12 Best QB's of the Super Bowl era

The other day I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Dave Dameshek Football Podcast and they were discussing who were the 12 best QB's of the Super Bowl era (1966-2018).  One of the guests, Cole Wright, made a comment about whether a QB was ever one of the 5 best QB's in the league at any time.

That got me to thinking about who really are the 5 best QB's in the league in any given season, and which QB's have been considered among the 5 best the most times.  I thought this might be an interesting way to try to come up with a top-12 list.  So I did just that.  But after compiling the list, it still didn't seem quite right to me.  I think when people think about the best QB's in the league, they also, at least subconsciously, think about whether is winning Super Bowls or not.  So I decided to also give a QB a bonus for playing in, or winning, a Super Bowl.  That gave me a list I felt was more representative.

Many times a veteran QB may be perceived as one of the best in the league, but statistically is no longer performing at that level.  Tom Brady in 2018 is an example of such a QB.  He was still playing quite well by this point, but statistically he ranked as the 9th-best QB of 2018.

So I will start off by showing you the 12 QB's that made my list, using this method.  Then, I will break down how this was calculated.

Aaron Rodgers and Terry Bradshaw are actually in a tie for 11th, but I labeled it as 11 and 12 just so that it would be more obvious that this list contains 12 names.

Method

I was not looking to create a rigorous calculation here.  I just wanted to come up with a relatively quick way to use actual statistical production in each season to estimate who the best 5 QB's were from each season.  So I ended up using 5 statistical categories that I think are the things that generally impact how we perceive how good a QB is:  Passing Yards, Passing TD's, Passer Rating, Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (ANY/A) and regular season wins.

For those unfamiliar, ANY/A is similar to a passer rating, but has a different weight for TD's and Interceptions, and also factors in sacks taken by the QB.  Also, since we don't have sack data before 1969, ANY/A was not used in my calculations for 1966-1968.

I took each QB's ranking in each of the 5 categories each season, and gave them points based on ranking.  If a QB led the league in passing yards, he got 10 points.  Second place was 9 points, etc.  Add these up for each category, and a player will have a score up to 50 points in each season (40 points for 1966-1968.)

The 5 highest scorers in each season each get credit for one season of being a top 5 QB.  As you can see above, Peyton Manning did this 15 times in his career.

Results

1966 - Frank Ryan (32 points), Don Meredith (27), Len Dawson (26), Sonny Jurgensen (23) and Bart Starr (20).  John Hadl and Johnny Unitas missed the cut by 3 points. 

1967 - We had a tie for the 5th spot, so 1967 actually had 6 QB's make the top 5 list.  Quite the contradiction, but what can you do?  They were Daryle Lamonica (29), Jurgensen (29), Unitas (25), Roman Gabriel (23), Frank Tarkenton (22) and Joe Namath (22).  Norm Snead and Dawson were close.

1968 - Earl Morrall (33), Lamonica (25), Meredith (23), Hadl (23) and Dawson (18).  Tarkenton and Namath were 2 points behind.  This was the season that Namath guaranteed a win in the Super Bowl, but he finished outside the top 10 in TD's and passer rating.

1969 - Lamonica (41), Gabriel (33), Tarkenton (31), Morton (29), Jurgensen (27).  Bill Nelson was the only one close to this list.

In 1969, I don't think people were thinking about a "Super Bowl era".  They probably weren't even sure Super Bowls were going to continue, but the AFL-NFL merger was on track to being the following season.  But after 1969, the top 12 QB's of the Super Bowl era would have been:

1. Daryle Lamonica, 3.5
1. Len Dawson, 3.5
3. Bart Starr, 3
3. Sonny Jurgensen, 3
5. Fran Tarkenton, 2.5
6. Don Meredith, 2
6. Joe Namath, 2
6. Roman Gabriel, 2
9. Earl Morrall, 1.5
4 players tied for 10th.

1970 - John Brodie (50), Tarkenton (34), Jurgensen (29), Lamonica (27) and Gabriel (22).  Craig Morton missed by just one point.  John Brodie had the first perfect score of this study.

1971 - Bob Griese (35), Roger Staubach (32), Dawson (31), Greg Landry (25) and Brodie (23).  Hadl and Gabriel get honorable mentions.

1972 - Namath (31), Billy Kilmer (27), Tarkenton (27), Norm Snead (27) and Lamonica (26).  Earl Morrall missed the cut by one point despite starting just 9 games for the undefeated Dolphins.

1973 - Hadl (39), Staubach (38), Tarkenton (34), Gabriel (33) and Ken Anderson (27).  Bob Griese gets an honorable mention.

1974 - Ken Stabler (45), Anderson (37), Tarkenton (30), Jim Hart (27) and James Harris (20).  Honorable mentions for Griese and Namath.

1975 - Tarkenton (45), Anderson (43), Bert Jones (28), Hart (27), Joe Ferguson (26).  Terry Bradshaw was sixth, but still 4 points behind fifth.

1976 - Jones (48), Stabler (45), Hart (31), Tarkenton (29), Staubach (23).  Bert Jones ranks as a top 5 QB for three seasons (1975-1977) and this 1976 season ranks as one of the era-adjusted seasons of all time.  His career was cut short due to injuries, and is an intriguing "what if" of history.

1977 - Staubach (45), Griese (39), Jones (37), Stabler (27) and Bradshaw (26).  Bradshaw makes the list for the first time, despite having already won 2 Super Bowls.  As I was not old enough at the time, I don't know if Bradshaw would have been considered one of the best QB's ever at this point.  Craig Morton missed the cut by 3 points.

1978 - Staubach (43), Bradshaw (39), Dan Fouts (34), Archie Manning (25) and Brian Sipe (20).  Fran Tarkenton was one point behind in sixth.

1979 - Fouts (40), Staubach (40), Bradshaw (37), Jim Zorn (25), Steve Grogan (21).  Joe Theismann, Stabler and Sipe were all with 2 points of making the list, but still missed the cut.  Staubach may have been the best QB in the league in 1979, but retired at year's end.

So how did things look at the end of the decade of the 70's?  These were the 12 best QB's of the Super Bowl era as of 1979:

1. Fran Tarkenton, 10
2. Roger Staubach, 9
3. Terry Bradshaw, 7
4. Daryle Lamonica, 5.5
5. Len Dawson, 4.5
6. Bob Griese, 4
6. Ken Stabler, 4
6. Roman Gabriel, 4
6. Sonny Jurgensen, 4
5 players tied for 10th

1980 - Sipe (43), Fouts (38), Ron Jaworski (38), Steve Bartkowski (38), Vince Ferragamo (27).  Danny White is sixth, but a distant 10 points behind Ferragamo.

1981 - Fouts (44), Anderson (43), Joe Montana (25), Danny White (23), Bartkowski and Morton (18).  Due to a tie, 6 guys make the list.  And Ferguson, Tommy Kramer, Bradshaw and Richard Todd were all pretty close, though had much lower scores than usually get a QB into the top 5.

1982 - Fouts (45), Anderson (37), Montana (31), White (28), Theismann (28).  Richard Todd was a distant 6th.  This was the fourth straight season that Fouts ranked first or second by this method.

1983 - Theismann (41), Montana (35), Lynn Dickey (32), White (28), Dan Marino (18).  Bartkowski was just one point behind.

1984 - Marino (50), Montana (39), Neil Lomax (37), Dave Krieg (27), Theismann, Dickey and Tony Eason (19).  There were 7 top-5 QB's this year.  Dan Marino becomes the second QB to have a perfect score of 50.

1985 - Marino (40), Ken O'Brien (40), Montana (32), Fouts (30), Esiason (25). John Elway finished 6th.

1986 - Marino (40), Esiason (37), Tommy Kramer (28), Bernie Kosar (24), Jay Schroeder (24).  Honorable mention to Dave Krieg and Ken O'Brien.  This makes 3 straight seasons at #1 for Marino.

1987 - Montana (44), Kosar (36), Marino (35), Lomax (24), John Elway (23).  Doug Williams finished 6th while throwing less than half as many passes as any of the top 5, and he went on to win the Super Bowl.

1988 - Boomer Esiason (45), Jim Everett (40), Marino (23), Randall Cunningham (21), Krieg (19).  Honorable mentions to Lomax, Phil Simms and Warren Moon.

1989 - Everett (45), Montana (40), Esiason (29), Don Majkowski (29), Mark Rypien (28).  Honorable mention for Warren Moon.

Here are our top 12 QB's at the end of the 1980's:

1. Joe Montana, 11
2. Fran Tarkenton, 10
3. Roger Staubach, 9
4. Steve Grogan, 7
5. Dan Marino, 6.5
6. Dan Fouts, 6
7. Ken Anderson, 5.5
7. Daryle Lamonica, 5.5
9. Bob Griese, 4.5
10. Len Dawson, 4.5
11. Joe Theismann, 4.5
12. Boomer Esiason, 4.5

1990 - Moon (37), Montana (35), Jim Kelly (34), Steve DeBerg (32), Cunningham (25).  Marino barely misses the cut.

1991 - Rypien (45), Kelly (43), Marino (29), Moon (25), Steve Young (22).  Honorable mentions to Bernie Kosar and Chris Miller.

1992 - Young (48), Troy Aikman (36), Marino (34), Bobby Hebert (26), Kelly (24).  Wade Wilson was 5 points back in 6th.

1993 - Young (46), Elway (37), Aikman (29), Kelly (21), Moon (20).  Honorable mention to Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason.  I believe this is the first season where all 5 QB's were elected to the HOF.

1994 - Young (47), Marino (38), Brett Favre (30), Drew Bledsoe (23), Krieg (18).  Horoble mentions for Chris Chandler, Aikman and Everett.  Bledsoe made the list strictly from his counting stats, as his rate stats were pretty rough.  He threw 36 more passes than any QB ever had in a season.

1995 - Favre (47), Scott Mitchell (34), Erik Kramer (29), Aikman (24), Moon (20).  4 of these QB's played in the NFC Central division.

1996 - Favre (44), Elway (30), Vinny Testaverde (30), Bledsoe (26), Young (22).  Honorable mention to Mark Brunell.  After being the first pick in the draft, Vinny Testaverde finally played like one of the 5 best QB's in the league at age 33.

1997 - Favre (44), Jeff George (28), Elway (28), Bledsoe (27), Young (27).  Three straight years at the top of the list for Favre, along with 3 MVP's during that time leave little doubt that he was the best QB in the league.

1998 - Cunningham (45), Young (41), Testaverde (35), Chandler (29), Favre (25). Elway finished in 6th place in his final year in the league.

1999 - Kurt Warner (49), Peyton Manning (41), Steve Beuerlein (36), Brad Johnson (33), George (23).  Honorable mention to Rich Gannon.  Kurt Warner came out of nowhere to put up one of the greatest passing seasons ever.

Through 1999, here are the top 12 QB's of the Super Bowl era:

1. Joe Montana, 12
2. Fran Tarkenton, 10
3. Dan Marino, 9.5
4. Roger Staubach, 9
5. Steve Young, 8
6. John Elway, 7.5
7. Terry Bradshaw, 7
8. Brett Favre, 6.5
9. Troy Aikman, 6
10. Jim Kelly, 6
11. Dan Fouts, 6
12. Daryle Lamonica, 5.5
12. Ken Anderson, 5.5


Daryle Lamonica is rarely considered an all-time great QB, mainly because his career consisted of only 6 seasons as a starter.  But in those 6 seasons, he was amongst the 5 best QB's in the NFL (or AFL-NFL combined) for 5 of them, and as of 1999 he still ranked amongst the 12 best of the Super Bowl era.

2000 - Daunte Culpepper (36), Peyton Manning (35), Jeff Garcia (30), Gannon (23), Elvis Grbac (21), Warner (21).  Honorable mention for Brian Griese.

2001 - Warner (50), Favre (41), Garcia (33), Gannon (31), Peyton Manning (21).  Warner puts up the third perfect score.  No honorable mentions here.

2002 - Gannon (40), Peyton Manning (30), Trent Green (23), Chad Pennington (22), Brad Johnson (21), Favre (21).  Marc Bulger, Kerry Collins and Tom Brady get honorable mentions.

2003 - Peyton Manning (45), Green (37), Steve McNair (27), Matt Hasselbeck (24), Culpepper (21).  Honorable mention for Favre.  Manning and McNair split the MVP, but by this method Manning was much better.  Tom Brady received MVP votes in 2003, but ranked 7th in this method.  Strangely, it was his rate stats that were holding him back - not his counting stats.

2004 - Peyton Manning (45), Culpepper (37), McNabb (35), Favre (23), Drew Brees (23), Green (23).  There were 6 players in the top 5 and Tom Brady finished in 7th - 2 points behind.

2005 - Peyton Manning (43), Carson Palmer (41), Brady (31), Hasselbeck (29), Green (22).  For the first time, Tom Brady ranks among the best 5 QB's in the league. 

2006 - Peyton Manning (46), Brees (39), Palmer (26), Bulger (21), Philip Rivers (20).  This makes 4 straight seasons at the top for Manning, with all 4 seasons worth at least 43 points.

2007 - Tom Brady (50), Tony Romo (36), Peyton Manning (35), Favre (31), Ben Roethlisberger (26).  Brady puts up the fourth perfect season.

2008 - Brees (36), Rivers (35), Warner (32), Peyton Manning (32), Pennington (24).  Aaron Rodgers finished 6th with 20 points. 

2009 - Brees (44), Peyton Manning (39), Favre (34), Rivers (32), Rodgers (31).

Top 12 QB's through 2009:

1. Peyton Manning, 12.5
2. Joe Montana, 12
3. Brett Favre, 11.5
4. Fran Tarkenton, 10
5. Dan Marino, 9.5
6. Roger Staubach, 9
7. Steve Young, 8
8. John Elway, 7.5
9. Terry Bradshaw, 7
10. Kurt Warner, 6
10. Dan Fouts, 6
10. Jim Kelly, 6
10. Troy Aikman, 6

2010 - Brady (43), Rivers (34), Rodgers (30), Brees (23), Peyton Manning (21).

2011 - Rodgers (45), Brees (45), Brady (42), Matthew Stafford (30), Eli Manning (24).  Tony Romo was 2 points behind.  This is Eli Manning's only appearance on the list.

2012 - Peyton Manning (42), Rodgers (34), Brady (34), Matt Ryan (30), Brees (26).

2013 - Peyton Manning (48), Brees (33), Rivers (26), Nick Foles (23), Russell Wilson (18).  Honorable mentions for Andy Dalton and Josh McCown.

2014 - Rodgers (41), Peyton Manning (38), Roethlisberger (35), Romo (35), Andrew Luck (32).

2015 - Palmer (43), Brady (40), Wilson (27), Brees (25), Newton (24).  Honorable mention for Andy Dalton.

2016 - Ryan (46), Rodgers (32), Brees (29), Brady (27), Dak Prescott (26).

2017 - Brady (40), Brees (32), Jared Goff (28), Carson Wentz (25), Alex Smith (24).

2018 - Patrick Mahomes (46), Brees (32), Goff (29), Ryan (29), Rivers (27).

Longest-Tenured NFL players

Chase Stuart at footballperspective.com had a blog post this week listing the longest-tenured player for each NFL team.  I usually find it interesting to visualize things like this.  So here's a chart showing the timeline for each team's longest-tenured player, as of 6/25/13.

Last NFL Playoff Win

This chart shows the last season that each NFL team won a playoff game.  (updated through 2012 NFL season)

Grading the 2005 NFL Draft Grades

Every year the experts like to immediately grade each teams' NFL draft. I've always thought these are useless, because the experts really have no idea which players are going to be good. So I thought I would grade a past draft.

I randomly picked 2005. It's long ago enough that we have a good idea which players turned out good or not. It's also near enough that I found some draft grades online. I decided to compare to SI's Dr. Z 2005 draft grades.

I figure that for each draft a team can only do as well as the players that are available, so each draft is its own entity. I took a look at the Approximate Value* from Pro-Football-Reference.com 's 2005 Draft summary. The top picks that year were guys like DeMarcus Ware, Aaron Rodgers, Roddy White, Logan Mankins and Frank Gore. I am going to give any of the top-32 AV players a grade of "A". Any player who is 33-64 in career AV (through 2011) gets a "B". 65-96 gets a "C". 97-128 gets a "D". Anybody ranking lower gets an "F".  

* One note about AV: PFR doesn't calculate AV for punters or kickers.  There were 5 of those drafted and are classified as "F's" in my study, but aren't necessarily.  So teams like Jets (Mike Nugent) and Chiefs (Dustin Colquitt) are graded a bit lower than they should be.

I totaled up the GPA for each team. Here's how that shakes out:
Team GPA Grade 
DAL 2.75 C+
NYG 2.50 C
NWE 2.29 C-
SDG 2.29 C-
CHI 2.17 C-
MIA 2.17 C-
ATL 2.00 C-
PHI 1.64 D
TEN 1.64 D
SFO 1.45 D
NYJ 1.38 D
PIT 1.38 D
STL 1.36 D
WAS 1.33 D
JAX 1.25 D-
SEA 1.22 D-
DEN 1.17 D-
ARI 1.14 D-
BAL 1.14 D-
OAK 1.14 D-
CAR 1.10 D-
CIN 1.00 D-
CLE 1.00 D-
GNB 1.00 D-
NOR 0.86 F
DET 0.83 F
HOU 0.83 F
TAM 0.83 F
IND 0.70 F
MIN 0.57 F
KAN 0.56 F
BUF 0.50 F

Lots of bad grades here. This is because with 7 picks per team (before any trades), only a few end up being NFL players, so all the guys who never play in an NFL game really drag down the average. So in order to get a fair grade, we really need to compare actual GPA to expected GPA. In a perfect draft, we would expect every team to get an "A" player in the first round, a "B" player in the second round, etc. But then teams trade draft picks around, so their expected GPA's will all be different. Kansas City had the lowest expected GPA because they had no pick at all in the second round. Minnesota had the highest ExGPA because they had 2 first-round picks, and no fifth-round picks (to bring the average down).

Here are the expected GPAs for all teams:
Team ExGPA
MIN 2.00
SDG 1.71
ARI 1.71
MIA 1.67
DAL 1.63
BAL 1.57
OAK 1.57
NYG 1.50
WAS 1.50
DEN 1.50
DET 1.50
CIN 1.43
NOR 1.43
CHI 1.33
SEA 1.33
NWE 1.29
PHI 1.27
TEN 1.27
ATL 1.25
PIT 1.25
JAX 1.25
CLE 1.25
CAR 1.20
STL 1.18
HOU 1.17
NYJ 1.13
IND 1.10
GNB 1.09
SFO 1.00
TAM 1.00
BUF 1.00
KAN 0.78

The next step is to compare these numbers. Which teams did the best (or worst) compared to their expected values? I subtracted the actual GPA from the Expected GPA, and here's what we get:

Team Var
DAL 1.13 A
NYG 1.00 A
NWE 1.00 A
CHI 0.83 A
ATL 0.75 A
SDG 0.57 A
MIA 0.50 B
SFO 0.45 B
PHI 0.36 B
TEN 0.36 B
NYJ 0.25 B
STL 0.18 B
PIT 0.13 B
JAX 0.00 B
GNB (0.09) C
CAR (0.10) C
SEA (0.11) C
TAM (0.17) C
WAS (0.17) C
KAN (0.22) C
CLE (0.25) C
DEN (0.33) C
HOU (0.33) C
IND (0.40) C
BAL (0.43) C
OAK (0.43) C
CIN (0.43) C
BUF (0.50) C
ARI (0.57) C
NOR (0.57) C
DET (0.67) D
MIN (1.43) F

Jacksonville had a GPA exactly equal to what we expected them to do! Minnesota had those 2 picks in the first round, but Troy Williamson (D) and Erasmus James (D) never contributed much in the NFL.  They were 2 of the 3 worst players picked in the first round.  The third guy David Pollack picked by Cincinnati. 

Dallas scored big with DeMarcus Ware (A) and Marcus Spears (B) in the first round. They had 4 other picks that were A's or B's! Out of 8 draft selections, 6 of them earned A's or B's.

 Using the standard deviation for these grades (0.57), any team who had a variance above 0.56 gets an A. (-0.2) to .55 gets a B, etc.

 Dr. Z was a little vague in some of his grades, giving teams a B-/C+ (Conditional), etc. But I count 23 teams that he awarded a B or an A. I only awarded 14 such grades. He didn't give out any F's and only gave Denver a D. There are 27 teams which he graded within one grade of their actual grade, and 9 teams that graded out exactly as he predicted. Overall, it looks like he didn't do too bad a job of grading the draft. The biggest discrepancy was with Minnesota. He gave them an A and rated them with the best draft, when they actually had the worst draft. None of the Vikings' picks earned higher than a D. DT C.J. Mosley was their best pick with a career AV of just 10. Here was Dr. Z's summary for the Vikings:

VIKINGS -- Where do we start? Top pick Troy Williamson goes deep and doesn't walk off the field while the game's going on. The other first-rounder, Erasmus James, should have been the first outside rusher selected. Instead the Vikes got lucky and he was the fourth. Marcus Johnson is a serious mauler at either guard or tackle. Dustin Fox -- a cornerback or safety, take your pick -- vertically jumped 43 1/2...

His biggest misses in the other direction were the Giants and Bears who he graded out as "C" drafts, while they turned out to be "A" drafts behind picks such as: Kyle Orton, Cedric Benson, Chris Harris, Justin Tuck, Corey Webster and Brandon Jacobs. He said the Bears blew it by not helping their offensive line. He mainly downgraded the Giants because they only had 4 picks (due to the Eli Manning trade the year before), and not having much faith in Justin Tuck.

Late Bloomers - Baseball

Revised 7/22/11

I was looking at Michael Morse's (OF, Was) page on Baseball Reference and saw that he's having a pretty good season so far in 2011 (.312, 17 HR in 87 games). Then I noticed that he's 29 years old, and he's never had more than 266 at-bats in his career. It got me to thinking, how often does a player have his first good season at such a late age and go on to have a solid career.

So here's the criteria I researched: How many players had 200 or fewer career hits before their age 29 season, but went on to get 1,000 or more hits.

In order to figure this out, I used Baseball Reference's handy Play Index (which unfortunately requires a subscription now). I took a look at all players who have 1,000 career hits (there are 1,205 of these guys), and then I took a look at all players who had 800+ career hits from age 29 on. I subtracted the difference for guys appearing on both lists (meaning they had 200 or fewer hits through age 28).

There are 39 36 players who got off to slow starts for their careers, but ended up with 1,000+ career hits. Six of them are active players (Raul Ibanez, Melvin Mora, Matt Stairs, Craig Counsell, Hideki Matsui and Casey Blake). Six of these guys began their careers prior to 1900, so I have put them in a separate table. Here's the full list:

Modern Era Players:

Player	H before 29	Career H	Years
Raul Ibanez	115	1744	2001 - 2011
Davey Lopes	156	1671	1974 - 1987
Sparky Adams	101	1588	1924 - 1934
Ken Williams	56	1552	1919 - 1929
Jackie Robinson	175	1518	1948 - 1956
Melvin Mora	119	1503	2001 - 2011
Otis Nixon	80	1379	1988 - 1999
Matt Stairs	69	1366	1997 - 2011
Earl Sheely	171	1340	1922 - 1931
Jimmy Austin	0	1328	1909 - 1929
Mike Kreevich	181	1321	1937 - 1945
Kevin Millar	168	1284	2001 - 2009
Hank Sauer	49	1278	1948 - 1959
Rip Radcliff	15	1267	1935 - 1943
Craig Counsell	171	1197	2000 - 2011
Hideki Matsui	0	1172	2003 - 2011
Randy Velarde	151	1171	1992 - 2002
Casey Blake	26	1169	2003 - 2011
Tom Paciorek	136	1162	1976 - 1987
Jim Eisenreich	64	1160	1988 - 1998
Scott Hatteberg	199	1153	1999 - 2008
Lefty O'Doul	14	1140	1928 - 1934
Gavvy Cravath	80	1134	1912 - 1920
Bill Robinson	190	1127	1972 - 1983
Paul Lo Duca	42	1112	2001 - 2008
Socks Seybold	19	1085	1901 - 1908
Mike Easler	37	1078	1980 - 1987
Pedro Feliz	147	1065	2004 - 2010
George Harper	88	1030	1922 - 1929
Frank Baumholtz	182	1010	1948 - 1957

Pre-Modern Era Players:

Player	H before 29	Career H	Years
Bones Ely	152	1333	1893 - 1902
Dave Foutz	86	1253	1886 - 1896
Chief Zimmer	135	1225	1890 - 1903
Jack McCarthy	100	1205	1898 - 1907
Doc Casey	31	1122	1899 - 1907
Ducky Holmes	180	1014	1898 - 1905

EDIT: The Play Index tool only works for seasons after 1919, so originally I had Deacon White, Jim O'Rourke and Cap Anson on this list by mistake, but they both had well over 200 hits by 29.

Postage Rates

I heard that postage rates are probably going to increase in January, 2011, from 44 cents to 46 cents for letters up to one ounce.

I still think that's a small price to pay to send a letter anywhere in the country in just a couple of days. I also think the USPS provides a great service. Many people like to complain about the service, but I think those complaints are mostly unfounded.

The first postage rates were 6 cents in 1863. In 1914, the price to mail a letter had actually decreased down to 2 cents! www.inflationdata.com only has inflation rates since 1914. 2 cents in 1914 is equivalent to 44 cents in 2010 dollars. That means that compared to 1914, it's basically the same price to mail a letter now than it was then.

I haven't researched this issue at all, but I have some random thoughts about it. I assume that postage rates decreased over the first 50 years because using the mail became more popular and technology evolved. It became cheaper to process mail and the demand grew - causing prices to drop.

Inflation took off in the early 70's and postage rates increased to match inflation. So even though it seems as though postage has been going crazy lately, it hasn't made much of a change in terms of real dollars over the last century.

Here's a graph showing the price of postage since 1863:

Can Brandon Marshall Succeed in Miami?

A couple of months ago on the BS Report, Bill Simmons and Matthew Berry were discussing the 2010 fantasy prospects of Brandon Marshall. Simmons made a comment that he didn't think WR's who changed teams usually did very well, with the exception of Randy Moss. He repeated this theory this week with Mike Lombardi. At first glance, this seems fairly accurate. Guys like Carl Pickens and Alvin Harper jump to mind as guys who did very little after changing teams.

But how many players really compare to Brandon Marshall? Marshall has played for 4 seasons and 2010 will be his age 26 season. Marshall has over 100 receptions and 1,000 yards in each of the past 3 seasons. It's not often that a player with as much success, and still as young as Marshall, changes teams. There have been 36 players to gain 500+ receiving yards at age 25 or younger and then change teams the following season. If we stretch that out to include guys who were 26 or younger, the count increases to 77 players.

Of those 77 players, eight of them had 1,000+ receiving yards before changing teams, and all eight of them had fewer receiving yards with their new team:

Player	Year	Age	Team	Yards	N+1 Yards
John Jefferson	1980	24	SD	1340	632
Jeff Graham	1995	26	Pit	1301	788
Laveranues Coles	2002	25	Was	1264	1204
Peerless Price	2002	26	Buf	1252	838
Harold Jackson	1972	26	Phi	1048	874
Rob Moore	1994	26	NYJ	1010	907
Derrick Alexander	1998	26	Bal	1009	992
Antonio Bryant	2005	24	Cle	1009	733

Out of the 77 players who changed teams, only 16 had more yards in the first year with their new team than they had in the last year with their old team. The most successful of these was Santana Moss who had 1,483 yards receiving for Washington at age 26 - which was 645 yards better than his previous season with the Jets. On average, these players had 225 yards fewer with their new team than they had with their old team. If we expand the pool to include all players with 500+ yards, regardless of age, we have a pool of 249 players, and the average only increases to a 258-yard dropoff in production. In all, 47 of the 249 receivers had better seasons with their new teams.

Because of regression to the mean we know that most players who have a good season, will naturally follow those up with less successful seasons. So how did the guys do who had 500+ yards and stayed with the same team? First, let's take a look at the young guys. There have been 922 receivers to catch 500+ yards in a season, and play for the same team the following year. 326 of those had a yardage increase in year N+1 with an average decrease of 111 yards. Once again, the old guys were a little less successful. Disregarding age, there were 1,971 receivers with 500+ yards who stayed with the same team. 593 of them increased their yardage total, with an average decrease of 149 yards.

In summary:

Type	Number	Number Improved	Pct Improved	Average Improvement
Changed Teams - All Ages	249	47	18.9%	-258 yards
Change Teams - 27 or younger	77	16	20.8%	-225 yards
Same Team - All Ages	1971	593	30.1%	-149 yards
Same Team - 27 or younger	922	326	35.4%	-111 yards

These numbers reflect what we would think intuitively: younger receivers are more likely to improve on a good (500+ receiving yards) season and players who stay with their team are more likely to improve on a good season. This is because the team that has the receiver on a team knows him best and knows if he still has more good seasons left in him. Also, if a player stays with his team, he and his teammates are more familiar with each other.

But this still doesn't tell us a whole lot about whether Brandon Marshall will have success in Miami or not. Marshall has had a much better start to his career than the average receiver. Let's see if we can narrow down some comparable situations to Marshall. Marshall has averaged over 1,200 yards per season over the past 3 seasons. There are 109 other receivers who have averaged over 1,000 yards during at least one 3-year span in their careers. Only 46 of those achieved that feat by their age 26 season. There are only 2 players besides Marshall to meet this criteria and then play for a different team the following season: David Boston and Buddy Dial.

David Boston had 1,156 yards at age 22, 1,598 yards at age 23 and then 512 yards in just 8 games at age 24. Then he went to San Diego at age 25 and gained 880 yards in 14 games and that was basically the end of his career. Boston had injury problems, and was never the same player again.

Buddy Dial came into the league in 1959 with the Pittsburgh Steelers. From 1960 through 1963 while playing with Bobby Layne he had yardage totals of 972, 1,047, 981 and 1295 before being traded to the Dallas Cowboys in 1964. He played just 3 more seasons in the NFL and due to injuries never topped 283 yards in a season.

Like Marshall, there are 3 players who met these criteria for the first time last season. These are Santonio Holmes, Greg Jennings and Calvin Johnson. I'm going to remove them from the analysis. Also, Braylon Edwards, Andre Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald have yet to play their age 29 season, so I am going to remove them also. Edwards was traded to the Jets during his age 26 season after averaging 1,000+ yards his previous 3 seasons - only one of which went over 1,000 yards.

We now have a list of 39 players who had sustained success at WR prior to age 27, and have already played their age 29 season (or have retired). These 39 players went on to average 863 yards per season for their age 27 through 29 seasons. 12 of them averaged over 1,000 yards per season over that span.

The full list:
Name Yards
Torry Holt 1,466
Chad Johnson 1,414
Jerry Rice 1,397
Michael Irvin 1,391
Sterling Sharpe 1,285
James Lofton 1,271
Isaac Bruce 1,247
Gary Clark 1,227
Herman Moore 1,191
Lance Alworth 1,108
Art Powell 1,062
Hines Ward 1,047
Anquan Boldin 972
Plaxico Burress 967
Laveranues Coles 964
Andre Reed 960
Antonio Freeman 935
Steve Largent 930
Tony Hill 926
Santana Moss 881
Mark Clayton 849
Bob Hayes 825
Carl Pickens 818
Andre Rison 794
Dwight Clark 793
Randy Moss 775
Mike Quick 746
Stanley Morgan 719
Al Toon 677
Darrell Jackson 645
Mark Carrier 630
Frank Sanders 589
Cris Collinsworth 582
Joey Galloway 481
John Jefferson 400
Harlon Hill 242
Buddy Dial 238
George Sauer 170
David Boston 27

Conclusion: Obviously, there is no way to predict how things will turn out for Brandon Marshall. There haven't been many other players with similar success to Brandon Marshall who changed teams during his successful run. The closest comps are David Boston, Buddy Dial and Braylon Edwards. Boston and Dial were derailed by injuries, and Braylon Edwards who has played enough to use as a predictor for Marshall. When comparing Marshall to other players who came off 500+ yard seasons we see that generally those players will decrease productivity the following season. But when we compare Marshall to other receivers who had sustained success at a young age, we see that these players generally continued to play well through their 20's and is a who's who list of the best WR's in NFL history.

NFL Parity

(Originally posted 10/21/09)

It seems like every year - especially early in the season - you hear lots of people talking about parity in the NFL.  Some years the talk is about how even all the teams are (high parity) and some years the talk is about how many bad teams there are (low parity).  This year seems to be a year where there is quite a bit of talk about how parity has disappeared.

After just 6 weeks (some teams have only played 5 games), it is really not reasonable to make a determination about parity.  The apparent parity (or lack thereof) this early in the season is going to be strongly related to the NFL schedule.  For instance, the New York Giants have played 2/3 of their games against some of the worst teams in the league (Was, TB, KC and Oak) - so their 5-1 record might make the Giants look like a better team than they really are.

So I thought I would take a quick look and see how parity this year compares to other years.  I only looked at NFL seasons since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.

For simplicity's sake, I calculated parity by determining the average games over .500 that each NFL team finished in a given year.  For instance, if one team finished 12-4, they were 8 games away from .500.  If another team finished 7-9, they were 2 games away from .500.  I did this for every team, added them up and then divided by the number of teams.  I also normalized the values to a 16-game season for all seasons in which fewer than 16 games were played.

Here are the all-time parity rankings. 1975 comes in as the year with the least amount of parity. In 1975 there were 26 teams in the league and they each played a 14 game schedule. 19 of the 26 teams either won or lost 10+ games that year. There were 3 other teams that either won or lost 9 games (meaning if they played a 16-game schedule that year, there was a decent chance that 22 of the 26 teams would have won or lost 10+ games!).

Year	Average
1975	7.2
1976	7
1973	6.4
2005	6
1972	5.9
1977	5.7
1991	5.7
1992	5.7
1970	5.6
1986	5.6
1982	5.5
1998	5.5
1990	5.4
2003	5.4
1984	5.3
2000	5.3
2001	5.3
2008	5.2
1971	5.1
2007	5.1
1980	5
1985	5
1974	4.9
2004	4.9
1997	4.8
1979	4.6
1988	4.6
1987	4.5
1996	4.5
1989	4.4
1994	4.4
1999	4.4
1978	4.3
1981	4.3
2002	4.3
2006	4.3
1993	4.1
1983	3.9
1995	3.9

Here is a graph of the parity trend over time:

Click the image for a larger version.

Now the question is: How does 2009 (so far) compare?  If I use the same method to calculate parity for 2009, I will get a parity rating of 7.2 through Week 6, which would tie the 1975 rating.  But that's not a fair rating.  Right now the NFL sports 9 teams that are either undefeated or winless.  A straight extrapolation of records to 16 games means we'd end the season with 9 teams undefeated or winless - we know that won't happen.  Instead, I calculated each team's pythagorean record through 16 games to come up with an expected W-L record for each team.  A perfect-parity season would be if every team finished 8-8, and the parity rating would be 0.  A perfect un-parity season would be if half the teams finished 16-0 and half finished 0-16 (which could probably never happen due to the schedule) and that provide a parity rating of 16.

At the top of the standings, Pythagorus says that the Saints will win 14 games, while the Colts and Broncos will win 13.  It also says that the Rams will go 1-15 and the Titans, Browns and Raiders will go 2-14.  These seem like reasonable approximations of what could happen - though I'd guess that there will be fewer than 4 teams that win fewer than 3 games.

Using these figures, I come up with a parity rating of 6.3 for 2009 through Week 6, which would be the 4th most un-parity season of all time.  It wouldn't surprise me if the actual parity rating for 2009 is fairly high (remember, high rating means low parity), but I suspect it won't be as high as 6.3.

Updates:

Through	W-L	Pythag
Week 7	7.3	6.9

Update:
With a full season of data, 2009 finishes with an actual rating of 5.0 (using actual W-L instead of Pythag. The Pythag rating was 5.1) That puts 2009 approximately in the center of the all-time rankings. Also, the all-time average is a parity rating of 5.1 which means that 2009 ends up finishing with a less varied league than average.

Even if the Colts had gone on to a 16-0 season, that would have only bumped 2009 up to 5.1 - right at the all-time average.

So in conclusion, the early-season perception that the league had lots of really bad teams and lots of really good teams was not accurate. It probably had more to do with the way the schedule worked out early on, and maybe a higher than usual number of hot and/or cold teams early.