Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: Dead Ball Era career passer rating leaders

March 19 2010

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Dead Ball Era career passer rating leaders
Cold, Hard Football Facts for July 2, 2008

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Our lists of all-time passer rating leaders are based upon a list compiled by the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The HOF list includes every quarterback with 1,500 passing attempts (the minimum needed to qualify for official NFL records). A total of 150 quarterbacks make the cut, from No. 1 Steve Young (96.81) to former NFL and AFL passer Frank Tripucka (51.18), at No. 150.

We took the Hall of Fame list and added the career years of every player on the list. (See our entire version of the list here.) This simple addition gives us an illuminating look into the history of pro football and the evolution of the passing game in particular. Simply note that, at the start of the 2008 season, 16 of the Top 20 passer-rating leaders were active in 2007. This statistical anomaly tells us that, thanks to a series of rules favoring offense, it's easier than ever to pass the ball in the NFL.

The bottom line is that it's unfair to compare passers from the Dead Ball Era against passers in today's Live Ball Era.

So we broke out from the full list of passer rating leaders, this list of Dead Ball Era passers, and this list here of passers whose careers spanned both the Dead Ball and Live Ball Eras. Separating out these lists allows us to better compare passers within the context of their eras.

Dead Ball Era (to 1977) passer rating leaders

	Player	Career	Rating
1	Sonny Jurgensen	1957-74	82.62
2	Len Dawson	1957-75	82.56
3	Bart Starr	1956-71	80.47
4	Johnny Unitas	1956-73	78.2
5	Otto Graham	1946-55	78.17
6	Frank Ryan	1958-70	77.61
7	Norm Van Brocklin	1949-60	75.07
8	Sid Luckman	1939-50	75.01
9	Don Meredith	1960-68	74.84
10	Roman Gabriel	1962-77	74.29
11	Earl Morrall	1956-76	74.09
12	Y.A. Tittle	1946-64	73.65
13	Daryle Lamonica	1963-74	72.94
14	John Brodie	1957-73	72.27
15	Milt Plum	1957-69	72.22
16	Sammy Baugh	1937-52	72.21
17	Billy Wade	1954-68	72.19
18	Bill Nelsen	1963-72	70.25
19	Charley Johnson	1961-75	69.21
20	Charlie Conerly	1948-61	68.25
21	Tom Flores	1960-69	67.58
22	John Hadl	1962-77	67.41
23	Norm Snead	1961-76	65.54
24	Joe Namath	1965-77	65.46
25	Bobby Layne	1948-62	63.38
26	Ed Brown	1954-65	62.77
27	Bob Waterfield	1945-52	61.58
28	Eddie LeBaron	1952-63	61.43
29	George Blanda	1949-75	60.65
30	Babe Parilli	1952-69	59.59
31	Jack Kemp	1957-69	57.35
32	Tobin Rote	1950-66	56.79
33	Cotton Davidson	1954-69	54.88
34	Frank Tripucka	1949-63	52.18

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