What Would John Elway's Stats Look Like in Today's NFL?

what happens when we die is there a god is my wife sleeping with her boss when she says she's staying late at work or is she just staying late at work and sleeping with her boss there these are some of the most important questions we face as human beings and i'm here to answer another one one of the utmost importance everyone is thinking it but most are too afraid to ask what would hall of fame broncos quarterback john elway's passing numbers look like in the modern nfl i'm going to answer that today with math so get off your act let's do some math and i'm gonna warn you math sucks but let's take a look we're going balls deep into john ellis numbers [Music] hey today's episode is sponsored by my friends from underdog fantasy why would you do a fantasy draft in july well underdog is different and that once you draft your team you are a hundred percent done managing it they tally your best scores via your best lineup every week throughout the season you do nothing after drafting your 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the best ball mania 3 tournament today why am i a robot [Music] now to attempt to answer this girthy question about john elway i'm going to explain my methodology for how i'm going to adjust passing numbers from the 80s and 90s to fit the numbers you might see in today's nfl where the passing game and their numbers have been inflated much like our sweet american dollars and of course the opposite of any football old tiny hands tom brady has ever thrown so i'll start off by saying that on a season per season basis john elway did not put up godly numbers the duke never had more than 27 touchdown passes in a season only once at 4 000 passing yards and had double-digit interceptions every year but he was consistently in the top of the league the nerds who never watched him play like to ding him for what they perceive as pedestrian numbers but the nerds who come after them in like 30 years will ask why why is kirk cousins not in the hall of fame just because they both lined up under a guard once doesn't make them the same caliber player john elway when he retired in 1998 was second all time in passing yards trailing only dan marino he is 11th now and everyone with more passing yards not named mourinho played after elway brady brees manning rivers eli manning matt ryan that should tell you how much the nfl passing game has changed starting in the late 90s same goes for passing touchdowns elway is now 13th all time but when he retired he was third trailing only mourinho and fran tarkenton and russell wilson new broncos quarterback is already 15th all-time in passing tds also john elway didn't give a [ __ ] about his stats he wanted to win and he did it 64 of the time he stepped onto the field 148 wins when he retired which was most all time at the time and the win rate of 64 was third best all time for qbs with over a hundred wins trailing only joe montana and terry bradshaw two guys who played for hall of fame head coaches and chuck noll and bill walsh and dominant teams dynasties if you will for their era so let's take a look at elway's averages over his career and we'll break it up into two parts the 80s and the 90s in the 80s john elway averaged 17 touchdowns per season 3027 yards and 16 interceptions that was with head coach dan reeves who basically tried to punish elway every time he stepped on the field he was the og pat shurmur when it came to run run pass elway just managed to bail out the offense over and over again i'd like to start out this uh press conference with uh thank you to john elway and then eventually got to destroy dan reeves in super bowl 33. in the 90s elway got a little safer with the football and spent more time in the pocket notably this is when the broncos offense finally got some elite talent in shannon sharp terrell davis rod smith and ed mccaffrey who became huge factors in that offense elway put up 20 touchdowns in the 90s per season 364 passing yards and 12 picks per year like i said denver got some playmakers but the most important part of the 90s equation was getting head coach mike shanahan as the play caller think about matthew stafford finally getting sean mcvay as his play caller each guy had to wait about 12 years to finally be paired with the right head coach the difference being elway somehow managed three super bowl appearances before getting his mcvay who again learned under the shanahan coaching tree now i mentioned matthew stafford but elway's two best modern qb comps are probably josh allen and or patrick mahomes and i know chiefs fans love to hate to admit that now my homes is easy to see in terms of being able to throw a football from any angle which i believe their shared baseball background is responsible for but josh allen is a clone of john elway in terms of arm strength size and ability to make plays with his legs john elway attempted on average 31 passes per game versus mahomes who's at 38 passes per game elway like josh allen had a hero tendency believing he could make throws not even god himself could complete which you know resulted in too many picks early in his career now josh allen was attempting about 32 passes per game in his first couple seasons which is closer to elway through his career but alan is one of the best russian qbs in the nfl which elway kind of was in his time and as alan has progressed his passing attempts per game jumped up to 38 in 2021 also consider patrick mahomes is averaging 301 passing yards per game that's currently number one all time jared goff's 258 passing yards per game which isn't much right now it's better than john elway's 220 was but again when john elway retired he was sixth all time in that category and in no scenario would anyone ever take jared goff over john elway the entire point of this video is to shut up the idiots who don't understand how the game has progressed so here's what i'm going to do i'm going to take three of elway seasons 86 93 and 97 why those years well because he had a different head coach in all three of those seasons and he played in all 16 games of those years which makes the math simpler that last part is important for a dumb ass like myself then i'm going to take 2018 2019 2020 and 2021 scaled down to 16 games and find the average passing numbers from those seasons to create a baseline for what modern passing numbers look like we're going to find the total touchdowns yards and interceptions from those seasons to give us the new la numbers in 2018 there were 121 737 passing yards 847 touchdown passes and 419 interceptions across the league this was the year mahomes threw for 50 of those teddies in 2019 there were 120 301 passing yards 797 touchdown passes and 420 interceptions naturally jameis winston as you know was responsible for 33 of those touchdowns and 30 of those picks 2020 122 957 passing yards 871 touchdowns and 395 picks those are impressive league wide numbers especially when you consider kendall hinton and bin daniel she started games that year 2021 after you scale it down from 17 to 16 games you get 116 897 passing yards 790 touchdowns and 414 picks take the average of those four years and you end up with about 120 473 passing yards 826 touchdown passes and 412 interceptions per season across the league and now we shall count up the three elway years i am cherry-picking from in 1986 there were 10128 passing yards so much lower 586 touchdown passes lower and 581 interceptions higher so jesus what a bad year to be a quarterback do you see what i see here 160 more interceptions across the league in 1986 compared to the last couple years and about 280 fewer touchdown passes that's why when you look back at great qb stats they don't hold up unless we're talking about dan marino who is the greatest passer of all time in 1993 there were 96 490 passing yards 517 touchdown passes and 469 interceptions holy [ __ ] that was still a bad year to be a quarterback in 1997 there were 105 288 passing yards 617 touchdown passes and 479 interceptions when you take the average of those three seasons and factor in expansion from 28 to 32 teams you have 103 760 pass yards 640 touchdowns and 570 interceptions an important thing to note here is that the nfl average for passing numbers in the 80s and 90s was about 17 000 fewer passing yards per season and there were almost 200 fewer passing tds per season look throwing in the 80s and 90s for the math was not easy it was like playing madden on all madden while being drunk versus today which is like playing madden on all pro on adderall to help you focus more seriously it was more difficult to throw the ball down the field in the 80s and the 90s because defensive backs were able to you know get away with assault both before and after the ball got there roughing the passer was around during john always era but was only flagged when a quarterback needed an organ transplant oh wow is that a pancreas plus there are more dome stadiums now than there were back then which adds to the inflation in ways that i don't feel like quantifying but i'm sure someone else has somewhere finally i think wide receivers are more specialized and schemes have gotten far better following the popularization of the west coast offense starting in the 80s and spreading more widely in the 90s in the 80s the only way you were leading the league in passing yards was if your name was dan again mourinho is an outlier 39 to 4 500 passing yards was very high versus today where 48 to 5400 is very high there was no [ __ ] flub it was not a flop and if you are perusing john elway's interceptions and sacks you might think oh god he was terrible but on adjusted passing stats he was above average in both of those categories almost every year he was in the nfl okay 86 93 97 three of elway's pro bowl seasons and he had a lot in 1986 the year elway went to his first super bowl he had 3 485 passing yards 19 touchdowns 13 interceptions looks pretty good compared to the [ __ ] show elsewhere in the nfl doesn't it the leader in passing that year was dan marino with over 4 700 passing yards 44 touchdowns and 23 interceptions but marina was the anomaly considering ken o'brien was second in touchdown passes with just 25 that year so when you do some dividing and i'm factoring in 28 teams instead of 32 that took some [ __ ] algebra elway had 3.3 percent of the league's total passing yards 2.8 percent of the total touchdown passes and 1.9 of the interceptions in 86 93 elway went 9-7 under wade phillips but had pretty good passing numbers 4 000 30 passing yards 25 tds and just 10 picks you can make a strong case elway was the best qb that year statistically steve young was the only player with more touchdowns but also had 16 interceptions and fewer yards jim kelly and troy aikman both made the super bowl that season kelly had 18 touchdowns and 18 picks well eggman had a dominant 15 touchdowns put elway on either of those teams and it's a bloodbath but for that season for elway that's 3.9 percent of the total passing yards 4.2 percent of the tds and just 1.8 percent of the total picks in the nfl in 93. 1997 the year la finally breaks through and wins his first super bowl 3635 passing yards 27 tugs and 11 picks that's his career high and touchdown passes and believe it or not the most touchdown passes in a season for any broncos qb not named peyton manning in 1997 you really started to see the passing game open up with brett favre airing it out for 35 tds even jeff [ __ ] george had a random 29 touchdown year but elway was fourth in touchdowns even at 36 years old when you do the math that's 3.5 percent of the total yards 4.1 percent of the touchdowns and 2.2 percent of the picks in 97. so when we averaged those three selected seasons for elway he had about 3717 passing yards 24 touchdowns and 11 picks compared to the average total numbers in those three seasons elway had 3.6 percent of the total league passing yards 3.8 percent of the tds and 1.9 percent of the picks here's where we find out finally how elway's numbers averaged out would translate to the modern nfl so 3.6 percent of the passing yards in the modern nfl would equal for john elway 4337 passing yards 3.8 percent of the touchdowns in the modern nfl looks like about 31 touchdown passes and 1.9 of the interceptions would be about eight interceptions but wait i didn't even mention john elway's rushing stats when he retired he was fourth all-time in quarterback rushing yards behind randall cunningham who was currently active steve young who was also active and fran tarkinton you have to keep in mind how dumb the nfl was back then running as a qb was seen as a gimmick and no team wanted to commit to that as a possible tool to help the offense elway is still currently 10th all-time in quarterback rushing yards ninth in rushing tds so on average elway finished with about the fourth most rushing yards per season and about the fifth most rushing tds and led the league with six rushing tds in 91. so in 2021 elway would have been on par with guys like kyler murray and his 423 rushing yards cam newton or russell wilson in 2020 and deshawn watson in 2019. i just wanted to mention that so you had an idea where elway might stack up in terms of how he would be used in the russian game but let's look purely at the passing stats now because that's what's changed the most since la retired and we'll compare the duke to the quarterbacks of the last four years so for 2021 elway would have finished tied for 9th place with about 33 touchdown passes that's when you adjust for the extra game 7th in passing yards and 17th in interceptions we're basically looking at joe burrows 2021 season with a couple fewer picks 2020 elway would have been tied for 10th in passing touchdowns sixth in yards and had the 10th most interceptions elway's projected stats are almost identical to justin herbert's rookie of the year season in 2020 the greatest rookie qb year of all time elway would have had just one more passing yard than herbert one more pick and the same number of touchdowns but probably double the wins herbert did have the benefit of playing more than half of his games in a dome of course 2019 john elway would have been third in touchdown passes sixth in yards and tied for 14th in interceptions his closest comp that year was dak prescott or russell wilson 2018 elway would have been ninth in td's eighth in yards and 15th in picks almost identical to philip rivers who was a pro bowler that year for the chargers however you slice it elway would have been a top 10 quarterback statistically in the modern nfl where there are currently a [ __ ] ton of great quarterbacks and i'm not really even factoring in that elway probably would have played better in the modern nfl and combine la's stats with his late game heroics his clutch gene and he'd be deadly oh and did i mention john l.a played his entire career without an acl and won both of his super bowls with a torn biceps muscle and invented the [ __ ] scooter sorry john [Applause] thanks for watching balls deep here on that's good sports if you want more deep dives into the nfl check out my balls deep nfl deep dives playlist i'm on twitter instagram brandonperna if you wanna follow me in those places

Channel: ThatsGoodSports

Views: 84,805

Keywords: What Would John Elway's Stats Look Like in Today's NFL?, John Elway, Scooter Elway, John Elway's stats, John Elway highlights, Broncos, Denver Broncos, Dan Marino, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, ThatsGoodBroncos, NFL Deep Dives, NFL, That’s Good Sports, Thatsgoodsports, Brandon Perna, Quarterbacks

Id: bplHQPEWOzw

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 23 2022