In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans, and Titans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints, and Buccaneers
AFC West: Raiders, Chiefs, Chargers
NFC West: Seahawks, Rams
[continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans, and Titans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints, and Buccaneers
AFC West: Raiders, Chiefs
NFC West: Seahawks, Rams
[continue reading…]

Adam Steele is back for another guest post. You can view all of Adam’s posts here. As always, we thank him for contributing.

Last year I introduced a metric called Surplus Yards to measure the percentage of yards a QB gains from long passing plays. If you haven’t read that post I strongly encourage you to do so before continuing.

Here is a table showing every 40+ yard completion from the 2018 regular season, listed from longest completion. As you can see, Ben Roethlisberger had a 97-yard completion, a 78-yard completion, two 75-yard completions, and so on. Roethlisberger had 15 completions last year of 40+ yards, second-most in the NFL: [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans, and Titans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints, and Buccaneers
AFC West: Raiders, Chiefs
NFC West: Seahawks
[continue reading…]

Seven years ago, Andrew Luck entered the NFL as one of the greatest quarterback prospects of all time. He was expected to become this generation’s John Elway or Peyton Manning, and he never looked the part more so than on this touchdown pass:

Those who witnessed the Luck era will not soon forget it. The hype accompanied Luck was massive, because he was a perfect prospect. He not only had an arm that could do this, with little help from his legs…

But he also had legs that could do this, with a little help from his arms…

[continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans, and Titans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints, and Buccaneers
AFC West: Raiders
NFC West: Seahawks
[continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans, and Titans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints, and Buccaneers
AFC West: Raiders
[continue reading…]

This marks the end of my series on all-time division teams. As I have advertised at a shamelessly attention seeking level, I wrote this while under the influence of narcotics following back surgery. While I’m sure the series would have been better had I written while more cognizant of my surroundings, the idea of trying to sleepwalk my way through a historical piece piqued my interest. The idea of accidentally forgetting obvious players or saying things I would normally filter when thinking rationally amuses me, and I can’t pass up the opportunity to embarrass myself and my children after me. Once again, these are the rules Chase and I have agreed on:

1. I write everything before my painkiller prescription runs out,
2. I write it completely off the top of my head and don’t do any research,
3. I don’t have to proofread this when I finish it, and
4. Chase doesn’t edit my nonsense out of the article (so we can maximize my odds of getting owned online).^[1]Roster construction is as follows: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 2 TE, 2 T, 2 G, 1 C, 2 DE, 2 DT, 2 OLB, 2 MLB/ILB, 3 CB, 2 S, 1 K, 1 P, 1 HC
5. I maintain modern division designations. If a player played for the Seahawks when the team was in the AFC West, I am counting him in the NFC West. I spent five minutes staring at the corner of my phone because I didn’t remember it being that shape, so I’m sure as hell not spending time putting Aeneas Williams in the NFC East.

Previous articles:

AFC North
AFC East
AFC West
AFC South
NFC North
NFC East
NFC West

Without further ado, here’s the NFC South: [continue reading…]

In 1962, Eagles QB Sonny Jurgensen averaged 8.9 yards/attempt. In 2018, Eagles QB Carson Wentz averaged 7.7 yards per attempt.

In 1962, Packers QB Bart Starr averaged 8.6 yards/attempt. In 2018, Packers QB Aaron Rodgers averaged 7.4 yards per attempt.

In 1962, 36-year-old Giants QB Y.A. Tittle averaged 8.6 yards/attempt. In 2018, 37-year-old Giants QB Eli Manning averaged 7.5 yards/attempt.

In 1962, Redskins QB Norm Snead averaged 8.3 yards/attempt. In 2018, Washington QB Alex Smith averaged 6.6 yards/attempt.

And while those were the four best quarterbacks of 1962, a cherry-picked sample doesn’t explain the superiority of the ’62 passers.

• Vikings QB Fran Tarkenton averaged 7.9 yards/attempt in ’62, besting ’18 successor Kirk Cousins and his 7.1 Y/A average.
• Bears QB Billy Wade averaged 7.7 yards/attempt in ’62, while Chicago QB Mitchell Trubisky averaged 7.4 yards/attempt last year.
• The Cardinals? Forget about any comparison here. In 1962, Charley Johnson averaged 7.9 yards/attempt, while 2018 Josh Rosen gained just 5.8 yards per attempt for the Cardinals.
• In 1962, Dallas split its quarterback duties between Eddie LeBaron and Don Meredith. The 32-year-old LeBaron averaged 8.7 yards per attempt in 6 starts, while the 24-year-old Meredith averaged 7.9 yards per attempt in 8 starts; either way, both bested 2018 Dak Prescott, who averaged 7.4 yards per attempt for the Cowboys.

At this point, you’re probably thinking that I’m engaging in some form of misdirection about the 1962 season versus the 2018 season. I can assure you I am not. In 1962, Lions QB Milt Plum gained 7.3 yards per attempt; in ’18, Detroit QB Matthew Stafford averaged 6.8 yards per attempt. What about the Colts? Well, in 1962, John Unitas averaged 7.6 yards per attempt; that’s better than 2018 Andrew Luck, who gained 7.2 yards per pass attempt. In 1962, Cleveland QB Frank Ryan averaged 7.9 yards per attempt; in 2018, Cleveland QB Baker Mayfield averaged 7.7 yards per attempt.

There were 14 teams in the NFL in 1962, and all 14 teams are still around today (albeit with some relocation). Relative to the starting quarterbacks for those teams in 2018, 11 of the starting quarterbacks in 1962 averaged more yards per pass attempt than their 2018 successors. The three outliers were in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In 1962, John Brodie averaged a very respectable 7.5 yards per attempt, but 2018 Nick Mullens averaged 8.3 yards per attempt. If you expected to read an article about how Nick Mullens helped save the 2018 NFL season from looking weak relative to 1962, you are a better prophet than me. In ’62, Steelers 36-year-old QB Bobby Layne averaged 7.2 yards per attempt; last year, Pittsburgh’s 36-year-old QB Ben Roethlisberger averaged 7.6 yards per attempt. And finally, the 1962 Los Angeles Rams were awful: Zeke Bratkowski averaged a league-low 7.0 yards per attempt, and the team went 1-12-1. Last year, Jared Goff of the Los Angeles Rams averaged 8.4 yards per attempt as he helped the team win the NFC. [continue reading…]

In Super Bowl II, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr completed 13 of 24 passes for 202 yards, with 1 TD and no interceptions. He also took three sacks for 30 yards, and his backup was sacked once for 10 yards.

That means on 28 dropbacks, the Green Bay passing attack picked up 162 yards and produced 1 TD and 0 INTs, which translates to 142 Adjusted Net Yards. That’s an Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt average of 6.50 in Super Bowl II for Green Bay.

So was that a good performance by Starr and the Packers passing attack? No.

It was a great one. Passing efficiency was a lot different in 1967 than it is today, and the Raiders had a great pass defense. In 1966, Oakland allowed 3.14 ANY/A to opposing passers, the 3rd-best in the AFL; in 1967, that number dropped to just 2.23, the best in the AFL and third in all of pro football. And in 1968, opposing QBs averaged just 2.81 ANY/A against the Raiders. (And in 1969, it was just 2.64.)

The graph below shows every game for the Raiders defense from 1966 to 1968, in chronological order. Joe Namath consistently gave the Raiders problems, including in the famous Heidi Game in 1968. But otherwise, the Raiders pass defense tended to overwhelm most quarterbacks. On the X-Axis, we have games played in order. The Y-Axis shows the ANY/A allowed by the Raiders, shown from -6 to 14 (since the league average ANY/A was around 4.0). [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans, and Titans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints, and Buccaneers

[continue reading…]

It has long been established that, on average, winning teams rush for more yards than losing teams. That’s because, among other reasons, the winning team usually has the lead late in the game, causing the winning team to run more frequently and the losing team to run less frequently. Rushing attempts (and therefore, yards) are highly correlated with winning, which is one of the reasons I first started calculating Game Scripts data.

As a result, teams tend to average more rushing yards in victories than defeats. And I’m not breaking any news here when I say that this tenet holds up at the individual player level, too. From 1950 to 2018, there were 69 players who (i) rushed for at least 2,500 yards in games their teams won and also (ii) rushed for at least 2,500 yards in games their teams lost.

And 67 of those players averaged more rushing yards per game in wins than in losses. That, of course, is what you would expect. Earnest Byner is the most extreme player in this regard: in games his team won, Byner averaged 52.2 rushing yards per game; in games his team lost, Byner averaged 25.7 rushing yards per game. And it’s not just the Byners of the world: Hall of Famers with different styles and from different eras — Marshall Faulk (86.0 rushing yards per game in wins, 52.0 in losses), Earl Campbell (107.4, 63.4), O.J. Simpson (112.0, 69.3) and Thurman Thomas (77.6, 44.5) to name a few — have large splits in rushing averages in wins and losses.

But today’s post is about Byner’s teammate on the ’91 Redskins, Gerald Riggs. He is one of just two players (Don Perkins, 56.2, 59.8) in this group who averaged fewer rushing yards per game in wins (60.0) than in losses (66.2). That should be shocking to you as a reader, given that the average running back will have about 40% more rushing yards in wins than losses. So does this mean Riggs actually was a better running back when his team lost the game?

The short answer is, no. Riggs, like every other running back, rushed for more yards when his team won than when his team lost, all else being equal. It’s that last part, though, that is the tricky part.

Riggs had two dominant rushing seasons where he averaged 99 and 107 rushing yards per game: 1984 and 1985. In those two seasons, his Falcons went just 7-24 in the games he played.

Riggs had four strong seasons where he averaged between 50 and 90 rushing yards per game: 1986 to 1989. In those four years, his teams went 20-28-1 in games he played (and I will be ignoring the one tie game for the rest of this article).

Riggs also had four years — two at the beginning of his career and two at the end — where he was a backup and averaged under 50 rushing yards per game. In those four seasons (’82, ’83, ’90, and ’91) his teams went 31-18. Notably, this includes his time on the ’91 Redskins — who went 14-2 and for whom Riggs played every game — when he averaged a career low 15.5 rushing yards per game and retired after the season (after scoring a pair of touchdowns in the Super Bowl, no less).

Regular readers of this site and those familiar with Simpson’s Paradox can surely see what’s coming. During his stud running back days, Riggs played on bad teams that produced just 12% of his career wins but 34% of his career losses. During his days as a solid starter, Riggs played on teams that produced 34% of his career wins and 40% of his career losses. And during his days as a backup, Riggs played on good teams that produced 53% of his career wins and just 26% of his career losses. His time as the third-string running back behind Byner and Ricky Ervins on one of the best teams of all time produced 24% of his career wins but just 3% of his career losses.

So when we look at his career, of course Riggs rushed for more yards in losses than in wins: broadly speaking, he was a reserve in a lot of the games his team won and the center of the offense in many of the games his teams lost.

In 1984, Riggs rushed for 99 yards per game on a 3-12 Falcons team in the games he played. In Atlanta’s three wins, he rushed for 137 yards per game; in the 12 losses, he averaged 90 rushing yards per game. That’s perfectly normal, rushing for significantly more yards per game in wins than losses.

In 1991, Riggs rushed for 16 yards per game on maybe the best team of all time. In wins, he rushed for 17 yards per game, and in losses, he rushed for 2 yards per game. That’s perfectly normal, too: rushing for significantly more yards per game in wins than losses.

But here’s the catch: what if we remove the ’84 and ’91 seasons from Riggs’ career entirely? By removing two years where Riggs rushed for significantly more yards per game in wins than in losses, what happens to his career average? Well, it would mean Riggs would have rushed for 69 yards per game in wins and … 63 yards per game in losses. This, of course, is the heart of Simpson’s Paradox: because of the different sizes of the groups, the results are reversed when we combine the data. It’s counter-intuitive, because Riggs looks better for his career in wins than in losses only after we remove two years where he did much worse in wins than in losses!

The table below shows Riggs’s career stats by season, and his per-season rushing statistics in wins and losses. The final right column shows how many more rushing yards per game Riggs averaged in losses than in wins each year. As you can see, while this number is a positive 6.2 for his career, in all but two seasons, this number was negative, meaning Riggs averaged more rushing yards per game in wins than losses:

This is what Simpson’s Paradox is all about, and this may be my new favorite example: the 1991 season really deflates his career averages, but it hits his “wins” statistics 8x as powerfully as his “losses” statistics.

And there’s even an easy story to tell about his 1989 season, which looks like a big outlier. After all, Riggs averaged a mediocre 50 rushing yards per game in wins and a superstar-producing 108.5 yards per game in wins. So what happened? In week 2, Riggs rushed for a whopping 211 yards in a win against the Eagles…. except it wasn’t a win; the Redskins led 20-0 early and 37-28 with less than three minutes left in the game, but the Eagles scored two last-minute touchdowns to steal the game and turn this into a great rushing effort in a loss (in part because of Riggs’ game-changing fumble). Had this been a win, Riggs would have averaged 69.0 rushing yards in wins that season, and 71.0 rushing yards per game in losses. And that is only because Riggs lost playing time as the season went along: he was a part-time player by December, when Washington went 4-0 but Riggs averaged only 41 rushing yards per game.

The general rule is that all players average more rushing yards in wins than in losses. And when that’s not true, well, it probably still is true: you just need to figure out how Simpson’s Paradox is mucking up your data.

Let’s begin with a brain teaser. Suppose you want to do 7 unique things in 7 days, by doing exactly one per day. How many different combinations are there? Consider that on day 1, you can do any of 7 things: A, B, C, D, E, F, or G. Let’s say you pick C. On day 2, you can then do any of 6 things: A, B, D, E, F, or G. Let’s say you pick A. On day 3, you can do any of 5 things: B, D, E, F, or G. And so on.

As a result, the amount of options you have is 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1, which equals 5,040. For those who remember their school days, this can be represented as 7! (you can refresh yourself on Factorials here).

Now, let’s say introduce some constraints. Let’s say you can’t do C on the day before or after doing B (that would eliminate 1/3 of your 5,040 combinations). Or that you can’t do F on any day but day 7 (that would eliminate 6/7 of your 5,040 combinations). But, of course, there is some overlap there, so figuring out how many combinations that leaves you with is a bit tricky. And you can keep introducing constraints, but at some point, there would be too many constraints to satisfy all of them.

So here’s the big question: is there a way to model this in Microsoft Excel so that you can see the results with each constraint? That answer is yes: I created a series of formulas in Excel to do just this, although I will admit that it is pretty ugly. Still, since I created it, and it took quite a bit of work, I wanted to share it with you today.

This came out of a real life example, which was a desire to create a workout schedule. I won’t bore you with the details of each workout, but my goal was to create a 7-day training split, where I would do the following on each of the 7 days: [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans, and Titans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints

The Tampa Bay Bucs have only had two coaches with a winning record in franchise history. Jon Gruden won the team’s lone Super Bowl, of course, but otherwise he isn’t too interesting to analyze: he went 57-55 as the team’s head coach.

That leaves Tony Dungy, clearly the best regular season coach in the history of the franchise. Under Dungy, Tampa Bay won 56% of their games; without him, the Bucs have won just 36% of their games. During his 6 seasons, the Bucs were tied for the 9th-best record in the league; in the previous six years, Tampa Bay won just one out of every three games, making them one of the league’s worst teams. But with Dungy, the more interesting question is did he do his best work here or with the Colts? Dungy had a better record in Indianapolis and coached there longer, but he certainly had a tougher task considering what he inherited at both spots. By this analysis, it’s almost perfectly even: Dungy improved the Colts’ all-time winning percentage by 3.0%, and he improved Tampa Bay’s mark by 2.9%. Dungy is the only coach to improve two teams by such a large amount; Don Shula is the only other head coach to improve two teams by at least two percent, and for him, the Colts were also his other team (Andy Reid ranks third by this metric; he improved the Eagles by 2.1% and the Chiefs by 1.8% so far). How bad have the Bucs coaches been? Dirk Koetter ranks as the third-best both by this metric and overall winning percentage, two facts I can’t wrap my head around. [continue reading…]

Friend of the program Bryan Frye is back for another guest series. As regular readers know, Bryan operates his own fantastic site, http://www.thegridfe.com. You can view all of Bryan’s guest posts here, and follow him on twitter @LaverneusDingle.

This is post seven in an eight part series, so you know how this goes by now. I copy and paste some rules about the article to follow, then I write that article. Here are the rules:

1. I write everything before my painkiller prescription runs out,
2. I write it completely off the top of my head and don’t do any research,
3. I don’t have to proofread this when I finish it, and
4. Chase doesn’t edit my nonsense out of the article (so my inane asides and non sequiturs are our shared burden now). ^[1]Roster construction is as follows: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 2 TE, 2 T, 2 G, 1 C, 2 DE, 2 DT, 2 OLB, 2 MLB/ILB, 3 CB, 2 S, 1 K, 1 P, 1 HC
5. I maintain modern division designations. If a player played for the Seahawks when the team was in the AFC West, I am counting him in the NFC West. I have neither the time nor the inclination to make this 100% perfect.

Here’s the article about the NFC West.

Offense

Quarterback – Joe Montana

Sure, Steve Young was more efficient. Kurt Warner and Norm Van Brocklin led record setting offenses. But Montana was Montana, and that’s all I really have to say about that.

Running Backs – Marshall Faulk and Eric Dickerson [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, Texans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons, Saints

The Tennessee Titans history is really the history of the franchise owned by Bud Adams.  The son of an oil magnate, Adams was part of the foolish club with Lamar Hunt and the other key founding member of the AFL.  Adams named his Houston expansion team the Oilers, of course, and the team resided there until moving to Tennessee in 1997.  The man who guided the team from Houston to Tennessee was Jeff Fisher, who is still arguably the best coach in franchise history. In games coached by anyone but Fisher, the franchise has a 0.458 winning percentage, but including Fisher’s 0.542 mark in 142 games, and the Oilers/Titans franchise has a 0.482 record. Bum Phillips (whose ’78 and ’79 teams lost back-to-back AFC Championship Games to the eventual champion Steelers) and Jack Pardee (who guided the ’90s Run-N’-Shoot teams) are the only other coaches to finish at least 10 games over .500, while the franchise has had a number of coaches (Hugh Campbell, Ed Biles, Ken Whisenhunt, and Bill Peterson) who really struggled. [continue reading…]

Regular readers know that I got my start writing at Footballguys.com. If you are a hardcore fantasy football enthusiast, daily fantasy sports player, or just a casual fantasy football player you probably know by now that Footballguys is the single best source for fantasy football information. For those with limited time to devote to fantasy football research, you’ll find that the tools available at Footballguys will make life much, much easier for you to win your league(s). And the experts know that the projections and tools available at FBG is top notch. Either way, I think fantasy football players will find FBG to be a great value at any of the pricepoints currently offered ($39.95 for the Season Long Pro subscription, $49.95 for the Daily Fantasy Pro subscription or $69.95 for the All-Pro that includes both).

I don’t make any money if people sign up for Footballguys and I don’t have any promo code: I hope my readers subscribe because I think a lot of you play fantasy and a subscription is a really good deal. Here are a few reasons why: [continue reading…]

Brad Oremland is a sportswriter and football historian. What follows is Brad’s latest work, a multi-part series on the greatest players in pro football history.

This is the final article in a twelve-part series profiling the greatest professional football players of all time. You can find the rest of the series below:

Greatest Football Players: 111-125
Greatest Football Players: 101-110
Greatest Football Players: 91-100
Greatest Football Players: 81-90
Greatest Football Players: 71-80
Greatest Football Players: 61-70
Greatest Football Players: 51-60
Greatest Football Players: 41-50
Greatest Football Players: 31-40
Greatest Football Players: 21-30
Greatest Football Players: 11-20

If you haven’t read those yet, I hope you’ll start there. Each post can be read independently, but they’re intended as a series, and skipping to the end undercuts the historical excellence of the players you’re reading about. I’m confident you’ll enjoy this article more if you read the rest of the series first.

This series is nearly 100,000 words. If you’ve enjoyed it, please credit the three sportswriters whose work has influenced me most: the late Paul Zimmerman, Sports Illustrated‘s legendary Dr. Z, the greatest football writer who ever lived; Bill James, best known for popularizing baseball analytics (and indirectly football analytics as well) but also an immensely underrated writer; and Dave Heeren, unknown compared to Zimmerman and James, but his TENDEX system and Basketball Abstract were the foundation for all subsequent statistical analysis of basketball; his work captured my imagination and made me aspire to better understand the sports I loved. All three have my deepest admiration and gratitude.

And now, the ten greatest football players of all time. [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts, and Texans
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons

Without Sean Payton, the New Orleans Saints were one of the worst franchises in NFL history. The ‘Aints won just 40% of their games prior to Payton’s arrival in 2006; under his reign, New Orleans has a 0.615 winning percentage. Overall, the franchise now has 45% winning rate, which means “games under Payton” — despite representing just 24% of all Saints games — has increased the team’s overall winning percentage by 5%. That makes him one of just five head coaches to be responsible for a 5% increase in his team’s winning percentage, along with four inner circle Hall of Famers: Don Shula in Miami, Bill Belichick in New England, Paul Brown in Cleveland, and George Halas in Chicago. Payton and Jim Mora are the only two coaches in New Orleans history with a winning record. The table below shows each coach in Saints history. At the bottom you will see Mike Ditka, Hank Stram, and Bum Phillips, who won 63%, 62%, and 61% respectively of their games with Chicago, Kansas City, and Houston, before struggling as head coach of the Saints. [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts
NFC South: Panthers, Falcons

The Texans have only had three real head coaches in team history. Bill O’Brien has been Houston’s coach for the last five years, and has a 42-38 record. Gary Kubiak was the team’s longest-tenured coach and he went 61-64; he was fired with three games left in the 2013 season, and Wade Phillips replaced him and went 0-3 down the stretch. But the first coach in team history was Dom Capers, and he went 18-46 in four years. The Texans are 30 games under .500 for team’s history, and nearly all of that was due to the Capers era. He has dropped the team’s winning percentage by 5.0%, the largest amount of any coach in NFL history. Of course, he happened to coach the expansion version of the league’s newest franchise, so we can cut him a bit of slack. [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars, Colts
NFC South: Panthers

We have entered the Marion Campbell portion of the series. One of Football Perspective’s best guest profiles was on Marion Campbell, owner of some of the worst coaching records in history. He’s the only coach to win no more than 25% of his games over a 65+ game stretch with one team, and one of just four coaches (David Shula in Cincinnati, Dom Capers with the expansion Texans, and Gus Bradley with the Jaguars) to win less than 30% of his games with one franchise over at least 60 games. The most successful coach in Falcons history is, without question but still weird to say, Mike Smith. Atlanta as a franchise has won 44.2% of its games, but remove the Smith games, and that number drops by 2.34% to just 41.9%. And don’t feel too bad for the team’s first coach, Norb Hecker, who took over the expansion Falcons and went just 4-26-1. He wound up with eight NFL titles: one with the Rams in 1951 as a rookie safety, three with the Lombardi Packers, and then four with the 49ers in the ’80s. The table below shows every head coach in Falcons history: [continue reading…]

Friend of the program Bryan Frye is back for another guest series. As regular readers know, Bryan operates his own fantastic site, http://www.thegridfe.com. You can view all of Bryan’s guest posts here, and follow him on twitter @LaverneusDingle.

As you know by now, I’m making all-time division teams while Chase is off on his honeymoon. I’ll spare you a verbose introduction and just lay out the rules:

1. I write everything before my painkiller prescription runs out,
2. I write it completely off the top of my head and don’t do any research,
3. I don’t have to proofread this when I finish it, and
4. Chase doesn’t edit my nonsense out of the article (so my inane asides and non sequiturs are our shared burden now). ^[1]Roster construction is as follows: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 2 TE, 2 T, 2 G, 1 C, 2 DE, 2 DT, 2 OLB, 2 MLB/ILB, 3 CB, 2 S, 1 K, 1 P, 1 HC
5. I maintain modern division designations. If a player played for the Seahawks when the team was in the AFC West, I am counting him in the NFC West. I have neither the time nor the inclination to make this 100% perfect.

Without further ado, here’s the NFC East.

Offense

Captain America

Sammy Baugh was a better player, but it’s hard to find a better pure quarterback than Captain America himself. Baugh (along with Troy Aikman, Drew Brees, and Kurt Warner) is the most accurate pure passer I have witnessed. But Staubach was in a league of his own as a leader. Not many guys come into a locker room as a rookie with instant credibility because of their military service. Even more impressive is that he backed it up with his play on the field and his actions off the field. [continue reading…]

Brad Oremland is a sportswriter and football historian. What follows is Brad’s latest work, a multi-part series on the greatest players in pro football history.

Those of you who’ve been following me on Twitter (@bradoremland) may have seen the extension to this series that I began in response to reader feedback. I asked followers what they were most interested in beyond the Greatest Players of All Time series itself, and the response was a Just-Missed List, players 126-160, the 35 players I’m most apprehensive about leaving off the top 125 greatest players of all time.

As we approach the conclusion of the main series next week, the All-Time Top 10, here’s that list. It’s presented in no particular order, and since it’s adapted from Twitter, each entry is 280 characters or fewer.

Dave Casper
OAK 1974-80; HOU 1980-83; MIN 1983; RAID 1984
378 rec, 5216 yds, 52 TD
3 consensus All-Pro, 4 AP, 5 PB, All-1970s, All-Century

Maybe the best blocking TE ever, great hands, lots of TDs. Ghost in Ghost to the Post, recovered the Holy Roller. [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars
NFC South: Panthers

The Colts have been blessed with two Hall of Fame coaches, but oddly, one could argue that neither Tony Dungy nor Don Shula did their best work with the Colts. Both made their names in Florida: Shula as the long-time coach of the Dolphins, and Dungy as the man who turned around Tampa Bay. Still, these two have left a strong mark on Colts history: without Dungy, the Colts would have a losing record; overall, the team is 516-459-7. There’s another shared history between Dungy and Shula: immediate Super Bowl success after they left. When Dungy left Tampa Bay, the Bucs won the championship in the team’s first season without him. When Shula left for Miami, the Colts under Don McCafferty won the team’s first Super Bowl. But as much success as the franchise has had under these two coaches, it’s probably fair to say that the better way to understand this franchise is by examining their quarterbacks. But before we get to that, a moment to stop and pause for Weeb Ewbank, who was one of the two best coaches in Jets history and remains the only coach since World War II to win NFL titles as head coach of two different franchises. Ewbank did it in iconic style, beating the Colts in Super Bowl III as head coach of the New York Jets, and leading the Colts to a title against the New York Giants in The Greatest Game Ever Played. [continue reading…]

Brad Oremland is a sportswriter and football historian. What follows is Brad’s latest work, a multi-part series on the greatest players in pro football history.

This is the eleventh article in a twelve-part series profiling the greatest pro football players of all time. You can find the previous installments below:

Greatest Football Players: 111-125
Greatest Football Players: 101-110
Greatest Football Players: 91-100
Greatest Football Players: 81-90
Greatest Football Players: 71-80
Greatest Football Players: 61-70
Greatest Football Players: 51-60
Greatest Football Players: 41-50
Greatest Football Players: 31-40
Greatest Football Players: 21-30

If you haven’t read those yet, especially the article introducing the series (111-125), I hope you’ll start there. Each post can be read independently, but they’re intended as a series, and skipping to the end undercuts the historical excellence of the players you’re reading about. It’s more meaningful, more impressive, and (I believe) ultimately more satisfying when you see how many dominant, mesmerizing, and exceptional players ranked below this. I’m confident you’ll enjoy this article more if you read the rest of the series first.

Best Players of All Time: 11-20

20. Ray Lewis
Inside Linebacker
Baltimore Ravens, 1996-2012
41.5 sacks; 31 INT, 503 yards, 3 TD; 19 FF, 20 FR, 3 yards
2 DPOY, 4 consensus All-Pro, 10 AP All-Pro, 13 Pro Bowls, 2000s All-Decade Team

In his 1997 All-Pro column, Paul Zimmerman (Sports Illustrated‘s peerless Dr. Z) identified Ray Lewis as “a human tackling machine, always around the ball.” In his 1998 All-Pro column, Zimmerman called Lewis “The Incredible Tackling Machine.” In his 1999 All-Pro column, “a guided missile, a tackling machine.” Ray Lewis could really tackle.

Several times in this series I’ve mentioned a problem for some of the players with great longevity: fans, especially younger fans, remember them as average to above-average older players rather than as the dynamic, game-changing monsters they were in their primes. Lewis is one of the players most afflicted, because in the second half of his career, announcers fawned over everything he did — and sometimes didn’t do. Lewis would assist on a tackle, and the announcer would declare, “Tackle made by, guess who, Ray Lewis,” implying that Lewis made all the tackles. One of his teammates would make a tackle, and Lewis would dive onto the pile, prompting the announcer to burble, “Ray Lewis with another tackle!” If Lewis wasn’t in on the play, the announcer wouldn’t mention the tackler at all. When aging legends get hyped this way, ^[1]Here’s an example: Week 13, 2010, Ravens at Steelers. With 3:46 remaining in the third quarter, Brandon McKinney and Lewis combined on a tackle. Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth went into a … Continue reading it’s easy to dismiss them as overrated, with praise that exceeds their play. In the second half of his career, Lewis was overrated, though still a good player. In the first half of his career, he was — have you got this yet? — a tackling machine.

Lewis was instinctive and good at reading offenses, fast and decisive, and a big hitter. He had a non-stop motor, which is an underrated quality — less spectacular than speed, strength, or agility — but allowed Lewis to make plays his peers wouldn’t get to. He covered the field, sideline to sideline, as well as anyone. Lewis was an effective blitzer, with twelve seasons of 2 or more sacks, and he was exceptional in pass coverage, actually underrated in this aspect of his game. Lewis intercepted more than 30 passes, one of only half a dozen LBs to do so, and his 503 INT return yards are the second-most of any LB (Derrick Brooks, 530). As a point of comparison, Champ Bailey had 464 INT return yards. Lewis was a good pass defender and a good returner. Rodney Harrison and Ray Lewis are the only players since 1982, when sacks became an official statistic, with at least 30 sacks and 30 interceptions.

Lewis was the captain of consistently excellent defensive units, and the MVP of Super Bowl XXXV. He played on nine teams that ranked among the NFL’s top three in fewest points allowed and/or fewest yards allowed. The 2001 Baltimore Ravens ranked 4th in scoring defense and 2nd in total defense. The 2003 Ravens ranked 6th and 3rd. In between, the 2002 Ravens’ defense ranked 19th in scoring and 22nd in yardage. Ray Lewis was injured in 2002, missing 11 games.

Lewis had a complete game, strong everywhere you want an inside linebacker to be strong. His best seasons were the Marvin Lewis years, 1996-2001. Ray Lewis led the NFL in tackles in 1997, 1999, and 2001, but never in his final 11 seasons. A shoulder injury cost him most of the 2002 season, and following his 2003 Defensive Player of the Year effort, Lewis was a very good player rather than a great one. If you remember Ray Lewis mostly from the mid-2000s on, you didn’t see him in the seasons that made him a legend: a block-shedding dynamo, a wizard in pass coverage, and a hard-hitting, play-making, league-leading tackling machine. [continue reading…]

Adam Steele is back for another guest post. You can view all of Adam’s posts here. As always, we thank him for contributing.

It’s been a few years since I updated my Marginal Air Yards metric, so that’s what today’s post will do. I decided to make this a purely style based statistic rather than trying to combine style with efficiency. As such, here is the updated formula:

mAir = (completed air yards / completions – league average) * completions

Said simply, Marginal Air Yards represents the total depth of a passer’s completions compared to league average. A quarterback who averages 7.0 AirY/C on 300 completions in a league that averages 6.5 AirY/C will be credited with +150 mAir (i.e., 0.5 x 150). [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions
AFC South: Jaguars

The Panthers, like the Jaguars, entered the NFL in 1995. They have been almost exactly .500 through 24 seasons, and have had only four coaches. One of them, Ron Rivera, is 15 games above .500; two of them were right around .500, and George Seifert — the first, and the only member of was 16 games below .500. An interesting note: all four were defensive coordinators before becoming head coaches, meaning Carolina’s never had a head coach with an offensive background. [continue reading…]

In this series, I will be looking at the history of coaches, quarterbacks, rushers, and receivers for all 32 franchises. For coaches and quarterbacks, I will be looking at how much their franchise’s career records (regular season only) would change if we removed the games with that person. For rushers and receivers, I will note how many times that player was the team’s leading rusher/receiver over the course of their time with that franchise (regular plus postseason).

Previous Teams:

AFC East: Dolphins, Bills, Jets, and Patriots
NFC East: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, and Redskins
AFC North: Steelers, Browns, Ravens, and Bengals
NFC North: Packers, Vikings, Bears, and Lions

The Jacksonville Jaguars have not been a good franchise overall, but the team has really not been good when Tom Coughlin hasn’t been around. The initial coach of the Jaguars following a stint at Boston College, Coughlin guided Jacksonville to a 68-60 record. Without Coughlin, Jacksonville has won less than 40% of the team’s games! On the other hand, maybe you just want to blame Gus Bradley for things. When he hasn’t been the head coach, Jacksonville has won nearly 50% of its games. Bradley’s -4.2% mark is the second worst in NFL history, which is of course biased by the fact that the Jaguars haven’t been around very long. It’s also only the second-worst in this division (you can probably guess who has the lowest mark). [continue reading…]

If you’ve been following along, you know I am giving Chase a little break while he is honeymooning. I wrote this while recovering from surgery and in the middle of a series on each division’s all-time team.

In case you’re not privy to the rules and regulations of the game, these are the stipulations Chase conceded to for my series:

1. I write everything before my painkiller prescription runs out,
2. I write it completely off the top of my head and don’t do any research,
3. I don’t have to proofread this when I finish it, and
4. Chase doesn’t edit my nonsense out of the article (because let’s keep it organic, man). ^[1]Roster construction is as follows: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 2 TE, 2 T, 2 G, 1 C, 2 DE, 2 DT, 2 OLB, 2 MLB/ILB, 3 CB, 2 S, 1 K, 1 P, 1 HC
5. I maintain modern division designations. If a player played for the Seahawks when the team was in the AFC West, I am counting him in the NFC West. I have neither the time nor the inclination to make this 100% perfect.

These rules are to keep me from having to do much work and to increase the chances that I write something stupid, which amuses me. I can’t wait to look back on this series when I am more coherent and realize how supremely I have played myself.

Without further ado, here’s the NFC North. [continue reading…]