasons of his career in 1946.
 

bakahump

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Didnt teams in the 30s-90s basically have the NFL version of the Reserve Clause? Plus less teams and talent distribution.

I think however you rate them you would need to look at the possibility that they had a great OL (that could not leave on their own accord) or WR or RB in addition to a Best in league (for the period) Qb.

Imagine TB with Gonzalez, Moss, Megatron and Larry Fitz for their Careers.
Mix in Ogden, Mangold and Mankins on an Dominate OL.
Finally with an Edgerrin James or Shaun Alexander at RB.

I suppose this does cut both ways in that the opposing defenses would have a comparable amount of stellar talent.

Finally wouldnt we need to imagine that Belichick developed some revolutionary new concepts that the league hadnt ever seen before (think the 2 TE Hurry up on steroids). Thats essentially what Lambeau, Halas, Brown and Steve Owen did.
 

Was (Not Wasdin)

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Joe Montana weighs in

Hall of Fame 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, whom Brady has called his favorite player of all time, said he can’t declare Brady the best ever because he doesn’t think players from different eras can be properly compared.

“I think that it’s really hard to put anyone in that bucket,” Montana told the Hallmark Channel. “Even before he got five — you look back to some of the guys some people don’t even know, Sammy Baugh or Otto Graham, I can’t remember which one but one of them won like seven or nine championships and so far ahead of their time. It’s so hard to compare guys from then to now, how they would compare here and how we would compare back then.”

...

Asked if he could call himself the best ever, Montana demurred.

“I still can’t say that of myself because of just what I said,” Montana said.
 

Al Zarilla

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I'd be interesting to know more about Baugh's 1945 season, when he completed > 70% of his throws. He only completed over 60% in one other season in his career (putting aside his last year when he only threw 33 passes). So what did Washington do differently in 1945? I imagine the competitiveness of the league changed a bit during WWII, but if that was the big factor you'd think it would have shown up in 1944 too. And if they ran a different scheme in 1945 that allowed Baugh to be unusually accurate (maybe more short passes for example), did they stop running it afterward? He had one of the worst seasons of his career in 1946.
I don't think it was a WWII thing. I see Waterfield, Luckman, et al also played that year. Steve van Buren, Don Hutson played, guys from other positions. The war was over mid August, 1945. This is crazy: speaking of star players going both ways, for interception leaders, Don Hutson and Bob Waterfield were in the top 10 in 1945. Waterfield was married to Jane Russell for a while!
 

mulluysavage

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some folks who stump pretty hard for Graham:
Whenever someone claims TB12 is the GOAT, the one thing that makes me cringe is the thought: have you considered Otto Graham? Because the guy won 7 championships. Championships are the #1 criteria in my mind, the #1 indicator of greatness. See: Marino, Brees, blah blah blah. And who won 9?(as Montana mentioned.)

I agree with Montana when he says it's apples vs oranges. Factors distinguishing the fruits include rules, equipment, evolution of the game and the importance of the QB position, salary cap... Once these guys enter a Rushmore pantheon of rare air, why bother obsessing about ranking. I like competition and all but there comes a point where arranging things in a hierarchy gets a little perverse.
 

NortheasternPJ

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Whenever someone claims TB12 is the GOAT, the one thing that makes me cringe is the thought: have you considered Otto Graham? Because the guy won 7 championships. Championships are the #1 criteria in my mind, the #1 indicator of greatness. See: Marino, Brees, blah blah blah. And who won 9?(as Montana mentioned.)

I agree with Montana when he says it's apples vs oranges. Factors distinguishing the fruits include rules, equipment, evolution of the game and the importance of the QB position, salary cap... Once these guys enter a Rushmore pantheon of rare air, why bother obsessing about ranking. I like competition and all but there comes a point where arranging things in a hierarchy gets a little perverse.
Playing in a 10 team league and winning a championship vs a 32 team league is also a bit different in the count the rings arguement.
 

Al Zarilla

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Playing in a 10 team league and winning a championship vs a 32 team league is also a bit different in the count the rings arguement.
Also, the first four of Otto Graham's championships were in the AAFC, an eight team league with likes of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers and the Miami Seahawks in it. One game championship game, bang, you're the champion. I love joe Montana, but that was a pretty dumb thing to say that Graham may be #1 because of his sheer number of titles.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Seems like QBR needs their version of OPS+
Agreed on your point but At the risk of being being pedantic, QBR is an espn specific, black box stat that has surfaced in the last handle of years. Rating is a different thing. Unfortunately espn robbed is of using the shorthand here, but it is what it is. Add it to the list of reasons to hate them
 

luckiestman

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Playing in a 10 team league and winning a championship vs a 32 team league is also a bit different in the count the rings arguement.

The NFL is at most an 8 team league. The last division winner always sucks and maybe 1 wild card team is decent.
 

Super Nomario

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The NFL is at most an 8 team league. The last division winner always sucks and maybe 1 wild card team is decent.
Maybe, but when there were only 8/ 10 / 12 teams in the league, how many of them were any good? 4?

FWIW, I think I agree with Montana. You can compare Brady to Manning or near-contemporaries like Favre or even guys like Montana and Marino who didn't overlap but played the same game, but you go back to Unitas and Tarkenton and farther back to Graham and Baugh and things get kinda silly.
 

Koufax

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Y.A. Tittle played in for the 49ers, the Giants and the Colts. He he was drafted in the 1947 NFL draft by the Lions, but he instead chose to play in the AAFC for the Colts.

With the Colts, Tittle was named the AAFC Rookie of the Year in 1948 after leading the team to the AAFC playoffs. After back-to-back one-win seasons, the Colts franchise folded, which allowed Tittle to be drafted in the 1951 NFL draft by the 49ers. Through ten seasons in San Francisco, he was invited to four pro bowls, led the league in touchdown passes in 1955, and was named the NFL player of the year by the United Press in 1957.

Considered washed-up, the 34-year-old Tittle was traded to the Giants following the 1960 season. Over the next four seasons, he won three NFL MVP awards, twice set the league single-season record for touchdown passes, and led the Giants to three straight NFL championship games. Although he was never able to deliver a championship to the team, Tittle's time in New York is regarded among the glory years of the franchise. He retired as the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts, completions, and games played. Tittle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, and his jersey number 14 is retired by the Giants.
 

MuppetAsteriskTalk

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The NFL is at most an 8 team league. The last division winner always sucks and maybe 1 wild card team is decent.
The expectation of winning a 1 game championship as a 70% favorite is 70%.

The expectation of winning 3 games to win the championship as a 70% favorite in each game is only 34%.

Let's instead say each game gets more difficult - like 70%, 60%, 50%.

The expectation of winning a one game championship as a 50% favorite is 50%.

Winning the championship with increasingly more difficult competition (70% then 60% then 50%) is 21%.

It's simply more difficult now even if the number of good teams is the same as back then.
 

reggiecleveland

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A lot of being QB was calling the plays too. I recall Montana, Elway, Marino, taking heat because coaches called the plays.

I will be as bold to say the low number of black players in the early years of pro football limited the quality of play.
 

Saints Rest

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Agreed on your point but At the risk of being being pedantic, QBR is an espn specific, black box stat that has surfaced in the last handle of years. Rating is a different thing. Unfortunately espn robbed is of using the shorthand here, but it is what it is. Add it to the list of reasons to hate them
Totally my bad for using incorrect shorthand. I was referring to the more traditional Quarterback rating that maxes out at 158.3.
 

Al Zarilla

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A lot of being QB was calling the plays too. I recall Montana, Elway, Marino, taking heat because coaches called the plays.
.
Paul Brown started sending in plays, even for Otto Graham:

Brown aroused more than his share of critics with his system of "messenger guards" shuttling plays into the game. This ran contrary to the so-called "spirit of the game," where a quarterback was supposed to call his own plays. No one had ever done this before -- indeed, college football's rules at one time even forbade a substitute from bringing in any instructions.

But it was PB's feeling that no quarterback worked as hard as a coaching staff to prepare for a game. Hence, no quarterback could be as prepared as the coaching staff to call the plays. His coaches also had a definite assignment on every play and as a whole, they could evaluate the efficacy of each play and know on the spot whether or not it was viable in the game plan. The quarterback could not see all of these elements, thus his decision-making could not be as precise.

While this was revolutionary -- and it also worked better than anyone had ever imagined -- it also brought forth a deluge of sour grapes, based primarily on an ignorance of the system that unfairly subjected his quarterbacks, particularly Graham, to needless criticism. PB always insisted that it was never disparaging to the intelligence of his QBs, and indeed, many of the calls were predicated on what the defense would do. Hence, the call going into the game would be a "check with me," call, whereby the quarterback knew what his options would be when he saw the defensive alignment, and then he called the correct option at the line of scrimmage.

From pro football researchers.org

THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 14, No. 1 (1992) Paul Brown
 
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