I initially started compiling this data in the summer of 2010 to show that the Vikings and Redskins were foolish to put their championship hopes in the hands of Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb, respectively. Their peaks were years ago. If you only took the last 12 years of Favre’s career, for instance, he doesn’t even get a glimpse of the Hall of Fame. His first 8 seasons were so great that they carried his reputations for a full two decades.
McNabb’s peak ended in 2005. The Eagles had a great run with him from 2000-2004, but he’s only won two playoff games since then. And what I remember most about that era is that the last meaningful play of every single Eagles season from 2001-2005 was an interception thrown by McNabb. Check it out:
- 2001-2002: McNabb interception on 4th down in NFC Championship Game in St. Louis.
- 2002-2003: McNabb interception returned for touchdown by Ronde Barber in NFC Championship Game
- 2003-2004: McNabb’s 3rd interception by Ricky Manning, Jr. in the NFC Championship Game
- 2004-2005: McNabb’s interception on by Rodney Harrison clinched the Super Bowl for New England
- 2005-2006: McNabb’s interception that Roy Williams returned for a touchdown on a Monday night (McNabb was injured on the play and missed the rest of the season)
Furthermore, the record for consecutive Super Bowl appearances is only 8 years. The record for longest time between a quarterback’s first and last Super Bowl appearances is 12. Both of those records belong to Elway. Kurt Warner is in second place on both lists with 7 years and 9 years, respectively (Craig Morton is tied with Warner’s 7).
What this shows is that, for the most part, quarterbacks’ Super Bowl appearances come within a short time span. The stories of the old gunslinger leading his team on one last Super Bowl run are just a myth. It doesn’t happen in the NFL.
Now that that’s out of the way…
Last night, a quarterback discussion broke out on Twitter. Specifically, the names of Favre, McNabb, Brady, and Peyton Manning were thrown around. Thankfully, I had all of their data already compiled. The data I speak of is the playoff performance of all NFL quarterbacks who have started 10 or more playoff games since 1999, which is the year Donovan McNabb entered the league, Peyton Manning first made the playoffs, and Brett Favre really fell off. In total, this list includes the 4 quarterbacks already mentioned as well as Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger. My initial premise was that McNabb and post-Holmgren Favre are the two worst playoff quarterbacks of this generation. I knew Peyton Manning wasn’t good, but I didn’t realize how close he was to Favre and McNabb. Manning’s actually been bad.
What you will see is the performance data broken up into different categories of playoff games since 1999: all games, games with a single-digit point differential, Championship Games/Super Bowls, wins, losses, games tied after 3 quarters, games led by 8 points or less after 3 quarters, games trailed by 8 points or less after 3 quarters, and overtime games. One interesting thing of which to take note is that Roethlisberger’s performances are all fairly consistent, no matter the category. His statistics are always OK, yet the Steelers always score a lot. Anyway…make your judgments for yourself. (Click here for the data)
ALL PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
The biggest surprise for me here was the realization that the Colts have scored as many as 20 points in only 9 of Peyton Manning’s 19 playoff games and that the Colts only averaged 22.37 points in those games. Next was realizing that only Kurt Warner averaged more than 2 touchdown passes per game.
By more than 4 points, Favre and McNabb have the 2 worst quarterback ratings of the group. Warner’s rating is a ridiculous 102.84.
SINGLE DIGIT PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
Before doing my research, I knew that Favre and McNabb’s teams had poor records in playoff games decided by less than 10 points. I knew that the only such game the Eagles won was the 4th & 26 game in which they defeated Favre’s Packers in overtime. Favre’s 1 win was the “and we’re gonna score” game in which Al Harris returned a Matt Hasselbeck interception for a touchdown in overtime. The Colts only scored 20 points in 3 of their 9 single-digit playoff games.
Oddly, even though each only posted a 1-3 record in such games, Favre and McNabb were the only 2 of the 6 to have a higher quarterback rating in single-digit games than in overall playoff games.
CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES & SUPER BOWLS SINCE 1999
It is here where Brady and Warner shine while Favre and McNabb fall far behind the others. By a lot, Favre and McNabb have the worst quarterback ratings of the bunch and Brady and Warner have the best. Only Warner and Brady managed to have more touchdown passes than interceptions in half of these games. No one else did it more than a third of the time. While Warner and Brady averaged 1 interception per game or less, Favre and McNabb were both at or near 2. That helps to explain why those Warner and Brady have a combined 11-4 record (1 game against each other) while the other two are 1-7 (no games played against each other). Manning and Roethlisberger also sport winning records in Championship Games and Super Bowls.
The most interesting statistic here is that Warner’s team averaged only 22.5 points in these games, yet still won 4 out of 6.
PLAYOFF LOSSES SINCE 1999
The first thing that struck me when looking at this data is that Roethlisberger’s Steelers have a higher scoring average in their losses than they do in their wins. Despite that, Roethlisberger throws 2.67 interceptions in each loss. Warner, amazingly, still has a respectable 88.47 quarterback rating in his losses.
Manning’s numbers are the most fascinating here, though. In his 10 playoff losses, he’s only thrown 9 touchdown passes. In 5 of those losses, however, he managed to throw more touchdown passes than interceptions. At 14.2 points per game, Manning has the worst scoring offense of those examined. Accordingly, they’ve only scored 20 points once in those losses.
PLAYOFF WINS SINCE 1999
When Brett Favre is good, he’s really good. In his 4 playoff wins, he posted a group best 123.25 quarterback rating. This is the only category in which Warner, who was second best with 109.96, did not have the best rating of the group. In those wins, Favre’s teams averaged 33.5 points per game and the quarterback had 10 TDs against only 1 INT and, naturally, had more touchdowns than interceptions in each game.
Peyton? In his 9 wins, he has 20 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. But I considered that he only threw for more touchdowns than interceptions in 5 of those 9 wins and looked deeper. If you eliminate the 2 games against Mike Shanahan’s defenseless Broncos, Manning has only 11 touchdowns and 8 interceptions in 7 wins. Those numbers are very un-Peyton like. In addition, he is the only quarterback of the 6 to average 1 interception per game.
PLAYOFF GAMES TIED AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
I wanted to take a look at how these guys performed in close, tense playoff games. Looking at games with a final margin of single digits can be misleading—sometimes teams score late and make a game appear closer than it really was. So I took a look at games that were within 1 score at the end of the 3rd quarter. In addition to noting who won and lost these games, I captured how many points the team scored, how many times they went ahead, fell behind, and either came back or had the other team come back against them.
As you’d expect, there weren’t too many games tied after 3 quarters. What is interesting is that McNabb’s Eagles lost their 1 tied game while Brady and Roethlisberger’s teams won all of theirs. Favre had 1 tie game; it went to overtime. It is worth nothing that Favre’s team fell behind in that 4th quarter and had to score a touchdown in order to send that game into overtime.
PLAYOFF GAMES WITH 1-POSSESSION LEAD AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
In looking at games that our quarterbacks’ teams led by 8 or less after 3, I saw that most of these guys were frontrunners. Brady, McNabb, Warner, and Roethlisberger all averaged scoring a touchdown or more in these 4th quarters. While averaging only 5.67 points in his 3 games, Warner fell behind twice and managed to come back to win both games. His record is 3-0.
Only Brady and Manning lost games in regulation. In fact, Brady’s team fell behind 3 times. The Pats won 1 of them. Manning’s case is the most interesting. Out of 8 games, the Colts only won 4. Hmm.
PLAYOFF GAMES WITH 1-POSSESSION DEFECIT AFTER 3 QUARTERS SINCE 1999
In the opposite type games, again we find that only Brady and Manning have won in regulation. Each of the others brought one of these games into overtime. Manning and McNabb have both given their teams the lead only to wind up losing in the end. Each of these guys outside of Warner, who was never in the situation, averaged more than a touchdown per game.
OVERTIME PLAYOFF GAMES SINCE 1999
I knew this going in, but I am amazed that every single one of Brett Favre’s playoff games since 1999 that has ended with a single-digit margin has gone into overtime. It says a lot that, while his team is 1-3 in those overtime games, a Favre interception has played a role in every single one of those losses (overtime interceptions against the Eagles and Giants as well as the interception that sent the Saints loss to overtime). It is absolutely hilarious that the only single-digit victory Favre has was via a defensive score. Similarly, McNabb’s only close playoff victory was an overtime victory that was assisted by a Favre interception in overtime.
Peyton Manning cannot at all be blamed for his 0-2 overtime record. One loss was to San Diego; Indianapolis never saw the ball in overtime. In 2000, the Colts lost in overtime in Miami. Manning drove the offense to what should have been the winning score, but Mike Vanderjagt missed a field goal.
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