The QB GOAT Series: 35-33

Ultimate playoff success escaped this cohort, but strong peak play boosts their values

I wrote up the methodology for how I measure quarterback career value and highlighted a few honorable mentions in a post last week.

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 quarterback dropbacks over a century of the modern NFL to rank-order quarterbacks by value. Good luck watching, grading and comparing every quarterback snap from 1947 to 2022 and then forming your own film-watcher list.

I’m going to take this list in smallish chucks, going three-at-a-time until I get to the final two, who you might be able to guess, though the ordering may remain a mystery.

Links to past posts:

• 50-48, 47-45, 44-42, 41-39, 38-36

No. 35: JIM KELLY

Regular: 23rd, Peak: 36th, Playoffs: 69th

Not featured in the visualization above is an added bonus for Jim Kelly’s time with the USFL’s Houston Gamblers, where he chose to start his career. Kelly supposedly didn’t want to play in could weather, yet the Bills used the 14th pick in 1983 draft on him, their second pick of the first round. Kelly was resigned to play in Buffalo, but was convinced to join the USFL after being given his choice of teams. You have to discount Kelly’s USFL stats heavily due to the competitive environment, or lack thereof, but he put up eye-popping numbers over two seasons: 9,842 passing yards, 83 touchdowns and 45 interceptions, averaging 8.5 yards per attempt.

After the USFL ended, Kelly joined the Bills in 1986, starting 177 games (160 regular, 17 playoffs) over the next 11 seasons, always starting at least 12 in each year. In the regular season, Kelly threw for above-average efficiency in nine of 11 seasons, and only marginally worse than average in the other two (1994, 1996). Unfortunately, Kelly’s playoff efficiency lowers his overall QB GOAT ranking, gaining roughly a yard less per dropback than in the regular season.

The value of Kelly’s best regular season campaigns in 1991 and 1992 were mitigated heavily by playoff struggles. In 1991, Kelly was third in ANY/A behind only Mark Rypien and Steve Young, while leading the Bills to a 13-2 record as starter. Kelly was named the best quarterback that season with a First-Team All-Pro selection, but lost out to teammate Thurman Thomas in the MVP voting. In 1992, Kelly was selected Second-Team All-Pro behind Young, leading the Bills to an 11-5 record and finishing seventh in ANY/A.

The Bills famously - or infamously - lost four straight Super Bowls from 1990-1993, and Kelly’s numbers suffered during those runs, especially in the Championship games. In Super Bowls, Kelly threw a combined a decent 145 passes for 829 yards (5.7 per), but only two touchdowns to seven interceptions, and took 11 sacks for 96 yards. That comes out to 2.9 ANY/A overall, less than half of his 5.9 ANY/A career regular-season number.

One of the delicate balancing acts of this analysis and forming the methodology is weighing the smaller-sample, yet highly impactful, playoffs against the regular season. Kelly’s playoff struggle and certainly less predictive and representative of who he fundamentally was as a quarterback, but they also are highly explanatory of why a Bills team with a top defense and offensive weapons walked away with zero titles. Kelly is rightfully in the Hall of Fame, also rightfully he was excluded from the 20 modern-era finalists for the NFL100 list.

No. 34: BOOMER ESIASON

Regular: 37th, Peak: 20th, Playoffs: 82nd