Background reading:
All week, I have been discussing how to adjust passer rating by era. Now that I have explained the formula, it’s time to generate the results. In a given season, ratings won’t change (unless a player moves below or above a limit as a result of the era adjustment), so the most interesting thing to do is to present career passer ratings.
To calculate career passer ratings, I first calculated each player’s passer rating in each season. Then, I created their career rating by averaging the player’s passer rating in each season, weighted of course by their number of attempts in that season. And now, the results.
The table below shows all 185 players with at least 1500 career pass attempts (this includes the 2016 season). Here is how to read the table below. Otto Graham is the career leader in era adjusted passer rating (this includes his AAFC time). He ranks 115th in career pass attempts with 2,626. Since passer rating is the sum of four variables multiplied by 100 and divided by 6, I figured we might as well present the era adjusted variables, too. In completion percentage, Graham scores a 1.40; in yards per attempt, he is at a whopping 1.53; in touchdown percent, 1.25, and in interception percentage, a remarkable 1.53. As a result, his era adjusted passer rating is 95.2.
Graham and Len Dawson both rank in the top 4, and both benefited to some extent by player in expansion leagues with weaker competition for the early parts of their careers. both were Hall of Famers, of course, but those numbers are arguably (at least slightly) inflated. Seeing Sid Luckman and Sammy Baugh in the top three is hardly a surprise, either.
One fun thing to do is to sort by attempts to see who stands out. Brett Favre ranks 43rd in era adjusted passer rating, Peyton Manning is 11th, and Drew Brees is 20th. Dan Marino is 25th, but like Manning, Marino is harmed a bit by ignoring his outstanding sack rate. Tom Brady ranks 13th, while John Elway is down at 74. Eli Manning is way, way down at 118 — a hair below his father, Archie Manning. That is lower than any Hall of Famer, for those curious.
The five lowest HOF QBs on the list are John Elway, Terry Bradshaw, Bobby Layne, Joe Namath, and George Blanda. Namath had three terrible years when he was washed up, and was outstanding at avoiding sacks, which is why he’s underrated; given Namath’s focus on big plays and avoiding sacks, he’s never going to fare well in passer rating, but his era adjusted rating does rise to 72.9 if you remove his final three seasons.
Blanda was another guy who was incredible at avoiding sacks, and who focused on big plays rather than completion percentage (whereas a contemporary like Dawson’s game was much more about completion percentage and avoiding interceptions). He also is perhaps the weakest quarterback in the Hall of Fame. I’ve written before about the stats of Bradshaw and Elway; Layne’s stats have often underwhelmed me, but Brad Oremland has written some good words about him.
On the other side, you won’t be surprised to see Ken Anderson — whose game was well-designed for passer rating — excels here. Other than Frankie Albert, who played most of his short career in the AAFC, he has the best passer rating of any retired player not in the HOF. Kurt Warner is right there, too (though his stats are arguably inflated, too), with Daryle Lamonica (a player whose game was decidedly not passer rating-friendly) and Bert Jones not far behind.
What about the players with the worst passer ratings? The table is fully sortable, so you can see that Rick Mirer, Mike Phipps, Mark Malone, Derek Anderson, Jack Trudeau, Kyle Boller, and Joey Harrington have the lowest passer ratings.
What do you guys think?
