The Top 20 Clutch Playoff QBs

It's Brett Favre's fault. Most serious football fans know that the Green Bay Packers have historically enjoyed a singular homefield advantage in the playoffs. Until 2002, Green Bay had never lost a playoff game at Lambeau Field, where the Packers have been playing since 1957. In the six seasons since, they have suddenly lost three playoff games at Lambeau.

It's tempting to blame Favre. Without him, the Packers never lost at Lambeau. With Favre, they're 8-3. That's not terrible, but it's not the Lambeau mystique, either. Here's the really upsetting part, though: Favre, as much as anyone except maybe Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr, was responsible for that Lambeau mystique. He won his first seven playoff games at Lambeau Field and helped to establish the idea that opposing teams cannot come into Green Bay in January and expect to win. Since then, though, he's 1-3.

Entering that 2002 season, the Packers were 11-0 in postseason play at Lambeau Field. Then they suffered a shocking 27-7 loss to the Falcons, who were led by a promising young quarterback named Mike Vick. In 2003, the Packers predictably bounced back, albeit with an uncomfortably close overtime win over the Seahawks. You know, the game when Matt Hasselbeck chirped, "We want the ball and we're gonna score!" Then, in 2004, the unthinkable: a humiliating home-field defeat to the division-rival Minnesota Vikings. And this weekend, a tired and uninspired-looking Packer team went through the motions in a 23-20 loss to another heavy underdog, the New York Giants.

These were not great teams the Packers lost to. Both the 2002 Falcons and the 2004 Vikings were embarrassed in their subsequent playoff games. The 2007 Giants are playing well, but the Jimmy Johnson Cowboys they are not.

The point of this column is not to bash Favre; I'm half-joking about all of this. But Green Bay's third postseason loss at Lambeau — and more specifically, Favre's third postseason loss at Lambeau — got me thinking about quarterback success in the playoff, and I came up with a very simple way to quantify it.

The formula is this: a quarterback is eligible for points in any postseason game in which he throws at least 60% of his team's passes. He is awarded one point for every road victory, and penalized one point for every home loss. Thus, Sunday's NFC Championship Game is +1 for Eli Manning and -1 for Favre. The AFC Championship Game was +0 for both Tom Brady and Philip Rivers; since the home team won, neither player's score is affected. I also awarded one point for a Super Bowl win, though there is no penalty for losing the Super Bowl. Basically:

Road Win +1
Home Loss -1
Super Bowl Win +1

I used playoff results from 1990-2007, since it was in 1990 that the playoff field was expanded to 12 teams. A quarterback is only evaluated on results from the 1990 season and later. John Elway is in this study, but I did not include his playoff results in the 1980s. This also affected Randall Cunningham, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, and Warren Moon.

Before I present the data, please let me address a glaring flaw here: it is not fair to judge a quarterback by his team's success. There are 10 other starters who affect the game on offense alone, not to mention substitutes, defensive players, special teams, and coaching decisions, or even quality opponents who got hot at the right time. Recognizing that this is hardly an authoritative study that should be used to judge quarterback greatness, here were the top scorers.

Number one surprised me a little: Tom Brady. He earned one point in 2001, for the Super Bowl win. The Patriots also won a road game in Pittsburgh that postseason, but Drew Bledsoe actually threw more passes than Brady, so no points for that one. One point in 2003, for that Super Bowl. Two points in 2004, for another AFC Championship Game victory in Pittsburgh, plus another Super Bowl. And one point in 2006, for a road win in San Diego. And of course, Brady is likely to collect a sixth point in Super Bowl XLII.

The rest of the list seemed a little off to me, so I added a new rule: bonus points for first-round byes. If a quarterback threw at least 2/3 of his team's passes during the regular season, and the team earned a first-round bye, I added a point for that, the logic being that a first-round bye is as good as a wild card win. This also helped the list to make a little more sense, pushing the Aikmans and Elways past the Delhommes and Dilfers. With this new rule, Brett Favre scored 0 points for 2007: +1 for a first-round bye, -1 for a home loss to New York. With this new system, 20 QBs scored +2 or better.

20) Dan Marino: +1

Okay, I lied. Only 19 players were +2 or better. Marino leads a group of seven that were all +1. The others, in alphabetical order, were: Drew Bledsoe, Randall Cunningham, Stan Humphries, Chad Pennington, Jake Plummer, and Vinny Testaverde. Does that sound like a group Dan Marino belongs in? This guy caught no breaks. For starters, his best years were in the 1980s, and those aren't credited in this exercise. But Marino was also cursed with lots of home wild card games, when points can only be lost. Because the Bills were so dominant for most of the 1990s, the Dolphins only earned one first-round bye (in 1992), and Marino lost his +1 for that when the Bills beat them in Miami.

In 1990, the Dolphins won a wild card game at home, then lost to the Bills. In '92, they got a bye, beat the Chargers 31-0 (at home, so no points for Marino), then lost to the Bills. In '94, they won a wild card game at home, then lost to San Diego. The Dolphins made the playoffs seven times in the 1990s, all with Marino at QB, and all he got was a lousy +1. The man deserved better.

19) Donovan McNabb: +2

He has points for a road playoff win in 2001 and for the first-round bye in 2004, but the Eagles also lost consecutive NFC Championship Games at home with McNabb, and those seasons registered as zeroes (rather than -1s) because of the first-round bye rule. Honestly, Donovan has been more successful in the regular season than the playoffs. His career postseason record is 7-6.

18) Kerry Collins: +2

He led the Panthers to a bye in 1996 and the Giants to a bye in 2000. The best thing I can say about Kerry is that he's never lost a playoff game at home. Career postseason record of 3-3.

17) Rich Gannon: +2

First-round byes in 2000 and '02. I hate to demean a fine quarterback like Gannon by writing this, but as far as this study goes, his record is basically identical to Collins'. I ranked him higher because Gannon was an all-pro and Kerry Collins is himself. Gannon's career postseason record was 4-4.

16) Eli Manning: +2

He's +3 so far this year, and if the Giants win Super Bowl XLII, he'll tie Ben Roethlisberger for the only +4 season ever. Assuming they don't win the Super Bowl, Little Manning will finish this season with a 3-3 career record in the postseason.

15) Trent Dilfer: +3

Do I feel bad for ranking Dilfer ahead of Marino, McNabb, and Gannon? Yes, I do. All three points came from the Ravens' 2000 Super Bowl season, which had a lot more to do with defense than Dilfer. His career playoff record is 5-1.

14) Steve Young: +3

Without the first-round bye points, Young is actually at -2, tied with Neil O'Donnell for the lowest of any QB I evaluated. He deserves this position, though, for a couple of reasons. One is that Young led the 49ers to an incredible five first-round byes, and putting your team in position to succeed is half the battle. Additionally, with all those home games in the playoffs, it's hard to score points, since you can only do that on the road or in the Super Bowl. Young also had the misfortune to lose home playoff games against Troy Aikman's Cowboys and Brett Favre's Packers. Stiff competition. Young finished his career with an 8-5 postseason record.

13) Peyton Manning: +3

The Good: Road wins in 2003 and 2006, plus a Super Bowl in 2006.

The Bad: A home playoff loss in 1999 and a quick elimination in 2005 after the Colts' 13-0 start.

The Ugly: This year's loss to San Diego.

12) Kurt Warner: +3

Two of his three points come from first-round byes. The other is from Super Bowl XXXIV, of which Warner was named MVP. His career postseason record is 5-2.

11) Brad Johnson: +3

Fine, Trent Dilfer he is not, but all three of Johnson's points come from 2002, when the Buccaneers rode their top-ranked defense — not Johnson's offense — to a first-round bye, a road win in the NFC Championship Game, and a Super Bowl victory. His career postseason mark is 4-3.

10) Ben Roethlisberger: +3

Man, things just never go as planned with this guy. He's been in six playoff games, not counting Super Bowl XL. Five of those six playoff games were won by the road team. Ben was on the losing end in 2004 (AFC CG vs. New England) and 2007 (Jacksonville), and on the winning side three times in the Super Bowl year. Career postseason record of 5-2.

9) Mark Brunell: +3

Forget the old, tired Brunell who started for Washington from '04-'06. Remember the young, talented scrambler who unexpectedly led Jacksonville, a second-year expansion team, to the AFC Championship Game in 1996. His career playoff record is 4-5, but we won't hold that against him.

8) Jim Kelly: +3

You might expect Kelly to be higher, with all of Buffalo's playoff success, and since I don't penalize Super Bowl losses. But the Bills didn't have many road games in which Kelly could earn points, and they never won the big one. His career playoff record was 9-7.

7) Steve McNair: +4

His big year was 1999, with a pair of road wins following the Music City Miracle. Without Tennessee's 1999 postseason run on the road, Manning and Brunell would both be +4. McNair's career postseason record is 5-5.

6) Brett Favre: +4

I know this is sacrilege, but can I suggest that Favre has been a pretty awful playoff quarterback since Mike Holmgren left Green Bay?

5) Jake Delhomme: +4

He's inconsistent about getting a team to the playoffs, and he's never led Carolina to a first-round bye, but the man can get some road wins. There was that double-overtime affair in St. Louis in 2003, followed by an NFC Championship Game victory in Philadelphia that propelled the Panthers to Super Bowl XXXVIII, plus a pair of road wins — over the Giants and Bears — in 2005. Delhomme has a 5-2 record in the postseason.

4) Mark Rypien: +4

Wait, hear me out. I swear that I can justify ranking Mark Rypien ahead of Brett Favre and Jim Kelly. Here's the thing about Ryp: he had a short prime, and we all know he wasn't half the quarterback those guys were. But the man did right in the postseason. In 1990, he got a road playoff win. In 1991, a first-round bye, a pair of blowouts (which count for nothing, since they were in Washington, but the combined score was 71-17) and a Super Bowl win, with Rypien winning MVP. And in '92, another road win before losing to the 49ers in San Francisco.

This is, of course, the only list — other than maybe "Best Rypiens" or something — that Mark Rypien is so high on. His career postseason record was 5-2.

3) John Elway: +5

Imagine how impressive his score would be if I counted the '80s. Elway's career postseason record was 14-7.

2) Troy Aikman: +7

The Super Bowls are +3, first-round byes are +3, and a road win in San Francisco was +1. Aikman also lost a point for that shocking home loss to the Cardinals in 1998. His career postseason record was 11-4.

1) Tom Brady: +9

What's really scary is that this could be +10 in a couple of weeks. It's much too early to crown Brady as the best quarterback of all time — I don't even think he's passed Peyton as the best QB of his generation, and what possible argument could you make to get him ahead of Joe Montana? — but this kid is really special. There's more to that +9 than just the QB, but there's a lot of Brady in those three Super Bowl rings.

This little exercise, awarding QBs points for the whole team's accomplishments and failures, is a bit silly, but look at Brady's score. Aikman is the only one even close to him! Now, sticking with the 12-team playoff gave me a very limited timeline, so Brady didn't have to contend with legendary winners like Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, or Joe Montana. But that kind of dominance, is any context, is pretty impressive. It is very difficult, I think, to argue that Brady is not the greatest postseason quarterback of the last 20 years.