Notes: Active quarterbacks beyond Brady

Trio — From left, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers are all playing on pace to finish among the top 10 quarterbacks of all time. The QBs of the 21st century are playing at a level way beyond what their predecessors achieved.

This week’s Tom Brady update got me wondering about about how some of his contemporaries are doing. I generally don’t want to post active players’ stats; when I started doing this 10 years ago, I tracked a few guys who were still playing, but there were some wild swings in value as their careers wound down, and I decided it was better to wait until they were finished.

That said, there are a few high-profile quarterbacks who’ve been around long enough that we can start speculating about where they are going to end up. First, the existing top 10, retired players only:

	Games	Total	Per 160	Sqr Root	Sum	Off	Def
Sammy Baugh	171	28.67	26.83	5.35	32.18	36.03	17.61
Peyton Manning	293	44.37	24.23	6.66	30.89	55.42	-6.96
Sid Luckman	133	19.86	23.89	4.46	28.35	32.76	15.02
Dan Marino	260	35.09	21.59	5.92	27.52	51.07	-7.89
Steve Young	189	26.12	22.11	5.11	27.22	49.27	-5.05
Brett Favre	326	40.98	20.11	6.40	26.51	49.15	-8.93
Otto Graham	138	18.71	21.69	4.33	26.02	46.55	-3.17
Joe Montana	215	26.57	19.77	5.15	24.93	45.69	-6.15
John Elway	256	30.72	19.20	5.54	24.74	46.10	-7.70
Randall Cunningham	173	21.24	19.64	4.61	24.25	45.66	-6.37

The usual caveat: Baugh and Luckman were two-way players in an era of much lower offenses. When Manning retired at 30.89, a number much higher than any other modern QB, I speculated that the NFL’s rule changes in the 21st century, and the change in tactics that followed, meant that we were going to get a rash of quarterbacks playing at a much higher level than we’d seen previously.

I concentrated on Brady, who was generally seen as the yin to Manning’s yang, and, indeed, it appears that he’s going to finish well ahead of Dan Marino, too, though he may not catch Manning. But I should have been following Drew Brees, too, who came into the league one year after Brady and has even better numbers.

Then there are Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers, two signal-callers in their mid-30s who are pushing to be at the same level. It could be that by the time they’re all done, four of the top five QBs will be 21st century players, with only Sammy Baugh holding up the (very) old guard.

	Games	Total	Per 160	Sqr Root	Sum	Off	Def
Tom Brady	309	45.54	23.58	6.75	30.33	52.68	-5.51
Drew Brees	279	42.12	24.15	6.49	30.64	55.26	-6.96
Ben Roethlisberger	237	30.82	20.81	5.55	26.36	48.82	-7.21
Aaron Rodgers	182	29.63	26.05	5.44	31.49	56.61	-4.51

Brady is a hundredth of a point higher than what I wrote on Friday; I had missed a two-point conversion in there somewhere.

Brees is ahead of Brady’s pace and has a slightly better chance of catching Manning, especially since he plays in a dome and for an offensive-minded coach. The three of them will probably end up bunched together.

Roethlisberger isn’t really in the same class as the other three … he’s “only” around Brett Favre’s level as of now. He also has the biggest chance at regressing, given the punishment he’s taken over the years and the high-risk style he plays.

It’s no surprise that Rodgers is setting a blistering pace. I do wonder if he can keep it up into his late 30s. Because he sat behind Favre for three years, he’s short on games (he came into the league one year after Roethlisberger but he has 55 fewer games), and that means his decline years will weigh more heavily. That -4.51 defensive average reflects his tiny interception totals. No other modern QB is close, and it may be his ace in the hole at the end.