In today’s pass-first NFL, three first-rate passers play this weekend: Aaron Rodgers,Drew Brees and Tom Brady. (Sorry, Eli, Alex, Tim, et al.) But which one is the best — and are any of their performances better than Dan Marino‘s in 1984?
That Marino season wasn’t necessarily the best by a quarterback in league history, but it was near the top. And it is a worthwhile reference point because Brees and Brady blew past Marino’s single-season passing-yardage record of 5,084, by 392 and 151 yards, respectively. But Marino was playing in a different time, when not all of today’s passer-friendly rules were in place. And the stats of his contemporaries reflect that: Marino outshone the NFL, circa 1984, more than any of this year’s top quarterbacks rise above today’s NFL norm.
Several advanced stats are available for sorting among QBs today, but none go back far enough to cover Marino’s record-breaking year. So more conventional stats will have to do. And by those, he was more of an outlier than Brees and Brady were this season. He threw for 54% more yards than the average team did in 1984; Brees, the most prolific of this year’s group, exceeded 2011′s much higher league-average yardage by 49%. Marino more than doubled the league average for passing TDs, with 48, while Brees had slightly less than twice the league average this year. And his QB rating was 49% better than league average in 1984, while Rodgers, who set a single-season record for rating, was just 48% better than league average.
But in other respects, Rodgers topped Marino. He beat the league average for yards per attempt by 28%, compared to 27% for Marino. His percentage of passes that were touchdowns was more than double the league average — Marino was 98% above league-average — while he was intercepted 59% less often than the typical NFL passer this year, compared to 27% less often for Marino.
In one respect, though, Marino still tops all of today’s stars. His adjusted net yards gained per pass attempt — a stat at Pro Football Reference that is available for Marino’s era and accounts for TDs, INTs and sacks — was 78% better than league average. Rodgers, the best of this year’s bunch, was just 59% better than today’s league average. Marino’s edge comes from something that isn’t incorporated into passer rating, and is often overlooked as a QB stat: His knack for avoiding sacks. Marino was sacked just 2.3% of the time he dropped back to pass in 1984, best in the league. Rodgers was sacked 6.7% of the time this year, more than Brees or Brady. Marino led the league with the lowest sack percentage among QBs in each of his first seven seasons in the NFL, and 10 times overall.
Despite Rodgers’s continued difficulty eluding pass rushers, he ranks ahead of Brady and Brees in most respects, including adjusted net yards gained per pass attempt — and might be competitive with them in yardage, considering what his backup did when given the start so Rodgers could rest in the season finale. He also tops them in Football Outsiders’ Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, Advanced NFL Stats’ Expected Points Added Per Play and ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating, or QBR — all of which take into account game situations and are generally more refined than mere yardage. These numbers may be useful for comparing the three QBs to the elite passers of 2038 who rack up 10,000-yard seasons — unless a whole new wave of stats have replaced them by then.