Top 25 Quarterbacks by Winning

And here's the biggie. How do you quantify winning? Games won? Well, that's not really what people are generally talking about, is it? After all, Vinny Testaverde won 28 more games as a starting quarterback than Joe Namath did. Try convincing anyone that Testaverde is a bigger winner than Namath. (Not to rag on Testaverde too much. Jason Lisk did a great post over at the Football Reference blog earlier this year, arguing quite persuasively that Testaverde was more a victim of his teams than of his own talent level.)

No, what people mean when they talk about winning is championships. Dan Marino won a ton of games, including quite a few playoff games. He gets criticized for not being a winner all the time. Is it fair? Probably not. Does it reflect the way people tend to think? Sure.

I'm not going to argue that it always makes sense, but football fans as a group tend to put a lot of emphasis on winning championships, and I'm not going to fight against that. Still, there needs to be a way to differentiate between, say, Vinny Testaverde and Jim Kelly. Neither won a Super Bowl, but clearly, Kelly needs to be given credit for his accomplishments. So, I devised a simple system to do just that.

Quarterbacks are awarded points for three things: Leading their team to a winning record during the regular season, winning playoff games, and winning championships. One point is awarded for starting the majority of a team's games, and having a winning record in those games. One point is awarded for winning a postseason game. And points are awarded for championships based on the number of other teams in the league.

Look, supporters of Otto Graham are fond of arguing that in his 10 seasons, he got his team to the championship game 10 times, and won 7 titles. That's very impressive, of course. However, let's not lose sight of the fact that some of those titles came in leagues with a whopping total of 8 teams, and that he never played in a league with more than 13 teams. Should winning the 1948 AAFC championship really count as much as winning the 2004 NFL championship? Can you really make that argument with a straight face?

There's no way that, say, a 1963 AFL title should count as heavily as the 2009 NFL title, given that one comes in an 8 team league, and the other a 32 team league. However, clearly that 1963 AFL title is worth something. The San Diego Chargers beat out everyone they were asked to beat out. That it was only 7 other teams isn't their fault. They did what they could, and Tobin Rote deserves his share of credit for that. It's just not as much credit as Tom Brady deserves for the Patriots 2003 title.

So we've got a system that rewards titles, scaled by the size of the league, and rewards winning seasons and playoff wins at a lower rate. There's room to quibble, but I think the results look nice.

25) Jim McMahon - 36
24) Jeff Hostetler - 37
23) Eli Manning - 38
22) Trent Dilfer - 38
21) Joe Theismann - 38
20) Drew Brees - 39
19) Brad Johnson - 41
18) Phil Simms - 41
17) Ken Stabler - 42
16) Steve Young - 42
15) Kurt Warner - 45
14) Peyton Manning - 50
13) Brett Favre - 57
12) Bob Griese - 64
11) Johnny Unitas - 64
10) Jim Plunkett - 65
9) Roger Staubach - 71
8) Ben Roethlisberger - 75
7) Otto Graham - 76
6) John Elway - 84
5) Troy Aikman - 101
4) Bart Starr - 102
3) Tom Brady - 114
2) Terry Bradshaw - 127
1) Joe Montana - 134

Yeah, there are some guys here who aren't that highly regarded. However, good luck coming up with any kind of list of winners where Jim Plunkett isn't right up there. Is he as good a quarterback as Dan Marino? No, but he definitely deserves his credit for winning a couple of Super Bowls. Is the much maligned Trent Dilfer as good as Joe Theismann? I certainly don't think so, but if you're going to natter on about how a quarterback is good because he's a winner, don't be shocked when a guy with a 5-1 postseason record ranks higher than you might like.