Career RANY/A Rankings

by Chase Stuart on March 23, 2015

in Quarterbacks, Statgeekery, Statistics

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“Yes, those ranks would be closer if we looked only at their numbers while with the Raiders.) Speaking of the AFL, Len Dawson fares fantastically well in this analysis. One reason is because he was so consistent: the Chiefs Hall of Famer didn’t have bad seasons at the beginning or end of h…”

Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt is my preferred basic measurement of quarterback play. ANY/A is simply yards per attempt, but includes sacks and sack yardage lost, and provides a 20-yard bonus for touchdowns and a 45-yard penalty for interceptions.

RANY/A, or Relative ANY/A, measures a quarterback’s ANY/A average to league average. Let’s use Aaron Rodgers as an example. This past season, he threw 520 passes and gained 4,381 yards and 38 touchdowns, while throwing five interceptions and being sacked 28 times for 174 yards. That translates to an 8.65 ANY/A average, best in the NFL in 2014.

The league average rate in 2014 was a record-high 6.14 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt; as a result, this means that Rodgers averaged 2.52 ANY/A above average, or had a RANY/A of +2.52. ((Difference due to rounding.)) But that is just for one season. To measure Rodgers’ career RANY/A, we need to do that for every season of his career, and weight his RANY/A in each season by his number of dropbacks.

For example, Rodgers had 14.7% of his career dropbacks come in 2014, which means 14.7% of his career RANY/A is based off of the number +2.52. During his other MVP season in 2011, Rodgers had a RANY/A of 3.49 on just 10 fewer dropbacks; as a result, 14.4% of his career RANY/A is based off of +3.49. If you multiply his RANY/A in each year by the percentage of dropbacks he had in that season relative to his entire career, and sum those results, you will get a player’s career RANY/A. Here, take a look:

Search:

Year	Att	Yd	TD	INT	Sk	SkYd	ANY/A	LgAvg	RANY/A	DB Perc	WtAvg
2005	16	65	0	1	3	28	-0.42	5.34	-5.76	0.5%	-0.03
2006	15	46	0	0	3	18	1.56	5.38	-3.82	0.5%	-0.02
2007	28	218	1	0	3	24	6.9	5.52	1.39	0.8%	0.01
2008	536	4038	28	13	34	231	6.64	5.7	0.93	15.3%	0.14
2009	541	4434	30	7	50	306	7.47	5.65	1.82	15.8%	0.29
2010	475	3922	28	11	31	193	7.5	5.73	1.77	13.5%	0.24
2011	502	4643	45	6	36	219	9.39	5.9	3.49	14.4%	0.5
2012	552	4295	39	8	51	293	7.33	5.93	1.4	16.1%	0.23
2013	290	2536	17	6	21	117	8	5.87	2.13	8.3%	0.18
2014	520	4381	38	5	28	174	8.65	6.14	2.52	14.7%	0.37
Total										100.0%	1.91

I went ahead and performed this calculation for every quarterback in NFL history with at least 1000 career attempts. Note that I excluded AAFC data for these purposes, but included AFL data. Rodgers rates with the 6th highest RANY/A in NFL history.

The top spot belongs to Sid Luckman, and here is how to read the table below. Luckman’s career began in 1939 and ended in 1950. He had 1,744 dropbacks over those years (for all seasons pre-1969, sack data was excluded, so this represents just attempts). Luckman produced 11,486 Adjusted Net Yards, but based on his era, he would have been “expected” to produce 6,223 Adjusted Net Yards. Luckman had a 6.59 ANY/A average, while the league average over his time ((Weighted by his number of dropbacks.)) was 3.57. As a result, Luckman was 3.02 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt above average.

The below table shows the top 25 players by default, but you can change that using the dropdown box. In addition, the table is fully sortable and searchable.

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Rk	Quarterback	First Yr	Last Yr	DB	ANY	EXP ANY	ANY/A	EXP ANY/A	RANY/A
1	Sid Luckman	1939	1950	1744	11486	6223	6.59	3.57	3.02
2	Otto Graham	1946	1955	1565	11029	6393	7.05	4.08	2.96
3	Arnie Herber	1930	1945	1175	4831	1390	4.11	1.18	2.93
4	Sammy Baugh	1937	1952	2995	16491	10160	5.51	3.39	2.11
5	Norm Van Brocklin	1949	1960	2895	19061	13067	6.58	4.51	2.07
6	Aaron Rodgers	2005	2014	3735	28930	21801	7.75	5.84	1.91
7	Peyton Manning	1998	2014	9336	67903	51646	7.27	5.53	1.74
8	Steve Young	1985	1999	4507	30894	23289	6.85	5.17	1.69
9	Roger Staubach	1969	1979	3271	18701	13236	5.72	4.05	1.67
10	Len Dawson	1957	1975	3908	23833	17448	6.1	4.46	1.63
11	Tommy Thompson	1940	1950	1424	7570	5322	5.32	3.74	1.58
12	Joe Montana	1979	1994	5704	37661	28810	6.6	5.05	1.55
13	Johnny Unitas	1956	1973	5260	34064	26290	6.48	5	1.48
14	Sonny Jurgensen	1957	1974	4356	28071	21755	6.44	4.99	1.45
15	Bart Starr	1956	1971	3208	21015	16368	6.55	5.1	1.45
16	Dan Marino	1983	1999	8628	56491	44248	6.55	5.13	1.42
17	Daryle Lamonica	1963	1974	2673	15588	11861	5.83	4.44	1.39
18	Tom Brady	2000	2014	7532	52379	42335	6.95	5.62	1.33
19	Tony Romo	2004	2014	4452	31523	25713	7.08	5.78	1.31
20	Fran Tarkenton	1961	1978	6741	39536	30765	5.87	4.56	1.3
21	Kurt Warner	1998	2009	4330	29075	23472	6.71	5.42	1.29
22	Dan Fouts	1973	1987	5923	34926	27515	5.9	4.65	1.25
23	Frank Ryan	1958	1970	2137	13992	11319	6.55	5.3	1.25
24	Philip Rivers	2004	2014	4963	34489	28650	6.95	5.77	1.18
25	Earl Morrall	1956	1976	2747	16882	13655	6.15	4.97	1.17

Showing 1 to 25 of 235 entries

Even excluding his AAFC days, Otto Graham still produced absurdly dominant numbers. And Norm Van Brocklin continues to shine in this sort of analysis. From 1950 to 1955 — i.e., the whole of Graham’s career — there were two quarterbacks who were far ahead of the rest of the league, at least statistically. The great Graham/Van Brocklin debate continues unabated…

Since you no doubt already looked…. Peyton Manning ranks 7th, while Brady ranks 18th. Tony Romo is just a hair behind Brady at 19, while Philip Rivers narrowly edges out Drew Brees to round out the top five among active quarterbacks.

Considering this analysis ignores sack data from pre-1969, and does not exclude the bad years, the fact that Joe Namath still ranks 42nd is pretty impressive, at least to me. Namath finished his career with a 5.21 ANY/A average, but was at 5.84 prior to his final three seasons. He remains football’s most misunderstood quarterback. Other well-remembered quarterbacks who had really bad years at the beginnings or ends of their career like Troy Aikman and Terry Bradshaw fare even worse in this metric.

Joe Montana ranks 12th, and 6th if you remove the quarterbacks who entered the league prior to 1950. He’s even slightly ahead of Dan Marino. It bears repeating, since it seems so often lost: Joe Montana was one of the greatest regular season quarterbacks of all time, at least statistically.

Daryle Lamonica ranks 17th; Rich Gannon is 59th; Ken Stabler is 80th; Jim Plunkett is 162nd. You know who I think the best Raiders quarterback of all time really was. ((Yes, those ranks would be closer if we looked only at their numbers while with the Raiders.)

Speaking of the AFL, Len Dawson fares fantastically well in this analysis. One reason is because he was so consistent: the Chiefs Hall of Famer didn’t have bad seasons at the beginning or end of his career.

Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas are neck-and-neck in these rankings. Unitas actually has a slightly worse career ANY/A average, but jumps ahead of Starr due to playing in a slightly tougher era.

What stands out to you?

Tagged as: ANY/A, RANY/A

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