In the first of a three-part series on Scout.com, Doug Farrar of Seahawks.net assesses Matt Hasselbeck's 2005 campaign with the help of mountains of numerical data.
At this particular moment I don't have the time to sift through the whole article, so I'll just jump down to the kind of straight lists my short attention span adores. This would be a list of the ten previous QB seasons during the NFL's 16-game-season era that, according to FootballOutsider.com's "Similarity Scores," were most similar to Matt's results in '05.
Just for fun let's throw in each QB's ultimate playoff results for that year as well:
1. Troy Aikman, '95 Cowboys (Dallas beats Pittsburgh in SB)
2. Joe Montana, '84 49ers (SF beats Miami in SB)
3. Peyton Manning, '05 Colts (Indy loses in 2nd round to Pittsburgh)
4. Jake Delhomme, '05 Panthers (Carolina loses NFC Champ. to Seahawks)
5. Bernie Kosar, '91 Browns (Cleveland misses playoffs)
6. Jake Plummer, '05 Broncos (Denver loses AFC Champ. to Pittsburgh)
7. Joe Montana, '85 49ers (SF loses to NYG in wild card round)
8. Ron Jaworski, '80 Eagles (Philly loses to Oakland in SB)
9. Jon Kitna, '03 Bengals (Cincinnati misses playoffs, but gets back to .500)
10. Steve McNair, '03 Titans (Tennessee loses to NE in 2nd round)
They also made the interesting point that Matt had a groundbreaking season even though his top two receivers, Jackson and Engram, missed a combined 12 games due to injury.
2. Joe Montana, '84 49ers (SF beats Miami in SB)
3. Peyton Manning, '05 Colts (Indy loses in 2nd round to Pittsburgh)
4. Jake Delhomme, '05 Panthers (Carolina loses NFC Champ. to Seahawks)
5. Bernie Kosar, '91 Browns (Cleveland misses playoffs)
6. Jake Plummer, '05 Broncos (Denver loses AFC Champ. to Pittsburgh)
7. Joe Montana, '85 49ers (SF loses to NYG in wild card round)
8. Ron Jaworski, '80 Eagles (Philly loses to Oakland in SB)
9. Jon Kitna, '03 Bengals (Cincinnati misses playoffs, but gets back to .500)
10. Steve McNair, '03 Titans (Tennessee loses to NE in 2nd round)
You should read the article. It's a nice use of stats. It's just too damn long for me this week.