Today’s guest post comes from one of the longest followers of this blog (and its predecessor), Richie Wohlers. Richie is an accountant from Southern California who is a Dolphins fan despite never being to Florida. As always, we thank our guest posters for contributing.
Inspired by Bill James’s Game Score for pitchers, I’ve been tracking something similar for quarterbacks.
This is just a simple way to look at box score stats for a quarterback to see who had the most statistically impressive games. This is not taking things into account such as win probabilities, air yards, EPA, opponent quality, etc. More importantly, there are no era adjustments, so this is biased in favor of modern players. That said, the goal was just to create a single number to back up the “awe” factor we may have seen while watching the game.
Methodology:
There are five components to my game score. They are each weighted equally, though (as with passer rating) completion percentage ends up getting “double-counted” with yards per attempt. The categories are: Total Yards, Touchdown Passes, Completion Percentage, Yards per Attempt and Interception Percentage. Each category is worth 20 points, so a perfect game would be worth 100 points.
The threshold for each category is based on the best performance of all time. Those thresholds are:
Yards: 554 (Norm Van Brocklin, 1951)
Touchdowns: 7 (6 times, most recently Drew Brees in 2015)
Completion Percentage (min 15 attempts): 96.7% (Drew Brees, 2019)
Yards/Attempt (min 15 attempts): 20.5 (Craig Morton, 1970)
Interception Percentage: Each percentage point deducts two points from a player’s score. (Drew Brees is the highest-rated QB to throw an interception, when he threw for 511 yards, 7 TD and 2 Int in 2015. It ranks as the 19th-best game.)
A player’s portion of those records is multiplied by 20. So when Patrick Mahomes threw for 443 yards last season, that was worth ( 443 / 554 = 0.8 * 20 ) 16 points.
The top 10 performances:
10) 78.8 – Lamar Jackson, 2019 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201909080mia.htm) – 17/20 (85%), 324 yards, 5 TD, 0 Int, 16.2 Y/A. Jackson began one of the greatest QB rushing seasons of all time by rushing for….6 yards! Instead he was nearly flawless as a passer against a Dolphins team that began the season looking like possibly the worst defense ever. He had a perfect passer rating and only 3 incomplete passes.
9) 79.0 – Drew Brees, 2009 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200911300nor.htm) – 18/23 (78%), 371 yards, 5 TD, 0 Int, 16.1 Y/A. Brees was on the way to leading the Saints to a Super Bowl championship, and his best game came in high style as they blew out the Patriots 38-17 on Monday Night Football. It was also one of Tom Brady’s worst games.
8) 79.2 – Deshaun Watson, 2019 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201910060htx.htm) – 28/33 (85%), 426 yards, 5 TD, 0 Int, 12.9 Y/A. The Falcons closed to within 8 points early in the fourth quarter, and then Watson threw two more TD’s as the Texans pulled away. The Texans also rushed for 166 yards in the game, including 47 by Watson. This game ranked as the #1 passing game of 2019 in terms of passing value after adjusting for opponent.
7) 79.4 – Aaron Rodgers, 2019 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201910200gnb.htm) – 25/31 (81%), 429 yards, 5 TD, 0 Int, 13.8 Y/A. This is the third (and final) game from 2019 to make the list. Green Bay didn’t take the lead for good until about 12 minutes into the second quarter. This performance ranked as the #1 passing game of 2019 without opponent adjustments.
6) 79.8 – Johnny Unitas, 1967 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/196711120atl.htm) – 17/20 (85%), 370 yards, 4 TD, 0 Int, 18.5 Y/A. This is the only performance in the top 10 with fewer than 5 TD passes. The Colts took a 21-0 lead in the first quarter and blew out the hapless Falcons 49-7.
5) 80.3 – Peyton Manning, 2013 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201309050den.htm) – 27/42 (64%), 462 yards, 7 TD, 0 Int, 11.0 Y/A. Somehow Manning only appears once in the top 50 of this list (Ryan Fitzpatrick has two!). But his best game came with the Broncos when they hosted the defending champion Ravens to open the 2013 season. He threw two touchdowns to Julius Thomas in the second quarter. Then two to Wes Welker in the third quarter. Then two to Demaryius Thomas in the fourth quarter.
4) 80.6 – Jared Goff, 2018 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201809270ram.htm) – 26/33 (79%), 465 yards, 5 TD, 0 Int, 14.1 Y/A. Is Jared Goff elite? I don’t know, but on a Thursday night in Los Angeles he had a perfect passer rating and outdueled Kirk Cousins (who also threw for 400+ yards) on the way to leading the Rams to a Super Bowl appearance.
3) 82.7 – Ben Roethlisberger, 2014 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201410260pit.htm) – 40/49 (82%), 522 yards, 6 TD, 0 Int, 10.7 Y/A. This was the most passing yards to make the top 10 of this list and the 4th-most passing yards of all time. The Steelers had this game in hand most of the way, with a game script of 11.6, but Andrew Luck threw for 400 yards trying to keep the Colts close.
2) 84.5 – Nick Foles, 2013 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201311030rai.htm) – 22/28 (79%), 406 yards, 7 TD, 0 Int, 14.5 Y/A. This was Foles’ 9th career start. He only attempted one pass (it was incomplete) in the fourth quarter, so Foles only needed three quarters to put up the 2nd-best statistical performance. Only one player ever threw for 7 touchdown passes on fewer attempts than Foles’ 28 in this game. That was Adrian Burk in 1954, who also played for the Eagles. Burk’s game does not make this list. Chip Kelly was 3-5 as a coach and this game began a 7-1 run to finish the season.
1) 84.7 – Y.A. Tittle, 1962 (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/196210280nyg.htm) – 27/39 (69%), 505 yards, 7 TD, 0 Int, 12.9 Y/A. Despite eight of the top 10 games coming during the 21st century, the #1 spot belongs to somebody from the early 1960’s. The Giants held a one point lead in the third quarter and then Tittle threw four TD passes in the second half, including two over 50 yards. He threw his seventh touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter to take a 49-20 lead. The Redskins scored two more touchdowns afterwards, but the Giants still won 49-34.
