The QB GOAT Series: 20-16
Perhaps the greatest thrower in NFL history, a playoff standout, a what-if superstar and two franchise icons
I don’t agree 100% with all the rankings, but the beauty of stats-based analysis is that we can take representative data from nearly one million of quarterback dropbacks over nearly a century of the modern NFL to rank-order quarterbacks by value. Good luck watching, grading and comparing every quarterback snap from 1947 to 2024 and then forming your own film-watcher list.
On the career plots, you’ll see indications for Pro Bowl (PB), All-Pro Second-Team (AP2), All-Pro First-Team (AP1) and Most Valuable Player (MVP) regular seasons. I’ve also added an image of the Super Bowl trophy for championship seasons.
Without further ado, the 20th-16th most value quarterbacks in NFL history. For those who didn’t play the last two years, I’ll post the rankings and career-value graph, with a link to my previous post with my commentary on that quarterback.
Links to past posts:
No. 20: SONNY JURGENSEN
Regular: 15th, Peak: 21st, Playoffs: 87th
Jurgensen maintains his 20th ranking from two years back, and he also remains my favorite discovery as part of the QB GOAT ranking process. Vince Lombardi, who earlier coached Bart Starr and coached against Johnny Unitas said of Jurgensen, “He may be the best the league has ever seen. He is the best I have seen.” Here’s a sample of my write-up from two years back, plus an amazing reel of highlights.
You can find the entire commentary on Jurgensen here.
Jurgensen was a pure gunslinger, possibly sacrificing overall efficiency for risk-taking and interceptions, but always giving his largely mediocre teams a chance to win. We add the context to Jurgensen’s biggest negative right at the top: he only threw a pass in one postseason game, and that didn’t go so well (6-12, 78 yards, 3 INTs, 0 TDs) at the age of 40 in his final season.
Jurgensen’s 1961 Eagles team at 10-4 wasn’t good enough to make the NFL Championship in the old one-team-per-conference system (the Giants were 10-3-1). Outside of that, Jurgensen’s teams when he was the primary starter weren’t good enough even have a winning record in any season but one (7-5-2, 1969), and even then not good enough to make the playoffs.
Looking across the NFL and AFL, Jurgensen was a top-10 efficiency passer all but one of the 10 seasons he threw at least 250 passes, top-5 in five of those years. Jurgensen wasn’t just efficient, he was a high-volume passer who truly led his offenses in an era of rushing dominance, leading the NFL in attempts three times, and yards five times. Jurgensen set and broke his own record for passing yards (3,723 in 1961 and 3,747 in 1967), and set the record for completions and attempts (288 and 508 in 1967).
Jurgensen never won MVP, but was the First-Team All-Pro quarterback in 1961, and Second-Team All-Pro in 1967 and 1969. He was another victim of #QBWINZ, with no better illustration than the 1967 season. Jurgensen led the NFL in passing efficiency, while breaking the records for completions, attempts and yards, led the NFL in touchdowns (31) and had the league’s lowest interception rate. He even scored two of the his team’s 13 rushing touchdowns. Despite a near-perfect case for being the league’s best quarterback, he was second in All-Pro voting to Johnny Unitas of the 11-1-2 Colts (Jurgensen’s Redskins went 5-6-3).
No. 19: TERRY BRADSHAW
Regular: 54th, Peak: 50th, Playoffs: 2nd
No quarterback benefits more from postseason success and value than Terry Bradshaw. He doesn’t crack into the top-50 in either total regular season or peak value, but accumulated the second-highest playoff value in NFL history.
You can find the entire commentary on Bradshaw here.
Terry Bradshaw is on the opposite end of the value allocation spectrum from someone like Jurgensen, a postseason star who was sometimes carried - or at least helped - there by his excellent teammates. Bradshaw had one of the rougher starts to his career, coming out of Louisiana Tech as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1970 NFL draft. He started almost immediately, but didn’t have a good regular season of passing efficiency until 1975, his sixth in the league.
From 1970 to 1974, Bradshaw threw 1,2227 passes in the regular season at a paltry ANY/A of 3.1. There was really no part of his profile that approached average, completing less than half of his passes, a 48-81 TD-INT ratio, and a 9% sack rate. Despite Bradshaw’s poor play, the Steelers made the playoffs in 1974 and went on to win the Super Bowl. Bradshaw played well in that postseason, completing 58% of his passes, a 3-1 TD-INT ratio and only taking two sacks over 52 dropbacks. Bradshaw’s 7.6 ANY/A that postseason was 4.5 yards per dropback better than his career average at that point.
Starting in 1975 is when Bradshaw combined good regular season and postseason play, averaging 6.1 ANY/A in 2,674 regular-season attempts over that nine-year stretch, and an incredible 7.2 ANY/A in 346 playoffs attempts. It’s no wonder that the Steelers were 13-3 in the playoffs with Bradshaw starting from 1974 on. Bradshaw was a bit lose with the football in the playoffs, throwing nearly as many interceptions as touchdowns. But those risks came with huge rewards in the form of 8.2 yards per attempts, in an era when the league average was under 6.0.
No. 18: WARREN MOON
Regular: 16th, Peak: 23rd, Playoffs: 22nd
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