Denver Broncos
- 2011 Record: 8-8 (1st in AFC West, lost AFC Divisional Round to New England)
- 2011 Point Differential: -81 (25th out of 32)
- 2011 Strength of Schedule (per PFR’s SRS system): –0.2 (t-19th)
- 2011 Adjusted Net Yards per Pass Attempt (offense): 4.8 (24th)
- 2011 Adjusted Net Yards per Pass Attempt (defense): 6.6 (27th)
- 2011 Adjusted Pythagorean Record (accounting for Strength of Schedule): 5.7-10.3 (25th)
- 2010 Adjusted Pythagorean Record: 4.8-11.2 (29th)
And now a preliminary look at where Peyton Manning ranks among the best quarterbacks of all-time
You may have heard that Peyton Manning switched teams this past off-season; it probably got mentioned by a few websites and your local 5 ‘o clock news anchor when it occurred. And many of the big questions surrounding training camps this year have revolved around the Broncos and their new free-agent acquisition. Did Peyton have enough zip on that fifteen-yard out route to Eric Decker? What’s the over/under for when he snaps at Demaryius Thomas for being a space cadet? Good Lord, did his head just fall off his shoulders? Has anyone asked why he didn’t make a cameo on the episode of “SNL” his brother hosted? And so on and so forth.
These are all fun diversions to think about while we anxiously count down the days until the actual season starts (JUST 36 MORE! AHHH!!!!!) and pretend to enjoy baseball and Olympic volleyball in the meantime. But at this point, there’s very little to add to these discussions and we have to basically just wait for the season to start to get our answers. Either Peyton will stay healthy and go back to throwing 35 touchdowns a season circa 2007 or he’ll stay healthy and completely lose all his previous effectiveness or he’ll become a quadriplegic on national television or some combination thereof. I love wild speculation as much as the next snarky blogger, but I feel more comfortable leaving that to Mike Florio or another similar internet blowhard.
On the other hand, it’s never too early to start speculating about Manning’s place among the all-time greats! And since this is my blog, allow me a few thoughts on the matter. To start out, let me first state that Manning is currently the greatest regular-season quarterback of all-time. There is no debate. If you refer back to that handy cross-era quarterback comparison chart I linked to yesterday, you’ll see a few quarterbacks who were more efficient than Manning in a much smaller sample size: Steve Young, Joe Montana, and Roger Staubach, to name some of them. You can also find a few quarterbacks who were great over a longer period of time than Manning has been so far: Marino, Favre, and Tarkenton are the guys who come to mind here. But, right now, no one can touch Manning’s combination of greatness and longevity. Marino probably comes the closest and Brady potentially could make it an argument if he plays at his 2007-11 level for a few more years, but Manning currently has a clear edge on them both and I don’t think any rational fan would have much trouble ceding the Greatest Regular Season Quarterback Ever mantle to Forehead.
If we factor in playoff performance, though, things get a little murky. (As a guide, here’s a list of all the quarterbacks who have thrown 200 passes in the playoffs, as ranked by Adjusted Yards per Attempt). Manning’s postseason struggles have overblown a bit, as he ranks fairly highly on that list, but once you figure differences in eras, he’s probably just in the top 20 of most efficient playoff quarterbacks. Here, he’s mostly beaten by the guys you would expect — Starr, Montana, Bradshaw, Warner, and Delhomme (okay, forget that last one).
Now, how much weight playoff performance deserves in comparison to regular season play is a question that everybody will probably answer differently. Personally, I think we learn more about the quality of a quarterback over the course of 5000 attempts than 500; but the playoffs are undoubtedly more important than the regular season, so each playoff attempt should be weighed much more heavily than a regular season attempt. So with that, here’s my personal list of the top ten quarterbacks ever entering the 2012 season. The toughest cuts? John Elway, Dan Fouts, Drew Brees, Bart Starr, and Fran Tarkenton. Easiest cut: Caleb Hanie.
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1. (t) Joe Montana and Peyton Manning. I can’t decide. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME DECIDE. If I needed to win one game tomorrow, I’d probably choose Montana; if I needed a quarterback to build a franchise around for 15 years, I’d choose Manning.
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3. Otto Graham. The most efficient quarterback ever in comparison to his era. Gets dinged a bit for a short career and for taking advantage of crazy new passing strategies like “timing routes,” but Otto was crazy good.
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4. Dan Marino.
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5. Steve Young.
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6. Tom Brady. Erring a little on the side of caution here, will probably be top 5 when all is said and done.
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7. Roger Staubach. Had he not spent four years in the Navy after college and played in the Dead-Ball era for quarterbacks, there’s a reasonable chance we’d consider him the greatest of all-time.
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8. Johnny Unitas.
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9. Sammy Baugh.
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10. Brett Favre.
Random thoughts
Aldon Smith was probably just as deserving of Defensive Rookie of the Year as Von Miller in 2011, but both had huge impacts in their first seasons. Miller, in particular, joined a healthy Elvis Dumervil in forming one of the best (if not the best) pass-rushing duos in the league. Which was good, considering how much the rest of the defense struggled…As you probably ascertained from the top of the post, advanced stats did not like the Broncos at all in 2011, ranking them in the bottom quarter of the league in most important indicators. One stat that is not posted above, however, is Strength of Crazy, Unrealistic, Never-Going-To-Happen-Again Comebacks and in that category, the Broncos finished first. So that’s something…Tim Tebow was usually ugly as a passer, but he had a resoundingly positive effect on the Broncos’ runnning game. Running quarterbacks noticeably lift the yards per carry of their running backs and that definitely happened for Willis McGahee, who somehow ran for 1199 yards and averaged 4.8 yards per carry at age 30. There is NO WAY that will happen again in 2012 with a new quarterback who has no interest in catering to the running game. If McGahee repeated his 3.8 YPC average from 2010, that would be impressive.
Outlook
Your guess is as good as mine. There’s not really a whole lot of precedent for Hall of Fame quarterbacks switching teams after experiencing serious nerve damage in their neck, so I don’t think anyone has a real idea of whether or not Peyton Manning will last through the season. If he does, we should not at all expect him to return to his 2004 peak. Even before he got hurt in 2010, guys like Ron Jaworski (who’ll go out of his way to praise a guy like Tyler Palko) were noticing some diminishing skills. Further, it’s not as if the Broncos are loaded on offense around Manning. Demaryius Thomas is supremely talented, but wildly inconsistent. Eric Decker would be a fourth receiver on most teams. And those are the Broncos’ two biggest receiving threats. If Manning does stay healthy for the 2012 season, his numbers will probably fall in the neighborhood of his good but not great 2010 season. Which, with a defense that figures to improve in its second season under John Fox and (more importantly) a very weak division to play against, would probably be enough for a second straight division title. But, again…your guess is as good as mine.
2012 Projected Point Differential: 380.0-366.7
2012 Average Projection: 8.3-7.7 (1st in AFC West)
Someone Still Loves You, Alberto Riveron 