What a spicy hot take of a headline, I know. Continuing on yesterday’s theme, let’s talk more about at Joe Flacco’s career with the Ravens. He has a career Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt average of 5.64, which is not very good. In fact, it’s pretty bad: the average ANY/A over the last 10 years was 5.94, when you weight the average in each season by the percentage of Flacco’s career attempts that came in that season. Flacco, therefore, has a career Relative ANY/A of -0.29 (difference due to rounding), which you can see below:
Here’s the other interesting thing about this: Flacco has 5,608 pass attempts/sacks with the Ravens, the 12th-most dropbacks of any quarterback with one team since 1970. And as you can probably guess, Flacco is the only one with a negative RANY/A. You have to go to Drew Bledsoe with the Patriots (4780 dropbacks, -0.02 RANY/A) to find the next quarterback with a negative RANY/A with one team and a lot of playing time. And after Bledsoe — who barely qualifies — you have to go down to Randall Cunningham with the Eagles, who had 3784 dropbacks and a -0.37 RANY/A.
The graph below shows all quarterbacks since 1970 to have 2500 pass attempts with one team. On the Y-Axis, their career number of dropbacks with that team; on the X-Axis, their RANY/A with that team. As you can see, Flacco sticks out a bit like a sore thumb, as does Eli Manning. To have so many dropbacks with one team usually is something associated only with quarterback greatness:
Jake Plummer with the Cardinals, Dan Pastorini with the Oilers, Ryan Tannehill with the Dolphins, Randall Cunningham with the Eagles, Archie Manning with the Saints, Richard Todd with the Jets, Joe Flacco with the Ravens, Jay Cutler with the Bears, Cam Newton (for now) with the Panthers, and Drew Bledsoe with the Patriots are the only players with 2500 pass attempts and a below-average RANY/A with one team. Here’s the full dataset:
Quarterback | Team | Dropbacks | RANY/A |
---|---|---|---|
Tom Brady | nwe | 9257 | 1.41 |
Brett Favre | gnb | 9192 | 0.68 |
Dan Marino | mia | 8628 | 1.42 |
Drew Brees | nor | 7771 | 1.40 |
John Elway | den | 7766 | 0.47 |
Eli Manning | nyg | 7755 | 0.08 |
Peyton Manning | clt | 7441 | 1.63 |
Ben Roethlisberger | pit | 6970 | 0.87 |
Philip Rivers | sdg | 6871 | 1.03 |
Dan Fouts | sdg | 5923 | 1.25 |
Matt Ryan | atl | 5872 | 0.78 |
Joe Flacco | rav | 5608 | -0.29 |
Aaron Rodgers | gnb | 5258 | 1.47 |
Matthew Stafford | det | 5139 | 0.22 |
Phil Simms | nyg | 5124 | 0.26 |
Donovan McNabb | phi | 5103 | 0.56 |
Jim Kelly | buf | 5102 | 0.72 |
Troy Aikman | dal | 4974 | 0.46 |
Joe Montana | sfo | 4882 | 1.66 |
Ken Anderson | cin | 4873 | 1.11 |
Warren Moon | oti | 4861 | 0.62 |
Drew Bledsoe | nwe | 4780 | -0.02 |
Tony Romo | dal | 4583 | 1.24 |
Matt Hasselbeck | sea | 4557 | 0.08 |
Joe Ferguson | buf | 4458 | 0.05 |
Jim Hart | crd | 4409 | 0.69 |
Ron Jaworski | phi | 4262 | 0.25 |
Terry Bradshaw | pit | 4208 | 0.48 |
Steve McNair | oti | 4100 | 0.64 |
Mark Brunell | jax | 3949 | 0.53 |
Joe Theismann | was | 3942 | 0.26 |
Steve Young | sfo | 3938 | 2.13 |
Dave Krieg | sea | 3917 | 0.21 |
Tommy Kramer | min | 3895 | 0.10 |
Steve Grogan | nwe | 3840 | 0.41 |
Ken O'Brien | nyj | 3803 | 0.20 |
Boomer Esiason | cin | 3801 | 1.02 |
Randall Cunningham | phi | 3784 | -0.37 |
Andy Dalton | cin | 3776 | 0.16 |
Cam Newton | car | 3677 | -0.03 |
Archie Manning | nor | 3675 | -0.36 |
Steve Bartkowski | atl | 3675 | 0.08 |
Brian Sipe | cle | 3663 | 0.41 |
Jay Cutler | chi | 3522 | -0.25 |
Neil Lomax | crd | 3515 | 0.37 |
Jim Everett | ram | 3463 | 0.59 |
Marc Bulger | ram | 3425 | 0.14 |
Bernie Kosar | cle | 3409 | 0.47 |
Carson Palmer | cin | 3377 | 0.42 |
Roger Staubach | dal | 3212 | 1.71 |
Jim Zorn | sea | 3191 | 0.15 |
Danny White | dal | 3191 | 0.42 |
Matt Schaub | htx | 3180 | 0.86 |
Lynn Dickey | gnb | 3099 | 0.13 |
Russell Wilson | sea | 3082 | 0.84 |
Dan Pastorini | oti | 2990 | -0.51 |
Aaron Brooks | nor | 2980 | 0.20 |
Jake Plummer | crd | 2969 | -0.88 |
Trent Green | kan | 2950 | 1.08 |
Richard Todd | nyj | 2853 | -0.31 |
Ryan Tannehill | mia | 2850 | -0.47 |
Fran Tarkenton | min | 2845 | 1.28 |
Daunte Culpepper | min | 2835 | 0.94 |
Jake Delhomme | car | 2823 | 0.36 |
Andrew Luck | clt | 2807 | 0.23 |