NFL: the 300/70/3 Club; Manning, Rodgers, Brees, Brady (and the stats to prove it)
Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
Every position, every season, every career has standards of excellence. These standards are often labeled "Clubs." The 30-30 club in baseball. The "Clubs" are always exclusive and define a level of excellence.
Some known standards of excellence -
Baseball's 30HR's 100RBI's 0.300BA in a season (in recent years its the Pujols Club)
Basketball's 30pt 10reb 10ast in a game (in recent years its the Lebron Club)
Football's 100yrds Rushing or 100yrds Receiving a game (this year the DaMarco Murray Club)
What about a quarterback. What defines a great game for a quarterback? For a quarterback everything is different. Standards are higher for a quarterback. 300yards passing? Not enough. 3 touchdowns? Not enough. 70% completion? Not enough. Combine the 3? Now we are talking.
I call it the 300/70/3 club.
The name isn't catchy. But its effective. If a quarterback throws for 300 yards on 70% completion with 3 touchdowns; that's a great day. Not only is it a great day, it usually means a win for your team. See the below 10 top quarterbacks, and what percentage of the games (since 2012) they join the 300/70/3 club.
Manning has done it a whopping 24% of the time. And won 90% of those games. Rodgers and Brees are at 18% and 17% respectively, and the list drops down after that, with Eli and Cutler rounding out the bottom with 2% and 0% of games joining the club. When these QB's join this club they win on average 86.5% of the time.
Add a zero to the end (300/70/3/0 Club). It's even less catchy, but even more effective. This club is top heavy with the big 3 (Manning, Rodgers, and Brees).
BELOW ARE SOME GRAPHS THAT SHOW EACH CATEGORY SEPARATELY.
When looking at these stats individually, usually the trends are the same, but some of the data can be misleading.
PASSING YARDS (%age of games throwing at least 200yrds, 300yrds, 400yrds, and 500yrds)
What does this tell you. Manning and Brees both throw at least 200yrds 98% of the time, and Romo is surprisingly the next most consistent at 90%. Romo also ranks 2nd in 400yrd games with 10% of the time, and 1st place in 500yrd games. Manning is king with 1st place in 200, 300, and 400 yard games. While Manning and Brees are head and shoulders the most consistent of the bunch since 2012. The fact that Big Ben, Romo, and Eli are the only ones with 500+ yards passing, says something about that threshold. When you get to 500 yards you were probably down and throwing too much.
PASSING TOUCHDOWNS (%age of games throwing at least 1, 2, 3, 4 touchdowns)
Manning is the only QB to throw at least 1 touchdown in every game since 2012. Though Brees, Romo, and Big Ben are very close at 97-98%. The 2 touchdown threshold again sees Manning and Brees reign supreme. 3 and 4 touchdown threshold is dominated by Manning, Rodgers and Brees.
COMPLETION PERCENTAGE (%age of games throwing at 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%)
Manning and interestingly enough Big Ben are the only QB's to throw for at least 50% in 100% of the games played since 2012. Also interesting when looking at 70% completion, Romo is unexpectedly right behind Manning at 43% of the time. NOTE: Rivers is the only one that managed to lose a game while throwing 80%+
INTERCEPTIONS (%age of games throwing at 0, 1, 2, 3 ints)
Rodgers is king of the castle in this department. Rodgers thew 0 ints in 59% of this games, while throwing for 1-2 ints only 41% of the time and 3ints NEVER. The only surprise here is is Romo being 4th in efficiency in this category though the stereotype says he is an INT machine. And that Brees is towards the bottom in this category.
BUT DON'T FORGET. PUT IT ALL TOGETHER AND YOU GET THE EXCLUSIVE 300/70/3/0 Club!!!
