Quarterbacks In Playoff Losses

Reader "Steve" -- and there are a few of those, but he knows who he is -- was intrigued by the Lawlor back-and-forth last week, specifically the contention that McNabb doesn't play all that well in playoff losses.  He put together this handy chart of a number of top current and former QBs to compare Donovan's performance to the other guys:

Everyone on the chart has at least four losses in the playoffs, other than Brees, Roethlisberger and Romo.  It's interesting to note that only a couple guys have really played all that well when their teams lost.  Everyone else was pretty bad, perhaps not surprisingly suggesting it's hard to win a playoff game if your quarterback doesn't do well.

Still, McNabb is at the low end of the chart.  And what's interesting is that, yes, small sample sizes, but the passer rating numbers are a bit more stable than you might expect.  You'd have to add a touchdown and take away two INTs just to get McNabb up to Peyton's level.  Or have him complete 15 more passes than he did.

What's maybe most interesting about the chart is something Steve pointed out when he emailed me:

I added a few more recent guys -- and it's a shame that Warren Moon was only 3-7 in the playoffs, seeing as he played relatively well in a lot of those games (passer rating of 85.9, completed 64%!). 

And yet, how many times have we heard it said about Moon that while he put up gaudy numbers, he wasn't really a winner -- despite the fact that his postseason numbers were actually better than his regular season numbers.

In the end, this might be the bottom-line takeaway here. 

Team loses, QB gets blamed.