The Great Eight Debate: Are Wins a QB Stat?

Forced to guess, I’d say most people think that wins aren’t a QB stat. I don’t have firm survey numbers to back up my position; I’m merely working off my sense from comments, quips, and opinions I see expressed online and in conversation. My argument that wins are and should be a QB stat, then, feels somewhat unpopular, though I’ll willingly admit that I may be misguided here. I’ll also admit that I go back and forth on this one. There are days when I lean toward seeing the W/L column as strictly a team statistic; it’s entirely possible that wins ought not be attributed to one player, even one as significant as the QB. For the sake of argument, though, I’ll do my best to defend the position that wins are a legitimate stat for a QB.

Editor’s Note: The other side to this debate will be published on Daily Norseman. Feel free to head over there to see the other side of things.

Before getting to the heart of the matter, consider two ideas that will hopefully pay dividends through the debate. First, wins as a QB stat should be looked at on a macro rather than micro level. So much can happen in a single game, so isolating one can be tricky. Over a sufficient amount of time, we can use wins as one of the statistical measures for a QB’s career, one that helps give a sense of the player’s abilities.

That leads to the second point: I’m not suggesting that QB wins is the perfect stat. Just as it would be foolish to, say, isolate interceptions as the only stat that matters, so too would be it misguided to prop up wins as preeminent in the world of QBs. If we isolated Brett Favre’s INTs, we’d think he was among the worst QBs to ever play. Wins are important, but they don’t have the whole truth cornered.

With that being said, a brief road map.

I’ll be supporting my argument with three main points, which are as follows: 1) The Argument from Statistics; 2) The Argument from Finances; 3) The Argument from History. These three arguments (at least to my small brain) are all interconnected, so hopefully they carry some cumulative weight. My understanding is that Mr. Ludford will be doing a deep dive using some advanced statistics. I won’t be going this route. Readers who enjoy advanced stats can likely find all kinds that contradict, complicate, and/or complement the arguments in this piece. I fully anticipate that Mr. Ludford will put forth a great case for why we shouldn’t ascribe wins to QBs, and it’s entirely possible we’re all persuaded by his case.

Alas, we must move onto the argument.

Conclusion

There are times when the QB does nearly everything right and still loses; we saw this when Josh Allen lost to Kansas City last weekend. How can we fault a faultless player? A QB goes out and has an elite day on the field but is let down by his special teams, defense, and/or other players in the offense. Surely we can’t blame him for that outcome.

On the micro level, I believe that’s true. Over a sufficiently long amount of time, though, these things generally work themselves out. Plus, that line of reasoning is a two-way street. Just as there are games when a QB does everything right and still loses, so too are there games when a QB does everything wrong and still wins.

Wins are by no means a perfect measure of a QB’s performance. Rather, they’re merely one measure of the kind of career a player has had. The most important thing for an NFL football team is getting the win, and QB is (at least according to conventional wisdom and the way team’s spend their money) the most important position. To my mind, then, it makes some sense to think of wins as both a team and QB stat.

We know broad metrics like passer rating, adjusted net yards per attempt or ANY/A, QB PFF grade, QB DVOA, EPA, CPOE, WPA, and QBR are all quarterback-centric stats, but what about wins or winning percentage?

Central to the debate over whether wins are in fact a QB stat, rather than a team stat, is to what extent a quarterback’s performance is elevated (or reduced) by the team around him, versus to what extent a quarterback’s performance elevates (or hinders) the team around him.

Other factors may be at play as well - things like coaching and game planning, salary cap and drafting, QB clutch-play ability and field generalship, injuries, luck, and favorable calls.

A quarterback may be influential in all these factors to one degree or another, but ultimately are wins a product of that influence, or are they a product of the overall team more so than the guy behind center?

K. Joudry over at Purple PTSD will argue that wins are a more of a QB stat, while I’ll argue they’re a team stat.

Bottom Line

As I’ve listed above, there are plenty of examples of good teams carrying mediocre quarterbacks to outsized QB winning percentages. And there are poor teams that have led good quarterbacks to mediocre winning percentages.

But where are the quarterbacks with a high winning percentage carrying poor teams? In the entire history of the NFL, those examples are at best extremely rare and short-lived. If wins should be a QB rather than a team stat, we should see good quarterbacks carrying mediocre teams a lot more often than we do. Instead, we more often see good teams carrying poor quarterbacks, or good teams making good quarterbacks.

Team Brady

Perhaps no quarterback has demonstrated that the team is more important than the quarterback when it comes to winning than the undisputed GOAT - Tom Brady.

Since the beginning of the salary cap era in 1994, no team whose quarterback counted for more than 13% of the salary cap has won the Super Bowl. Tom Brady, without knowing this at first but knowing the value of acquiring talented players around him, has taken a discount to his market value his entire career. Of course he makes more in endorsements anyway, and his wife is reportedly worth $400 million as well, but it's not like other top quarterbacks are going to be inconvenienced in any meaningful way by taking a discount to their multi-million-dollar salaries. But they don’t. Dak Prescott, after signing his 4-year, $160 million deal, said he owed it to his fellow quarterbacks to maximize his contract. The Cowboys are $21 million over the cap for 2022. Will his team suffer as a result? You bet.

Is it going to make me feel any better to make an extra million? That million might be more important to the team. - Tom Brady

Brady has also been a supporter of his teammates in other ways over the years, sticking up for them in tough times, helping their development in some cases, pushing to acquire them, and never throwing them under the bus or criticizing them publicly. He’s also modest about his own achievements- you hardly ever hear him talking about all his record setting achievements, despite being asked about them continually. He can be demanding of teammates at times, but no more than he is on himself. I’m not sure I’ve heard any criticism of Brady from any of his teammates, past or present- all I’ve heard is praise. Even those few that have been otherwise more critical of the Patriots while he was there still had nothing bad to say about Brady. All that is part of the Patriot Way, to hear it told, being diligent and demanding professionally (‘just do your job’ and ‘no days off’), while supportive personally, and valuing team above personal goals. Many have said Brady was the embodiment of that philosophy.

While certainly every factor imaginable seems to have aligned for Brady to have the success he’s had over his long career, the greatest quarterback to ever do it, Brady himself knew the value of the team around him. His quotes, his actions, his salary all reflect that.

I play a complicated position in an intensely team-oriented game. - Tom Brady

So, are wins really a QB rather than a team stat? Tom Brady would argue they’re a team stat all the way. Who could argue with him?