Passer rating - unleashed!

Who's the architect of the greatest single-game passing performance in modern history?

 

It's not contemporary superstars Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, who carve up defenses with all the blood-eyed lust of a Troll around a deep-fried turkey. And it's not MTV era icons like Dan Marino or Joe Montana, who revolutionized our concept of the passing game about the same time Martha Quinn & Pals at MTV changed the way we listen to (and watch) music.

 

Nope, it's a little more Old School than that.

 

The greatest single-game passing performance since the AFL-NFL merger belongs to one Francis Asbury Tarkenton. But you and we can just call him Fran.

 

Tarkenton, of course, retired just at the dawn of the Live Ball Era in 1978 as the all-time leader in everything from yards (47,003) to touchdown passes (342). He was the Dan Marino of the Dead Ball Era. We can  only  imagine  what his numbers might have looked like had he played his entire career here in the cushy soft-football days when defenders are fined for playing too aggressively.

 

So we were thrilled to see that he's responsible for the single greatest passing performance (since 1970) – that is, the single greatest performance when we remove the artificial constraints that restrict passer rating to an imaginary "perfect" cap of 158.3

 

We like passer rating, as you know, because it has a very high correlation to success. If you boast a higher passer rating than your opponent, you almost always win.

 

But passer rating has a major shortcoming, as we pointed out earlier this season. Namely, it has arbitrary boundaries for each factor included in the calculation. A player is considered to have had a perfect game if he:

You earn no additional credit for surpassing any one of these arbitrary milestones. As we pointed out last month, these restraints can lead to some odd situations when it comes to the definition of a statistically "perfect" game.

 

So, with the assistance of our friends at playerfilter.com, we have recalculated the passer ratings for every game back to 1970 – with the aforementioned boundaries removed! That's right: we've unleashed uncapped passer rating upon the world! This effort allows the greatest passing performances in history to break free of the shackles that constrict them in an imaginary box of 158.3.

 

Hell, we hadn't been this excited this we first tried to remove Suzy Snowflake's buxom little bosom from the artificial constraints of her manmade brassiere back in 10th grade.

 

In this case, we hope to succeed.