Culture

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?p=545 Posted by Chase Stuart on Monday, June 23, 2008 Two years ago I wrote up a post about the worst quarterbacks of all time. Today I’ll be updating that post, while tomorrow I’ll be writing about the best quarterbacks of all time. To save myself some headaches, I’ve separated out the methodology for ranking the QBs into a separate post. That’s pretty much required reading if you want to understand how the rankings were derived. For starters, it always bugs me how much time NFL fans spend discussing the best quarterbacks ever, and how little time we spend discussing the worst QBs ever. Let’s start with the worst single season of all time. I doubt anyone alive today remembers the name Bud Schwenk. That’s what happens when you throw 295 passes, and complete 126 of them to your team and 27 of them to the opponents. Yes, Bud Schwenk averaged an impressive 0.69 adjusted yards per pass attempt, while the league average outside of Scwhenk was 4.25 adjusted yards per pass (After 1969, every QB will be ranked by his net adjusted yards per attempt, but we don’t have reliable individual sack data from before then). Schwenk singlehandedly dropped the league average to 3.23 AY/A, which might have misled readers into seeing how bad he really was. Six years later, Jack Jacobs was nearly as bad, averaging negative yards per pass attempt but on over 100 fewer passes. Ineptitude kept Jacobs from passing (sliding behind?) Schenk. And the third worst QB season of all time? You need to fast forward 51 years, to 1999. Check out this stat line: Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD Int Sk SkYd ANY/A LgAvg ANY/A 201 381 52.8 2111 9 24 27 152 2.38 4.87 Plummer, in 1999, “contributed” 1,017 fewer yards to the Cardinals than the league average QB would have brought to the table. As far as modern seasons go, Plummer’s ‘99 stands as the worst. Here’s a list of the 25 worst seasons by any QB: pro football reference.com 6/23/08