My brother Kam sent me an interesting link this week that tried to argue that Brett Favre is even better than we think. Basically, this blogger argues that Brett Favre’s career interception percentage of 3.3 percent is much better than most of the QBs in the Hall of Fame — thus undercutting the big argument against Favre as an all-time great.
It’s an interesting theory, but as my brother and I discussed it, we quickly came to the conclusion that there’s an era gap here that the blogger tried to gloss over. Current-era Hall of Famers Troy Aikman, Dan Marino, John Elway, Joe Montana, and Steve Young are all below Favre in terms of interception percentage. Only Warren Moon and Jim Kelly (both of whom started in the NFL about five years before Favre) are above him in this stat.
And as we look at the career passer rating list, this change in eras bears out. Favre is just 18th on this list, behind many the great QBs of the eras in which he’s played — Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Steve Young, Joe Montana, Drew Brees, and Dan Marino. Meanwhile, the only QB from before the Bill Walsh era in the top 20 is Otto Graham, who is an all-time great who always seems to get lost in the discussion.
So while the interception stat doesn’t tell us much about Favre in the end, it does indicate how much the game changed when Bill Walsh came on the scene as a head coach around 1980. (We’d say that the Walsh era began with the Niners’ first Super Bowl win in the 1981 season.)
Kam said this in the discussion…
Most people think of interception stats vis-a-vis the TD to interception ratio. nteresting here to consider it as pass attempts to interception, although I wonder what Favre’s completion rate in general is compared to other QBs with comparable yardage and TDs. You’re right that completion rate and TD-interception ratio would be skewed now in the post West-coast era. Fewer and fewer QBs who can actually throw the ball down the field.
*Peyton Manning
*Troy Aikman (this one is close, because Aikman never piled up monster numbers, but the three Super Bowls vs. one makes the difference)