It's quarterback ranking season, which means that it's time for analysts to start praising Andrew Luck. Ron Jaworski has Luck ranked as the fifth best quarterback in the league, with Russell Wilson coming in ninth. Bill Barnwell writes that "[y]ou would probably make the Herschel Walker trade for Luck," putting Wilson ahead of Luck in trade value based solely on their contract situations. Mike Tanier leaves the Seahawks off of his list of top five quarterback situations, putting the Colts at five with the comment that "Luck's fate may be to become Peyton Manning to Wilson's Brady. There are worse fates."
That last comment got me thinking. How does the Luck-Wilson debate compare to the old fight over Manning and Brady?
Manning-Brady
Cast your mind back to the year 2004. Spider-Man 2 is cleaning up at the box office, setting the franchise up for many successful sequels. George W. Bush is crushing it at the polls and obviously on track for re-election. Snoop Dogg's Drop it Like It's Hot tops the charts. And the Manning vs. Brady debate hits its peak, emotions fraying to the point that Football Outsiders created a separate "Irrational Brady-Manning debate thread" for arguments on the topic.
The case for Tom Brady is simple enough:
Team | Regular Season | Playoffs |
---|---|---|
Patriots (2001) | 11-5 | 3-0 |
Colts (2001) | 6-10 | -- |
Patriots (2002) | 9-7 | -- |
Colts (2002) | 10-6 | 0-1 |
Patriots (2003) | 14-2 | 3-0 |
Colts (2003) | 12-4 | 2-1 |
Patriots (2004) | 14-2 | 3-0 |
Colts (2004) | 12-4 | 1-1 |
In both 2003 and 2004 the Patriots knocked the Colts out of the playoffs. Tom Brady had obviously mastered the art of winning (after a hiccup in 2002) and was the leader of a Patriots dynasty.
So what was the case for Peyton Manning? Let's take a look at some 2004 passing stats:
Player | Cmp | Att | Cmp% | Yds | TD | INT | Rate | ANY/A |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Manning | 336 | 497 | 67.6 | 4557 | 49 | 10 | 121.1 | 9.78 |
Brady | 288 | 474 | 60.8 | 3692 | 28 | 14 | 92.6 | 6.92 |
Brady had himself a pretty decent year, but Manning's stats are otherworldly. Just to put things in perspective, to match their statlines Brady would have had to throw another 23 passes, complete 48 of them (tricky) for 865 yards, have 21 of them go for touchdowns, and -4 for interceptions (also tough). Plugging those numbers into the ANY/A formula the delta-Manning QB would have an insane 63 ANY/A using the attempts number, and a still insane 30.5 ANY/A if you use the completions.
How about the pass offenses? The 2004 Patriots put up a total offensive DVOA of 23.3, fuelled by a pass offense at 47.4% and a run offense at 11.3%. The 2004 Colts had a 31.8% offensive DVOA, with a 67.6% passing DVOA and 5.2% rushing DVO.
As a team, the 2001-2004 Patriots had one of the dominant all-time runs we've seen in the NFL. However, every individual stat available suggested that Peyton Manning was better at playing the quarterback position than Tom Brady. In order to argue for Brady you had to claim that he did things that didn't show up in the stats--either some kind of intangible leadership or clutch quality, or perhaps by humbly enabling a more balanced team building philosophy (i.e. Bill Simmons used to argue that the Colts spent all of their money on the offense, weakening the team as a whole).
The point is, there was no way to argue for Brady based on the statistics tracking individual performance.
Now, let's take a look at the next generation.
Wilson-Luck
Russell Wilson has obviously experienced more team success than Andrew Luck. No need to belabor that point. But how about the individual statistics?
Player | Cmp | Att | Cmp% | Yds | TD | INT | Rate | ANY/A |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Luck (2012) | 339 | 627 | 54.1 | 4374 | 23 | 18 | 76.5 | 5.66 |
Wilson (2012) | 252 | 393 | 64.1 | 3118 | 26 | 10 | 100.0 | 7.01 |
Luck (2013) | 343 | 570 | 60.2 | 3822 | 23 | 9 | 87.0 | 6.06 |
Wilson (2013) | 257 | 407 | 63.1 | 3357 | 26 | 9 | 101.2 | 7.10 |
And the teams' offensive performances?
Team | Off DVOA | Pass DVOA | Run DVOA |
---|---|---|---|
Colts (2012) | -2.9% | 2.3% | -4.3% |
Seahawks (2012) | 18.5% | 37.3% | 16.5% |
Colts (2013) | 4.3% | 8.3% | 3.1% |
Seahawks (2013) | 9.4% | 27.4% | 6.4% |
The average Russell Wilson dropback was significantly more productive than the average Andrew Luck dropback, both in 2012 and 2013. The Seahawks' offense was better than the Colts' offense in 2012 and 2013, and the gap between the passing offenses was greater than the gap between the rushing offenses.
In order for Russell Wilson to match Luck's stats, he would have had to turn in the following additional performances:
Player | Cmp | Att | Cmp% | Yds | TD | INT | ANY/A |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
delta-Luck (2012) | 87 | 234 | 37% | 1256 | -3 | 8 | 3.57 |
delta-Luck (2013) | 86 | 163 | 52.7% | 465 | -3 | 0 | 2.48 |
For reference, the very worst quarterback in the NFL in 2013 in ANY/A was Terrelle Pryor, at 4.09.
Seattle's defense is much better than Indy's, true. However, the defense isn't out there throwing and catching the football. The defense may arguably put Russell Wilson in more favorable situations, but the same should have held true for Brady and Manning was still able to put up better passing stats. Hell, back in 2004 people used to try to discredit Manning by arguing that his stats were inflated because he was in blowouts all the time. Personally I think the best way to go is to focus on offensive statistics when judging a quarterback. Crazy, I know.
Andrew Luck is taller than Russell Wilson. He was drafted earlier. He has a sweet neck beard. But he doesn't have the statistics to make a compelling case that he is a better quarterback than Wilson. We could play the game of insulting each QB's teammates (hello, Seattle offensive line), but I don't think that's a very productive discussion. And really, if Luck is good at being a quarterback shouldn't it be in the stats? He may have the talent to run an efficient NFL offense some day, but he hasn't done it yet.
I am a Seahawks fan and I like Russell Wilson a lot. That said, I can understand it if you don't want to rank him in the very top tier of NFL quarterbacks. What I can't understand is the decision to put him behind Andrew Luck. Maybe we can hold off on that until Luck posts a quarterback rating within 10 points of Wilson?