The NFL’s greatest QB performances are actually better than they have us believe
The NFL says no quarterback is allowed to have a passer rating above 158.3, refusing to acknowledge a difference between two quarterbacks in which one clearly outperforms the other as to the metrics relevant to its formula. Well, that notion can go kick rocks. We’re rounding up the artificial constraints and the lies and sending them to the bottom of the ocean to right all the wrong numbers stemming from each of the 24,492 regular + postseason individual games of the Super Bowl era in which a quarterback threw at least 20 passes. With the truth revealed, some fascinating nuggets emerge.
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00:00On September 8th, 2019, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson crafted a masterpiece in Miami.
00:07On the same day, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott played marvelously, but as to the metrics
00:12relevant to passer rating, objectively and significantly inferior.
00:17And yet, in a clear affront to both common sense and logic, John Q. Public is being sold
00:23on this idea that the same number should be applied to both performances.
00:28So in a nutshell, passer rating lies.
00:31Within the broad, complex formula, if any of those four metrics land above these numbers,
00:36it baselessly rounds down to them.
00:39For completion percentage and yards per attempt, any figure that falls below 30 and 3, respectively,
00:45is baselessly rounded up to those marks.
00:48What you're looking at here are each of the 24,492 instances in which an NFL quarterback
00:54attempted at least 20 passes in a regular or postseason game, from the start of the
00:59Super Bowl era in 1966 up through 2023.
01:03They're plotted by season along the x-axis, and by what their actual passer rating sans
01:08artificial boundaries that serve only to deceive, along the y-axis.
01:13One natural area that might initially draw your attention is toward the very top, where
01:17more than 200 player games reside above so-called perfection.
01:23After all, not all quote-unquote perfect 158.3s are created equal.
01:30Not by a long shot.
01:32It's just too disingenuous to take two quarterback performances in which one clearly outperformed
01:37the other and relegate them both to the same number and the same word.
01:43What best illustrates that paradigm, at the very apex of this chart, north of 220 as the
01:49single most efficient passing game in NFL history, is that Lamar game from September
01:542019.
01:56Returning to his old stomping grounds, the South Florida native gets the firework started
02:00on a perfectly placed slant to Hollywood Brown that's taken the distance for a 47-yard score.
02:06The very next pass Jackson throws, an effortless flick of the wrist soars the ball nearly 50
02:12yards downfield into the waiting arms of Brown, who takes it the rest of the way.
02:17Not even 11 minutes into the ballgame, and Jackson's completed all four of his passes
02:21for 140 yards and two touchdowns.
02:25Next time he gets his hands on the pigskin, he drives his team down to Miami's 33, where
02:29he tosses a dart to the endzone right in Willie Sneed's breadbasket.
02:34After a takeaway sets the Ravens up in the red zone, the Dolphins dial up a 7-man pressure
02:39package on 3rd down.
02:41With an unblocked defender screaming off the edge, a dead-to-rights Jackson retreats, retreats,
02:48retreats some more, decides to chuck the ball off his back foot into the endzone, and makes
02:53magic happen.
02:55A quarter and a half into this one, Jackson has completed all nine of his passes for 204
03:01yards and a quartet of touchdowns.
03:04His first drive of the second half, he methodically leads his team to the doorstep of the goal
03:08line where he dabbles in some play action to hit Patrick Ricard for passing touchdown
03:13number 5.
03:15After leading a field goal drive on their next possession, that is all she wrote as
03:19the game's final quarter devolves into the Robert Griffin III vs. Josh Rosen portion
03:25of the proceedings.
03:27With Jackson's day wrapped up, his completion percentage stands at 85, his yards per attempt
03:32at 16.2, and his touchdown percentage at 25 while not throwing a pick.
03:38It's called perfect, and in baselessly shaving over 65 points off what we know was his actual
03:43passer rating, it's called 158.3.
03:49But we know better.
03:50We know the truth.
03:52Conveniently enough to underscore the deceit, it's just a few hours later that Prescott
03:57finishes up his game having completed 78% of his passes for 12.7 yards per attempt with
04:03a touchdown percentage of 12.5.
04:06It's of course called the same word.
04:08It's called the same number.
04:10How can we, as a society, let that be?
04:14They can't keep getting away with this.
04:17Both QBs cleared the upper boundaries in those three metrics, but the fact that Lamar did
04:21so by significantly more than did Dak goes completely unaccounted for.
04:27It's high time these best and worst performances get properly sussed out and distinguished.
04:34One of the more conspicuous observations up top that jumped out to me at the outset
04:37of having done the NFL a solid and correcting their thousands and thousands of decades-long
04:43lies was that each of the three highest games here were produced by former University of
04:48Louisville quarterbacks.
04:50Lamar Jackson's aforementioned September 2019 game sits atop the rest, with another
04:55of his Dolphin demolitions a few years later sandwiching at number two a 1967 Johnny Unitas
05:01game in Atlanta referenced last episode.
05:04But that is not it for Louisville representation among the zenith here.
05:09Coming in at number 19 out of 24,492 is a third former Cardinal, Teddy Bridgewater,
05:15who generated an actual pass rating of 187.7 in a 2015 game, and Louisville's still not
05:23done with their infiltration of the top 10th of the top 1%.
05:28At number 26 is a third Lamar appearance when he reached 183.1 in a November 2019 game.
05:36So that's 3 of the top 3 and 5 of the top 26 spots here comprised by three different
05:42Louisville alumni.
05:44As for the two non-Louisville games that constitute the rest of the top 5, that would be these
05:49games by, as surely anyone would have figured, Alex Smith and Nick Foles, both of which occurred
05:55in 2013, and both of which occurred in Oakland, feasting upon the generosity of a Raider defense
06:01that, in both games, allowed over 14 yards per pass, including scores on a full quarter
06:07of them.
06:08For Foles, that amounted to 7 touchdowns by the time the game was two-thirds over, while
06:13Smith dialed up a quintet of TDs, 4 to Jamal Charles to help him become the only back to
06:19ever catch that many in a single game.
06:22If you move your attention over toward 2023, as a Niner fan I'd be remiss to not call attention
06:27to the fact that Brock Purdy authored not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, but 6 of the
06:3714 highest actual passer ratings of that campaign.
06:41But it's the highest of the 6, the one at 167 and change, under which there's some true
06:46post-season wonder hidden.
06:48In the first playoff game of 2023's Super Wildcard Weekend, first-year starter CJ Stroud
06:54and the Houston Texans welcomed to town the Cleveland Browns.
06:58Stroud put on his lab coat, took out his scapel, and performed surgery, dicing up arguably
07:04the league's top pass defense to the tune of 16 completions in 21 attempts for 274 yards,
07:113 scores, and no picks.
07:14It was good for an actual passer rating just north of 167, becoming the fifth player to
07:19ever do so in a playoff game, joining 82 Lynn Dickey, 03 Peyton Manning, 09 Kurt Warner,
07:27and 21 Josh Allen, all in the wildcard round.
07:32So Stroud, in his very first career playoff game, in his very first season as a starter,
07:38accomplished something that was only done once in the 20th century.
07:42The very next day, in the very same state of Texas, another first-year starter Jordan
07:48Love partook in his first career playoff game.
07:51A couple hundred miles north of where Stroud laid waste to the Browns, the Packers signal
07:56caller waltzed into Arlington and ruthlessly took the Cowboys behind the woodshed, saying
08:02anything you can do, I can do almost identically.
08:07He threw the same 21 passes Stroud did the prior day, likewise completing 16 of them,
08:13three finding paydirt, and none of which were picked.
08:16Alas, the similarities end there, because whereas Stroud passed for 274 yards, Love
08:23only finished up with 272.
08:28In basically plagiarizing off Stroud's homework, Love too produced an actual passer rating
08:33just north of 167.
08:36In one weekend, a couple of first-year starters slinging it around in their first career playoff
08:41game not only increased membership of the playoff 167 club by 50%, but did so on the
08:48back of near-carbon copy raw totals.
08:52Speaking of 82 Dickey being the owner of one of the best-ever playoff games, you'll also
08:56notice that in the prior season the Packers QB topped a 200 actual passer rating in a
09:01regular season game when, from 1968 through 2002, no one else had a game reaching even
09:08190.
09:09Then in 2003, Peyton Manning did so twice, once in a regular season contest and once
09:14in the aforementioned playoff game.
09:17At the time, that meant two of the three regular season games to ever top 200 belonged to Manning
09:23and Dickey, while the top two playoff games also belonged to the same two guys, one of
09:29whom was Lynn Dickey.
09:31And even to this day, along with Manning, Dickey remains one of just two guys who have
09:36authored both a game residing in the regular season top 10 and one residing in the post-season
09:41top 10.
09:42Not Brady, not Breeze, not Montana, not Elway, Manning is joined by Lynn gosh darn Dickey.
09:51Another game that jumped out to me was the highest actual passer rating game of 1999,
09:56belonging to October 10th, Kurt Warner.
09:59And in fact, calling it the highest of just that season shortchanges him.
10:0310-10-99 Warner posted the highest actual passer rating in a game since that Dickey
10:08gem nearly two decades earlier.
10:11But what's so captivating about this performance is that he reached a level that high despite
10:16having thrown an interception.
10:18This is the highest overall placement on this chart among games that include at least one
10:23pick, and by a significant margin, too, besting runner-up 924-72 Joe Namath by over 10 points.
10:31When operating within the confines of the bizarro artificial barriers, INTs really shine
10:36a bright light on just how flawed and ridiculous their presence is.
10:41They can be irrationally debilitating to artificial passer rating to the point that you could
10:46throw a googolplex of passes in a game with a googolplex minus one producing touchdowns
10:51all from 99 yards out, but a lone INT on the other pass would render your artificial passer
10:58rating lower than the sacred 158.3 repeating posted by Dak in that 2019 game, and thus
11:05ineligible for the perfection label that goes along with it.
11:0910-10-99 Warner's blemish results in an INT percentage of 4.35, which is an automatic
11:15deduction of over 18 points and is reflected in knocking his artificial passer rating from
11:21158.3 down to 140.2.
11:25But not accurately reflected?
11:27Warner's completion percentage of 87, his yards per attempt of 14, and his touchdown
11:32percentage of 21.7, which are still able to propel his actual passer rating up to 187.4,
11:40a number so high that it in fact surpasses the actual passer rating from 28 of the 38
11:46individual games that generated artificial 158.3s, among them his own contest from the
11:53very prior week.
11:54That's right, nearly three-quarters of all games referred to as perfect are in fact inferior
12:00to that Warner game, despite the INT preventing any chance at earning such a label.
12:06Interestingly enough, three months after his game that remains the greatest passing
12:10performance in NFL regular season history among those that include at least one interception,
12:16the former arena leaguer played in his first career postseason game and utterly dismantled
12:21the Vikings by completing 27 of 33 passes for nearly 400 yards, 5 touchdowns, and a pick.
12:29And that remains the greatest passing performance in NFL postseason history among those that
12:35include at least one interception.
12:37As for the 201 player games here with an actual passer rating above artificial perfection
12:42of 158.3, they're comprised by 110 different quarterbacks.
12:4838 of them have managed to pull off multiple such games overall across their careers.
12:53I happened to notice good ol' Lynn Dickey, of whom we know about two such games, actually
12:58churned out four total.
13:01Curious about the other two, it turns out they occurred consecutively in kicking off
13:05the 83 season.
13:07With my curiosity uncontrollable at this point, I check to see if his 164.1 actual passer
13:14rating across the two games perhaps constitutes the greatest two-game stretch ever.
13:20And well, for a period of more than 20 years it appears that it did, before losing his
13:26title to 0-3 Peyton Manning in the wake of his sizzling first couple playoff games.
13:3183 Dickey still maintained the regular season throne for another 15 years until 2018 Pat
13:37Mahomes, by a hair-splittingly, excruciatingly close margin, beat him out by one quarter
13:43of one point.
13:45Having also extensively poured over the top passing games from archaic days of yore, I
13:50can say with extreme confidence that, by actual passer rating, 164.1 represents the most prolific
13:58two-game stretch with a minimum of 50 passes the NFL had ever seen across its first 83
14:05years of existence.
14:07Accomplished by the seemingly ordinary, nondescript Lynn Dickey, who never made a Pro Bowl, never
14:13had a season with a passer rating topping 90, and barely reached 70 across the course
14:18of his career, yet is apparently the Dos Equis guy of NFL quarterbacks.
14:24Not only somehow managing to crank out four games surpassing so-called perfection, but
14:29all four telling part of a larger story, woven together like a tapestry.
14:35If you're wondering about playoffs specifically, there's just one QB, Joe Montana, who's ever
14:40had multiple games topping so-called perfection, both in the 89 postseason.
14:46Finally if you'll direct your focus toward 2018, there's another stupefying relic way
14:51up high covered up here by Big Ben Roethlisberger.
14:55Ben's Thursday night evisceration of the Panthers was good for an actual rating of
14:59196.8, ranking number 12 on the all-time list through 2023.
15:05So that's the kind of rarefied air such a number occupies, but there's nothing fascinating
15:10about that, after all Ben's one of the NFL's all-time great quarterbacks.
15:15What is fascinating is the identity of the man hidden underneath, having posted a mark
15:20just one-tenth of one point lower.
15:23Unless you happen to specifically recall that specific game, you should go ahead and guess
15:29who it is.
15:31Congratulations, you're wrong.
15:34That's right, on September 30th, 2018, one Mitch Trubisky murdered the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
15:42and danced on their grave en route to a clean 354 yards and six TDs on just 26 passes.
15:50At the time, it was good for the ninth-best single-game actual passer rating the league
15:55had ever seen.
15:57Mitch Trubisky.
15:59Some quarterbacks who have never had a game so high include Pat Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers,
16:05Dan Marino, Steve Young, not even Nate Peterman did so.
16:10Combined with foals, that also means the 2020 Bears simultaneously employed multiple
16:15signal callers who have produced games that rank among the top 10 or so ever.
16:21Some teams just get all the quarterback luck.
16:24For now we'll press pause at sifting through some of the plethora of relics stemming from
16:28the greatest performances ever with the lies now corrected, because it could be fun to
16:33sift through some of the plethora of relics stemming from the worst performances ever
16:37with the lies now corrected.