On Tuesday, I looked at the best passing seasons in NFL history. What about the reverse? Blake Bortles had one of the worst seasons in 2014 in NFL history, in terms of quality combined with quantity.  There are a lot of bad seasons, but what makes that Bortles year stand out was that he played nearly the full season.  This was his rookie year, and Bortles started 13 games; he averaged 3.81 ANY/A when the league average was 6.14 ANY/A.  Bortles therefore produced -1,234 Adjusted Net Yards of Value above average, since he had 530 dropbacks.  That’s actually the worst in NFL history, which isn’t too surprising; most of the bad years with a large number of dropbacks came in recent history.

The table below shows the 500 “worst” seasons in passing history in terms of Adjusted Net Yards of Value below average. Note that the 500th-worst passing season (pro-rated, as on Tuesday) is -365. This means that a season that is 0.70 ANY/A below average on 550 attempts will make this list. That’s not a really bad season, of course. So just a reminder when you view these lists that quantity is a key component here:

Some thoughts:

Rick Mirer has 5 seasons in the bottom 500, the most of any passer. Ten other passers have four such seasons: David Carr, Brett Favre, Gary Huff, Randy Johnson, Archie Manning, Eli Manning, Dan Pastorini, Mike Phipps, Norm Snead, and Richard Todd have four seasons.

Jared Goff’s 2016 season is 60th, while Ryan Leaf’s rookie year is the 25th worst; you can read more about the worst rookie seasons here. JaMarcus Russell’s 2009 season is the 18th-worst.

The Browns have 8 seasons in the last 10 years on this list, including two from 2009. What stands out to you?