FanPost

How does Russell Wilson Compare to the All-time Greats QB?

This season didn't end the way we wanted it to, and Russell Wilson seemed a bit lost in the second half of the season. Old bad habits resurfaced, and the glories of the early season melted into the disappointment of the ending. Many are looking back at Russell's career and wondering if we've wasted a great QB's prime, or if he was ever great to begin with or just really good and propped up by a great team around him. He had great numbers, sure, but did he really win when it counted? Was he a choke artist compared to the other top QBs in the league, past and present?

The heart of the question: Did he lead his team to success like other great QBs have done?

To answer how RW3 stacks up with the NFL greats, I looked back at Pro Football Reference, and I used their AV measure to take a snapshot of the top 20 NFL QBs of all time, which just so happened to coincide almost exactly with all QBs in the top 100 players of all time... except for Len Dawson, who was the #21 QB and #99 overall. Sorry, Len. I loved you on Inside the NFL but you just missed the cut here. AV is by no means a perfect measure, but all we're doing here is ballparking the top 20 QBs. You could quibble with some at the bottom end, but the players you're going to see here are pretty much who you'd expect to see, with old-timers like Bart Starr or Y.A. Tittle not making the cut because their counting numbers no longer compare to those of QBs in the modern game.

Since the acid test is whether the QB was successful in leading their team to wins, winning seasons, playoff berths, playoff wins, Super Bowls (or pre-SB championship games), and titles - to see whether whatever gaudy stats they put up really amounted to anything meaningful for their team - those are the measures I checked here. QB wins are not a direct measure of QB quality, but they are a direct measure of QB success. If a QB throws for 500 yards and 5 TDs but loses, that's a great result for QB quality, it wasn't a successful game. A team losing doesn't mean it was the QB's fault. Other parts of the team ebb and flow in quality throughout a QB's career. Sometimes they drag a team to victory (like Brady vs. the Rams in 2001) and other times they ride on the backs of their team (like Manning vs. the Panthers in 2015). It's a symbiotic relationship, but careers are finite things, and every game a QB starts is an opportunity for the team to win or lose, to succeed or to fail. Past wins don't predict future wins, but wins are the indelible record of whether a QB's tenure as a starter was a success or a failure. However they got there, did they and their teams get it done?

How the Top 20 QBs Stack Up

The table below breaks down the Top 20 QBs all-time by AV. As you see, Russell Wilson is just in this group, tied for 18th. That's kind of amazing in itself, given that he's only played 9 seasons in the NFL. The next-shortest NFL career in this group is Matt Ryan at 13 years. The table headings here are self-explanatory, with the caveat that the Starting Seasons includes only those seasons in which the QB started 5 or more games. Aaron Rodgers didn't play for three seasons to start his career. Montana, Brady, and Manning all missed an entire season to injury (and Brady sat behind Drew Bledsoe is rookie season). Steve Young was a backup who scattered 13 starts over 5 seasons of his career. Those seasons aren't counted in this column to give a more meaningful percentage when comparing the number of winning seasons a QB recorded as a percentage, though any wins or losses they recorded as a part-timer are included in the wins and losses columns.

AV Player Playoff Wins Playoff Losses Playoff Win% Super Bowls Titles Starter Seasons Winning Seasons %Winning Seasons RS Win RS Loss RS Tie RS Win% Wins/Season
295 Tom Brady 33 11 75.00% 10 6 19 19 100.0% 230 69 0 76.92% 12.11
276 Drew Brees 9 9 50.00% 1 1 19 11 57.9% 172 114 0 60.14% 9.05
271 Peyton Manning 14 13 51.85% 4 2 16 14 87.5% 186 79 0 70.19% 11.63
255 Brett Favre (HoF) 13 11 54.17% 2 1 19 15 78.9% 186 112 0 62.42% 9.79
236 Fran Tarkenton (HoF) 6 5 54.55% 3 0 18 8 44.4% 124 109 6 53.22% 6.89
216 Dan Marino (HoF) 8 10 44.44% 1 0 17 12 70.6% 147 93 0 61.25% 8.65
216 Philip Rivers 5 7 41.67% 0 0 15 9 60.0% 136 106 0 56.20% 9.07
203 John Elway (HoF) 14 7 66.67% 5 2 16 12 75.0% 148 82 1 64.35% 9.25
202 Aaron Rodgers 11 9 55.00% 1 1 13 11 84.6% 126 63 1 66.67% 9.69
195 Ben Roethlisberger 13 9 59.09% 3 2 17 14 82.4% 156 74 1 67.83% 9.18
192 Matt Ryan 4 6 40.00% 1 0 13 7 53.8% 113 92 0 55.12% 8.69
171 Steve Young (HoF) 8 6 57.14% 1 1 10 7 70.0% 94 49 0 65.73% 9.40
166 Warren Moon (HoF) 3 7 30.00% 0 0 17 7 41.2% 102 101 0 50.25% 6.00
165 Eli Manning 8 4 66.67% 2 2 16 7 43.8% 117 117 0 50.00% 7.31
164 Joe Montana (HoF) 16 7 69.57% 4 4 15 11 73.3% 117 47 0 71.34% 7.80
162 Dan Fouts (HoF) 3 4 42.86% 0 0 15 4 26.7% 86 84 1 50.59% 5.73
161 Ken Anderson 2 4 33.33% 1 0 16 8 50.0% 91 81 0 52.91% 5.69
147 John Hadl 0 2 0.00% 0 0 14 7 50.0% 82 75 9 52.23% 5.86
147 Russell Wilson 9 7 56.25% 2 1 9 9 100.0% 98 45 1 68.53% 10.89
145 Johnny Unitas (HoF) 6 2 75.00% 5 4 18 12 66.67% 118 63 4 65.19% 6.56

The first thing we have to do here is to just stop and take a moment to affirm that, love him or hate him, Tom Brady is the absolute no-doubt G.O.A.T. of all NFL QBs. He has more playoff wins, Super Bowls, and as many rings as Joe Montana and John Elway combined. He more than doubles Peyton Manning's playoff wins, SBs, and titles. He has been a starter for 19 seasons and has never not had a winning season. EVER.

As for the rest of this group, they are all-time greats. Remember that when considering these comparisons. This is not a random sampling of scrubs and JAGs. These are QBs with long histories of success even if the names may be unfamiliar to younger fans. John Hadl was All-AFL or a Pro Bowler six times, All-Pro in 1973, and led the league in passing 3 times. Ken Anderson was a 4-time Pro Bowler and the 1981 MVP. Dan Fouts was twice All-Pro, OPOY in 1982, and was the 2nd-team All-1980s team QB behind Montana and ahead of Marino and Elway. Warren Moon made nine Pro Bowls and was the 1990 OPOY. Johnny Unitas was only the greatest QB of the pre-merger era. Two-thirds of them are either already Hall of Famers or mortal locks to go in on the first ballot when their time comes, with several more with a solid shot.

Note: There are plenty of great QBs that aren't on the list because their total numbers didn't add up to a high AV, so the list isn't perfect. Terry Bradshaw had AV 137 and a 14-5 playoff record. Troy Aikman had only a 121 AV but went 11-4 in the playoffs. Bart Starr had AV 114 and went 9-1. With more time I could broaden the aperture, but this first foray is had to set some kind of sorting parameter, so AV was the threshold marker. If there's interest, we'll follow up more later.

Any way you slice it, Russell Wilson is already among giants after just nine seasons.

So How Does Russell Wilson Compare?

1st - Winning Season% - 100% (T-Brady)

3rd - Regular Season Wins/Season

4th - Regular Season Winning%

8th - Playoff Wins, Playoff Win%, Super Bowls, Championships

11th - Winning Seasons (T-Rivers)

16th - Regular Season Wins

In the Regular Season:

Russell is not Tom Brady. He almost certainly never will be Tom Brady. Neither is anyone else in NFL history and it is not close. Don't even worry about trying to compare them. That said, he is the only QB of this Top 20 list other than Brady who has had a winning season every year. That's not nothing. It's actually kind of amazing, considering that Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, and Ben Roethlisberger are the only other QBs in the Top 20 who even top 80% of their seasons ending as winners. In fact, 9 of the 20 are at 60% or lower, and 5 are at 50% or below - a coin flip as to whether the team had a winning record with them starting during any given year. Among the top 20 QBs, it is just as common to have 50% or fewer winning seasons (5 QBs) as it is to have 80% or more winning seasons (5 QBs).

Russell and the team are also not just racking up 9-7 mediocrities either. His overall regular-season winning percentage is topped by only Brady (of course), Joe Montana, and Peyton Manning. In wins per season, he trails only Brady and Manning, and they are the only 3 QBs ever to average more than 10 wins a year.

Even in sheer counting stats, considering he has started for only 9 seasons, he is already tied (with Rivers) for 11th in this group for total number of winning seasons. In terms of total wins, he ranks only 16th. He'll pass Moon next year for 15th, and probably Montana, Unitas, and Eli Manning for 12th the year after that, after 11 years as a starter. He also would tie Brees and Montana for 9th all-time with 11 winning seasons.

ANSWER: Russell and his team are the among the very best QB-team pairings of all time in terms of regular season success on an annual basis, and even with every other QB on the list having a big advantage in playing time he is rapidly approaching the Top 10 QBs of all time in total wins and total winning seasons.

In the Playoffs:

Regular seasons are all well and good, but a year like this with a 12-4 record, a division title, and a face-plant in the playoffs is still a frustrating year. Poor John Hadl played 17 seasons and never won a playoff game. He won an AFL title in 1963 as Tobin Rote's backup but lost the only 2 playoff games he started. Drew Brees started for 19 seasons, more than double Russell's 9, but Wilson has as many wins as Brees and 2 fewer losses.

Russell and the Seahawks are in 8th place across the board during his career, in total playoff wins at 9 (tied with Brees), in playoff winning percentage, in total Super Bowls (tied with Favre and Eli Manning), and in Super Bowl wins (tied with Brees, Favre, Rodgers, and Young).

The only teams that have won more playoff games behind any QB in the Top 20 than the Seahawks with Wilson at the helm are the GOAT (33), Montana (16), Elway and Peyton (14), Favre and Big Ben (13), and Rodgers (11). Among those QBs, the only one with fewer than 15 years as a starter is Rodgers at 13. Wilson has 9.

Of the QBs/teams with more playoff wins than Wilson and the Seahawks, the only ones with a better winning percentage in the playoffs? Brady. Montana. Elway. Roethlisberger. That's it.

Johnny Unitas actually matches Brady's insane .750 winning percentage in the playoffs at 6-2, but for much of his career there was only one playoff game for the title. Eli Manning racked up the craziest playoff record ever. He won 2/3 of his games at 8-4, but he went 4-0 in 2007 and 2011 on the way to titles and 0-4 the rest of his career in the playoffs. The only other QB ahead of Wilson is Steve Young, less than 1% ahead of Wilson at 8-6 vs. Russell's 9-7.

ANSWER: Counting total playoff wins and playoff winning percentage among QBs with similar or better AV, Russell Wilson and the Seahawks' playoff success is easily in the top 10 most successful QB-team playoff combinations in NFL history.

In the Super Bowl:

Sure, playoffs are all well and good, but nobody cares if you go "one and done" in the playoffs, or get bounced in the divisional round year after year, right? What really matters are Super Bowls, getting there and then winning the title. If that's the case, then Russell and the Seahawks are also right up there in the Top 20 QBs, tied for 8th in that group in both Super Bowls and championships.

You wouldn't necessarily think that 2 Super Bowls and 1 title would rank that high. It is. Even if you've got an all-time great at QB. Drew Brees hasn't done it in 19 seasons. Neither has Aaron Rodgers or Steve Young or Dan Marino. That just goes to show you how rare it is, even if the QB is great and the rest of the team is really good.

Note: Since we're talking about Super Bowls, I'll include a few guys who didn't rank in the Top 20 by PFR's AV ranking but took their teams to multiple Super Bowls (plus NFL championship games for Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas). I'm not going back farther than Unitas and Starr. I've listed them below in italics.

The Seahawks have been to two Super Bowls under Wilson's leadership. How many QBs in the Top 20 have been to more? Here's the list: Brady (10); Bart Starr (6); Elway and Unitas (5); Montana, Peyton, Terry Bradshaw, Jim Kelly (4); Tarkenton, Roethlisberger, Troy Aikman, Bob Griese, and Kurt Warner (3). That's it. Seven of the top 20 QBs by AV, plus 6 more QBs whose career didn't quite measure up numbers-wise but who found success in the playoffs.

The Seahawks have won one Super Bowl under Wilson's leadership. How many QBs in the Top 20 have won more than once? Here's the list. Brady (6); Bart Starr (5); Montana, Unitas, and Terry Bradshaw (4); Troy Aikman (3); Manning and Manning, Roethlisberger, Elway, Jim Plunkett, and Bob Griese (2). That's it. Seven of the top 20 QBs by AV, plus 4 more QBs with lower career numbers. Every one of those players started for at least 13 seasons and most many more than that.

ANSWER: In terms of getting his team to the Super Bowl and winning titles, Russell certainly sits outside the inner circle of the all-time greats, but he *is* in the outer circle of all-time greats already after 9 seasons. Exactly 13 QBs have started more SBs (including NFL title games for Starr/Unitas), and only 12 have won more than a single title.

He and the team have made it to two Super Bowls together. Here's a list of all-time great QBs who haven't done that: Brees, Rodgers, Marino, Young, Ryan, and Anderson only got there once, the same as decent-but-not-great QBs like Rich Gannon, Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnston, Doug Williams, Phil Simms, Jeff Hostetler, Mark Rypien, and Ken Stabler.

Plenty of lesser lights at QB made it there once but lost and never got back, like Boomer Esiason, Ron Jaworski, Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair, Cam Newton, and Jake Delhomme. Some all-timers like Moon, Rivers, Fouts, and Hadl never got there at all.

Just for fun, several other QBs who got to the title game exactly twice and won it once include Len Dawson, Earl Morrall, and - as of now - Patrick Mahomes. We'll see what happens February 7th.

What About the Future?

Will Russell catch up any time in the next 4 years? It doesn't seem that likely right now, coming off a good regular season followed by a flameout in the playoffs. The team is still good enough to beat bad teams, and if it could get its offense and defense working at the same time they'd really have something, but its payroll is top-heavy and changes are coming this offseason.

Whether Russell and the team continue their outstanding winning ways in the future is hard to say for sure, but they have already banked an astonishing record of success together in the past 9 years that ranks not just among the best records of success recently but is among the best dozen or so stretches of QB/team success in the last 60 years. Anyone who tells you that Russell Wilson and the Seahawks have been "mediocre" or "pedestrian" or "weak" or "inconsistent" is flat-out wrong. If anything, they've been spectacularly consistent, and far from being mediocre, their performance has rivaled or surpassed that of many of the all-time great QB/team records of success already.

Have they rivaled the accomplishments of Tom Brady, Joe Montana, or John Elway? No. You also just mentioned three of the most successful quarterbacks of all-time. If that is your standard for success, then you'd better get used to disappointment.

Short of that? With a few more successful seasons, Russell and the Seahawks could easily equal or exceed the team success of QBs like Favre and Rodgers, and match or surpass Big Ben or even Peyton Manning if they can put together even just one more Super Bowl run in the next 4-5 years.

Will it happen? The odds are against it. As we've seen, no matter how good you and your team are, only 13 QBs have made a third title game and only 12 have won a second, and it wasn't always the "best" QB and team that got there and/or won. If it doesn't happen, it's not because we sucked or we were mediocre. It's because we were an NFL team, and NFL history is a cruel mistress. Success is hard, and it's nice to know we already are among the best to ever do it.