Old QBs Never Die

But nor do they really seem to fade away, at least according to the research I've been able to pull together.

You ... may ... have heard that the Eagles used their first choice in the NFL Draft to take Donovan McNabb's heir apparent, Kevin Kolb, from the University of Houston (Go Cougar High!).  The clear implication is that the Eagles are pretty sure McNabb is still the quarterback of the present, but are no longer certain he's the QoF. 

Shockingly enough, McNabb doesn't agree: "To be honest with you, I don't think I'm close to the end of my career. People say when you hit 30, all of a sudden it all starts to go downhill. Actually, it gets better after that, I feel...  Guys have played until they're 42, 43 years old, so that's really not an issue to focus on."

I'm not sure I agree that it's not an issue, so with apologies to McNabb I decided to focus on it for a bit.  What I found, however, might pleasantly surprise him.

For a basis of comparison, I looked at every Hall of Fame quarterback, starting with the guys who began their careers in the 1980s (I'm not sure there's much value going back beyond that).  That gave us Aikman, Elway, Kelly, Marino, Montana, Moon and Young.  I also took a look at the current fogies in the league to see how they're stacking up, which added in Bledsoe, Favre and McNair.  I didn't include Brad Johnson because he may be the quarterback least like McNabb in this league and he's had one weird career.

For each of these guys, I chopped up their careers into a few discrete blocks: Prime (ages 27-30), Transition (ages 31-34) and Old (35-38).  Then I averaged their production in each of those phases and came up with the following performance chart:

First, a couple notes.  I didn't include Steve Young's "prime" in the chart because for most of it he wasn't even the starter (which makes his career even more amazing).  That would have unfairly brought down the averages.  Also, not every guy played (or has played) all the way through 38, which makes the last line a bit misleading, I think, since you could certainly argue that Aikman's four years of zeroes would more accurately reflect the risk of relying on an old quarterback. 

However, what's most interesting about this chart is the first two lines, which show that McNabb is exactly right.  At least for these guys, their numbers were actually better after they hit their early 30s.  Completion percentages go up, TDs go up, INTs are down and QB rating is better.  Their yardages go down a bit, but that seems to be mostly a function of playing fewer games.

And that's the rub.

In their prime, these guys averaged 14.6 games a year.  In the transition period, that goes down to 14.  And when they're old, it drops down another game to 13. And this list includes a lot of Hall of Famers, who are exactly the kinds of guys who (whether by luck or something else) were able to stay healthy and hang around long enough to put up great numbers.  But even they weren't bulletproof.

Just for fun, here's another chart.  I bet you can probably guess where the second line comes from:

That's right, it's McNabb's career averages during his prime.  It makes it quite clear that he's had some injury issues (only 12.5 games per year).  On the other hand, when he's played, he's been phenomenal.  Remember that the first line is that average prime of a bunch of Hall of Famers and some of the best quarterbacks from the past 10 years.

In fact, here's another bonus chart:

Not too shabby for McNabby (and remember that the average still doesn't include Young).   

Now here are those same guys ages 31-34:

Of these 10 guys, half actually had higher quarterback ratings that they did in their "primes."  Four out of 10 of these guys even managed to throw more touchdown passes each season. 

Of course, only Jim Kelly managed to play more games, although Favre and Elway held steady.  Which brings us back to McNabb, who is about to enter his first "transition" season.  If he can stay healthy -- and the evolution of the offense towards less of a high-wire act should make that more likely -- there's no reason at all to suppose his skills are going to suddenly disappear.

Hey, did anyone else notice that "Kolb" rhymes with "Schaub"?

Comments

[Tom G]

Superb post.

[bubqr]

Amazingly good post. And thanks for being one of the only ones thinking about the SCHAUB possibility. If during the "3,5" games he might have to start he's good, he'll have a high trade value.

[McTumms]

Just found this blog. Fantastic post. I hope you start getting more traffic here. This Kolb fiasco is a joke. I just can't see him getting near the field for at least two years. Even if McNabb pulls a Welbourn and talks his way out of town, I'd be a little nervous about Kolb in his second year. From the little bit I've seen of him, he looks smart, versatile, but really raw. Still, Reid does seem smitten with him. I have to admit, the thought initially crossed my mind that he was drafting a replacement son more than a replacement QB.