The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the comparative analysis of quarterback performance across different eras of American football. We are joined by Thomas Hall from GridironIntelligence.com, who elucidates the complexities of assessing quarterback statistics, particularly in light of the evolving nature of the game. Through his innovative creation of an adjusted for era quarterback stats dashboard, Thomas provides listeners with the means to evaluate and contrast the achievements of quarterbacks from various generations, thereby rendering a more equitable comparison. This analytical approach not only enhances our understanding of historical players but also facilitates informed discussions regarding contemporary legends such as Patrick Mahomes. As we delve deeper into the conversation, we explore the nuances of football analytics and the significance of contextualizing stats to appreciate the greatness of quarterbacks throughout the annals of football history.

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Who's the more successful quarterback in stats?

Johnny Unitis?

Joe Montana?

Troy Aikman?

How about Patrick Mahomes?

Well, we have a guest today that has a way to check that out and it's all analytical.

Thomas hall joins us from GridironIntelligence.com to tell us about about his quarterback stats and how to compare ones from different generations.

It's all coming up with Thomas in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of.

American football events throughout history.

Host Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of Pigskind dispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to puzzle of football history.

And welcome to another segment where we get to visit with our friend Thomas hall of gridiron intelligence.com Thomas, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Thank you so much.

I, I, I've been having a blast on these segments.

So I'm really passionate about football analytics.

So than for having me.

Yeah, you, you can tell you're passionate and it's rubbing off on me and everybody else listening.

You know, we're really fired up for this, the season coming up and be able to get in there and check out, you know, the stats as they're coming up for the upcoming season.

But we're enjoying looking at some of these stats that you have as your samples in there.

So maybe you could tell folks, you know, where you're at and where they can find these stats and what they'll be looking at.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Www.GridironIntelligence.com that'll take you to the site.

There's places where you can click to learn, which has a lot of written content about football analytics and different situations.

And then the, the meat of it is it's under stats and analytics.

Go there, check out the dashboard that sample data right now, but it'll give you a great understanding of what is to come.

A lot of exclusive data in there.

Check it out, slice and dice however you want and just know that this is going to evolve.

The dashboard is going to evolve, evolve and it's going to have more and more metrics as we go along.

Yeah, this is a gonna be a very dynamic site and we're really excited to see how this plays out and I'm sure you'll come up with all kinds of great new ideas as you collect the data and it's gonna be really, really cool thing.

So you know, but you have some things from the past.

You know, we're, we're a football history show.

We love the modern football game, we love that kind of stuff.

But looking back at and reflecting on some the great accomplishments of legends and, and people that we remember watching as a kid have a, something that you did a little while ago, that's sort of an add on feature, you know, just to show your credibility and your passion for, for football.

Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So like I said about gridiron intelligence is we want to have context behind everything, right?

So every stat everybody can understand what they're looking at.

Well, the problem with if you look at history, especially quarterbacks, people like to compare them with their stats.

I mean that's the only thing they can compare them with.

But as we know, the game of football has changed over the years so much to emphasize passing, to make it easier to pass, to protect quarterbacks, to protect receivers.

So in taking career stats from one quarterback, even that started maybe 10, even five years earlier than another quarterback, that you can't compare them.

The stats are not the same because of the way that this football game of football has evolved.

So what I did was I created an adjusted for era quarterback stats dashboard.

It's free, it's on tableau public.

You can go and check it out.

But what it does is it allows you to look at quarterbacks that they basically have normalized their stats based on the era.

So you can actually compare the career stats.

So you can look at quarterbacks from 46 to last year and you can compare them.

So for example, people are like Patrick Mahomes, he's the best quarterback there is in history.

Look at his stats, it's great.

Well, if you compare him to like Len Dawson, who is a hall of fame quarterback from his own team, those stats look very comparable.

Go check it out.

There's not a huge difference between when you adjust for era and it's nothing.

I'm not doing anything crazy when I'm adjusting for ear.

I'm just taking what was happened during a five year period, the, you know, three, two years before and two years after that quarterback season.

And I'm looking at that average and I'm comparing that quarterback season to that average.

So you can then go say okay with the best season.

And if you look at it in that dashboard, it will show you how really great it is.

It also shows, so it shows a com.

A score of the combined major stats by, by game, not by, you know, so it takes into account if someone was injured for several games.

So it's by game.

So you, it's not, you know, giving people who had 16 games more credit than someone who played 12 games.

But also you can look at yards compared by year.

You can look at touchdowns, interceptions, completion percentage, pastor rating, because all those things have changed over time and there's reasons for it and that's why you need to adjust this.

And then also in that dashboard, it lists all the best seasons, every qualifying quarterback season.

Dan Rideau, 84 is number two.

And if you look at the comparison between what Gianni unit did in 59 compared to all the other quarterbacks, it was light years ahead.

So I mean, but they're so close that you can, you can argue it.

So you can, you can look at your favorite quarterback seasons in every starting year of their career and just see how good they are.

And you can pair up to four quarterbacks at a time with that tool and it's free.

Well, I think when we hang up here, I think I'm going to go in and check out some of these things because I have a lot of questions going through my head now that you're, you're confused.

Comparing that, you know, one that's really happening lately.

And it's because of the way the NFL has recently said they're going to incorporate the AAFC All American Football Conference stats into with the rest of the NFL stats is the comparison of Tom Brady with his seven championships to Otto Graham and his seven championships with the Cleveland Browns.

So that would be a very interesting one to call up on your, your feature here.

Yeah, I went and I got a FC Stats too, so I, I've included those.

I don't know if I missed a couple before that because it gets kind of wonky after you, you get there.

And it's only qualifying quarterbacks too.

I didn't, I didn't bring in anybody that, you know, wasn't really a quarterback that threw a couple passes.

These are, these are qualifying quarterbacks so you can compare autograph to Tom Brady.

And in fact, on my, if you want to go to my Twitter site, I actually put that there.

The 10 best adjusted for era quarterbacks based on stats.

Otto Graham was one of the top quarterbacks.

Can't remember where he landed.

But it's, it's interesting.

And you can compare.

There's a line graph that will show them across their career compared to three other quarterbacks.

And you can, you can see who, who's better.

Who, who actually was better for their era.

Right.

For.

And that's the important thing because you, you could never compare them career stats because today's quarterbacks will always look better than even 10 years ago.

Yeah.

Wow, what a, what a great tool.

And now the other one is going through my head is, you know, you didn't even mention them.

I'm thinking we did an info chart not too long ago on the highest scoring offenses of all time in pro football.

And you know, the 51 Rams with their dual quarterbacks of Waterfield and Van Brocklin scored more points than anybody in history, which blows my mind for that era to be able to do that.

So I'd be interested in seeing what, how their quarterback stats are compared to somebody like Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers or somebody like that in the modern times.

Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting to see.

And, and you know, again, it's not you.

There's ways that you can judge quarterbacks.

Right.

It's not a, it's not a just a grab of stats and saying, okay, well this, you know, this quarterback's better than this.

This is a analytical way of doing it that normalizes, you know, the, all of the different changes that happened over the years.

And it's a really a fun tool to use.

And it, like I said, it's, it's not going to cost you anything.

Just go to Tableau Public and look up my name.

You'll find it there.

And it's, you know, it's, it's a fun tool to just, you know, how, you know, look, look at different quarterbacks across the years and, and see just, you know, what your opinion may have been before and after you see those different stats.

Thomas, that is definitely a very cool tool that you put together there.

And it just shows your passion and your credibility of putting analytics together for a football fan to resolve arguments at the water cooler or whatever, just to solve debates in your own mind.

Like in my case, just to have interesting factoids.

But you're doing some of this stuff and it's really exciting on your new project and maybe you could tell people where that is and you know a little bit about it.

Sure, yeah.

Obviously I'm passionate about it and I have been for a long time.

My whole life I've been into stats.

So finally, after all this time, after having been an analyst in the corporate world for a long time, I decided to, decided to start this gridiron intelligence.

I'm combining my football knowledge, my analytics knowledge, my ability to create data visualizations.

I'm putting it all into one, all the things I truly love to do, and I'm putting it out there under GridironIntelligence.com you can go there, you can check out as exclusive data that we have regular data.

You can slice and dice, you know, that play by play stats however you want.

So you can again make an intelligent argument or add information to your article that you're writing or to your podcast.

And then, you know, also eventually be able to use it for fantasy football if you'd like.

I mean, we're going to go that route.

We're going to get enough data so we can start to make, you know, an algorithm for fantasy football.

But right now you can go compare player versus player and you can, you can actually do that yourself if you want to, to make some, make some more informed decisions.

Well, very interesting indeed, folks.

Again, if you're driving or don't have a pen and pencil, write down.

We have links in the show notes of either the YouTube version of this podcast or to the podcast notes on your favorite podcast provider.

Or you can go to pigskindispatch.com and we actually have a link in our gray banner.

You'll see Thomas's logo there with the football and the blue gridiron intelligence.

You click that and it'll take you right to his site as well.

Take advantage of this great offer he's got coming up here and enjoy this football season even more with some great stats and analytics.

Thomas, we thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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