Best QB Comeback Performances in NFL History

[Dreadnought]

And guess whose performance weighs in at Number 7 all time? Our very own Timothy Tebow, who logged in a QB Rating of 149.3 against the Vikings.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/tiny.cgi?id=TPxFM

Not too shabby

[slim]

Tebow!

Tebow!

Tebow!

[horsepig]

Anyone surprised Elway's not on this list? I'm not, but it doesn't really mean anything.

[Dreadnought]

Anyone surprised Elway's not on this list? I'm not, but it doesn't really mean anything.

Craig Morton is there 3 times. Elway played ugly a lot. I remember a lot of games in the 80's where he seemingly stunk for 58 minutes and then was brilliant the last two, yielding a late victory

[FanInAZ]

This is based entirely off the QB rating system. I'll take Elway's drive over anything that Tebow has done to this point in his career. After all, the Vikings fans will be over this one before their next game. Browns fans still are not over how Elway ripped their hearts out almost a quarter of a century ago. His 1st career comeback against the Colts was also the stuff of legend.

[Dreadnought]

This is based entirely off the QB rating system...

Well, yes. Yes it is. My favorite stat in all of sports, too :D

Stats don't tell an entire story, but that one tells more than most

[Northman]

It also scares me that Frerotte and Batch on in the top 10. lmao

[Thnikkaman]

I think its interesting that 4 games on that list come from this season, and that there isn't a single game from 2003 on that list.

[Ravage!!!]

It also scares me that Frerotte and Batch on in the top 10. lmao

Great point. THats what I think the QB rating has got to be one of the dumbest stats in sports. Its entire meaning was to make it "simple" for the average fan to know if a QB played well. Of course, it was designed back in 1972, when people were lucky to see one game.. not to mention have the mass media available to see every play of every game.... nor the popularity of football... nor YouTube and online streaming..NFL Network and sports bars that had the ability to play every game.

Most people back then, read about the games in the newspapers, and needed a simple "number" to try and tell them if/when a QB played well.

I like the "Rotten Tomatoes" website where they rank movies. Perhaps we should start a website to rank players....week by week... using the same system?? We could make a MINT!!!!!!! :D

[Dreadnought]

Great point. THats what I think the QB rating has got to be one of the dumbest stats in sports. Its entire meaning was to make it "simple" for the average fan to know if a QB played well. Of course, it was designed back in 1972, when people were lucky to see one game.. not to mention have the mass media available to see every play of every game.... nor the popularity of football... nor YouTube and online streaming..NFL Network and sports bars that had the ability to play every game.

Most people back then, read about the games in the newspapers, and needed a simple "number" to try and tell them if/when a QB played well.

I like the "Rotten Tomatoes" website where they rank movies. Perhaps we should start a website to rank players....week by week... using the same system?? We could make a MINT!!!!!!! :D

QB rating is the King of stats, Rav. Its elegant and covers all the things you need to know (YPA, Comp %, TD %, Int %), while avoiding crap that is completely irrelevant (e.g. Total yards passing, number of completions.)

I submit that sports talking heads bitch and whine about it because its hard and supposedly complex and it very often invalidates their preferred story lines. Thats it really. It tells a better story than any other single stat in all of sports, save perhaps on base percentage in baseball. It does say that Gus Frerottes and Charlie Batch's of the NFL World sometimes have Superman type games, but that is actually true. We don't remember those guys, but they did indeed have their moments

[Clipworthy]

they need a "Tebow" rating

oh wait, they already do (W/L)

[Nick]

Every top 100 player won the game. Sam pretty crazy performances on that list... like warren moon playing browns.

[Joel]

Well, yes. Yes it is. My favorite stat in all of sports, too :D

Stats don't tell an entire story, but that one tells more than most
It's better than all the previous ways the NFL picked its passing leader, but that's not saying much, and the PRS has a number of MAJOR flaws:

1) It sets an upper and lower bounds for each category; according to the PRS, a completion percentage of 77.5, TD percentage of 11.875 and 12.5 YPA are equal to ANY greater values, and a higher value in one cannot compensate for a lower value in another. In other words, according to the NFL PRS, 77.5% completions, 12.5 YPA and 11.875% TDs is better than 77% completions for 20 YPA and 20% TDs. It's not a big deal over a season or career because it's prohibitively unlikely any QB can meet, let alone top, those numbers for any sustained period, but it's a VERY big deal when calculating PRS for a single game. For example, without the cap Tebows rating Sunday would be 158.2 instead of 149.3; since the PRS caps ratings at 158.3 I'm pretty sure no rating on that list is better.

2) It ignores both positive and negative runs of any kind; Kyle Orton may be glad the PRS doesn't count sacks and fumbles, but I'm not.

3) Another thing that must thrill Orton is that completions are far and away the most valuable component of the PRS; 4 completions are worth as much as a TD. That's not immediately obvious because

4) The NFLs stated method for calculating the PRS is unnecessarily complicated to an extent that makes me suspect that was intentional.

Seriously, did you look at the REST of that list? There are only TWO HoFers in the top twenty, and the guys ranked above Tebow are Manning, Roethlisberger, Frerotte, O'Donnell (TWICE) and Batch. The first one, sure, and maybe the second; I might even buy O'Donnell just because he has the lowest career Int percentage in history, but most of that list is mediocre to awful, and it actually gets BETTER the farther down you go.

Since the nice folks at SI are now publishing a carbon copy of my old QBRS, tomorrow or the next day I'll see if I can get NFL.com to avoid crashing Chrome long enough for me to figuring it out for each of this years starters. Tebow will almost certainly do better than under the PRS, both because he has nice running stats and because, unlike SI, I penalize fumbles twice as harshly as Ints because they usually happen at or behind the line (I suspect the fumble at MN will lower Tebows QBR by 2-3 points, maybe more.)

QB rating is the King of stats, Rav. Its elegant and covers all the things you need to know (YPA, Comp %, TD %, Int %), while avoiding crap that is completely irrelevant (e.g. Total yards passing, number of completions.)
Come again? Pray tell how can you calculate YPA or completion percentage without total yards passing or number of completions? It doesn't avoid them, they're integral. And it DOES avoid a LOT of quite relevant things (sacks, fumbles and rushing.)

I submit that sports talking heads bitch and whine about it because its hard and supposedly complex and it very often invalidates their preferred story lines. Thats it really. It tells a better story than any other single stat in all of sports, save perhaps on base percentage in baseball. It does say that Gus Frerottes and Charlie Batch's of the NFL World sometimes have Superman type games, but that is actually true. We don't remember those guys, but they did indeed have their moments
It's not hard or complex, but the way the NFL presents it makes
(20Comp+Yds+80TD-100Int+0.5)25/6
Att

seem like both. Tebows 10/15 for 202 yds, 2 TDs and 0 Ints turns into:

(20*10+202+80*2-0+0.5)25/6
15

200+202+160=562; 562/15=37.466...; 37.466...+0.5=37.966...; 37.966...*25/6=158.1944...

What screws it up is the NFL capping all the values; no one gets credit for >77.5% completions, 12.5 YPA or 11.875% TDs. Since Tebows YPA was actually 13.466... and his TD% was actually 13.33...%, the NFL screws him out of 0.966... YPA and 1.45833...% of his TDs. Basically, the League pretends he was 10/15 for 187.5 yds, 1.78125 TDs and 0 Ints:

200+187.5+142.5=530; 530/15=35.33...; 35.33...+0.5=35.83...; 35.833...*25/6=149.3055...

It's not rocket science, the NFL just dresses it up that way to make the rest of us feel stupid and, more importantly, conceal the many mortal flaws in the PRS. Anything I used to do in my head while watching games as a teen is neither "complex" nor "hard." ;) Anything's easy when you know how, and the NFL's gone out of its way over the years to make sure most people can't say that about the PRS. Even when they stopped making people mail off for the special little book of tables the League (supposedly) used to figure it out (even though no tables were necessary then or now,) the formula they finally made public is the equivalent of saying, ((10/5)^3)/(28/7)+((4^2))^0.25=4. Because if you just wrote 2+2=4 the rabble might realize you're no smarter than they are. :tongue:

By the way, if any Admin knows a way to make the parentheses in that equation extend down to the line below it (like it should) I'd be much obliged for the alteration I can't figure out how to make. I tried to make the notation as simple as possible to eliminate the NFLs obfuscation, but my limited knowledge of html got in the way. Key concept: The 0.5 does NOT get divided by attempts, but EVERYTHING gets multiplied by 25/6. Another way to do it is 25/6(20Comp+Yds+80*TDs-100Int)/Att+25/12. You get the same value, but the first way allows you to just add up everything, divide by attempts and multiply by the 25/6 scaling factor, rather than adding it all up, dividing by attempts, multiplying by the scaling factor and then adding another value on the end of that.

[Ravage!!!]

QB rating is the King of stats, Rav. Its elegant and covers all the things you need to know (YPA, Comp %, TD %, Int %), while avoiding crap that is completely irrelevant (e.g. Total yards passing, number of completions.)

I submit that sports talking heads bitch and whine about it because its hard and supposedly complex and it very often invalidates their preferred story lines. Thats it really. It tells a better story than any other single stat in all of sports, save perhaps on base percentage in baseball. It does say that Gus Frerottes and Charlie Batch's of the NFL World sometimes have Superman type games, but that is actually true. We don't remember those guys, but they did indeed have their moments

No. Its basing actual play on a mathmatical formula. That alone says all that needs to be said. Its a formula that uses 1970 "averages" as its BASE unit... that says MUCH more!

The QB rating is ridiculous. The pass that was deflected in cinci and caught by Stokely, increased the QB rating by a TON!! Why? Because the math formula say a large TD and increased yardage. When in reality, that pass should have NEVER been thrown and certainly NEVER been completed...and NEVER a TD. 2 for 8 should NOT have a QB "rating" of over 100 points.

The QB rating is NOT for people like you, Dread. You are farrrrr too intelligent to need a QB rating to see when a QB is good and when they are not...or when they played well, and when they didn't. The QB rating is the most ridiculous of stats in all of sports. Its used so often, because the NFL is SOOOO huge and is the addiction of the american people.

It gives NO representation as to how a QB really played, and the truth in that lies in the fact that QB have hit the "perfect" rating SEVERAL times... the HIGHEST rating you can possibly get. Yet, when you see their stats, they missed passes! They threw incompletions, they threw bad passes, and made bad decisions. So how is that a "perfect" game???? :confused:

No. I'm sorry. But the QB rating is far below your level of football, and you really should not use it to judge anyone or anything in the game. Its below you.