In writing about the new Heidi game and the old Heidi game in my NFL WEEK THREE post, I started thinking about the way QB play has changed between now and then. I had a sense that back in 1968 the AFL teams like the Jets and the Raiders were playing gunslinger football. Conversely, I had the sense that the QBs today were playing more dink and dunk. So, I looked at the best yardage years of the two QBs in the Heidi game from 1968 --Daryl Lamonica and Joe Namath, as well as for another noted AFL rifleman, John Hadl. Hadl's and Lamonica's best yardage year was 1968, Namath's 1967.
I then looked at the numbers from the five dominant passers of 2011 to see how the QB measures had changed. I used the great 1984 Dan Marino year as a stylistic bridge between the old school bombers and the new school surgeons.
What did I find? The old guys as a group were much less likely to complete passes. They completed a higher percentage of passes for touchdowns, gained more yards per completion, and threw tons more interceptions. Of course, teams threw less frequently in the late 60's than they do today and they played a 14 game season. I focused more on what happened for each pass completed than for each pass attempted because to me, there is no fun in an incomplete pass.
Some observations:
- While the old guys had a gaudy 15+ yards for completion average, the guys in 2011 were not as dink and dunk on their completions as I thought they would be. I suspect, though, the different styles of play would mean there was much more yards after catch (YAC) in 2011 than in 1967 or 1968.
- Dan Marino's 1984 year is quite phenomenal when viewed as a link to the two eras. He could hang with the old guys in terms of TD%, yards/completion -- and he could hang with the new guys in the efficiency areas of completion % and TD/INT ratio.
- Aaron Rogers's 2011 was perhaps the greatest regular season a QB has ever had. His efficiency numbers and impact per completion stand out even among the great QB performances in 2011
- If Ed Reed had played in the AFL in the late sixties, he might have intercepted 20 passes a year.
Are today's QBs better? Is the game more exciting now? Do the rules so favor passing today that these comparisons are apples and oranges? I don't know. But it is fun sometimes to run the numbers and see how the game has changed.
Player
|
completions
|
compl%
|
TDs
|
TD%
|
Yards
|
Yds/comp
|
INT
|
TD/INT
|
Hadl
|
208
|
47.3
|
27
|
13.0%
|
3473
|
16.7
|
32
|
0.84
|
Lamonica
|
221
|
51.9
|
34
|
15.4%
|
3303
|
14.9
|
25
|
1.36
|
Namath
|
258
|
52.5
|
26
|
10.1%
|
4007
|
15.5
|
28
|
0.93
|
Marino
|
362
|
64.2
|
48
|
13.3%
|
5084
|
14.0
|
17
|
2.82
|
Rogers
|
343
|
68.1
|
45
|
13.1%
|
4643
|
13.5
|
6
|
7.50
|
Manning
|
359
|
61.0
|
29
|
8.1%
|
4933
|
13.7
|
16
|
1.81
|
Stafford
|
421
|
63.5
|
41
|
9.7%
|
5084
|
12.1
|
16
|
2.56
|
Brady
|
401
|
65.6
|
39
|
9.7%
|
5235
|
13.1
|
12
|
3.25
|
Brees
|
468
|
71.2
|
46
|
9.8%
|
5476
|
11.7
|
14
|
3.29
|
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