Russell Wilson ranked 139th best player in NFL by MMQB. My brain just broke.
Wilson is just a bit better than most of those guys. Okay, almost all of them
Brady and Rodgers, sure. My problems start with Ben Roethlisberger. He was over 100 in passer rating three times in his career, with a high of 104.1, a low of 75.4. His career average is 94.1.
Andrew Luck‘s single season high in passer rating is 96.5, his low is 74.9, with an average of 87.3.
Matt Ryan is coming off a stellar 117.1 in his NFC Championship year. His second highest rating is 99.1, with a low of 87.7, and an average of 93.6.
Matthew Stafford better than Wilson? He’s had four good years and four mediocre years.
Russell Wilson‘s numbers? Three times over 100, same as Roethlisberger in eight fewer years. Wilson’s best number is 110.1, his lowest is 92.6. That 92.6 would be Luck’s third best season and Ryan’s fourth best, by the way. Here’s the fun part.
Russell Wilson’s average passer rating is 99.6. That’s 12 points higher than Andrew Luck, the alleged fifth best quarterback in the league. It’s even a tiny bit higher than Drew Brees’ career rating with the extremely pass-happy Saints, 99.6 to 99.3.
Russell Wilson is ranked behind Joe Flacco. My head is killing me
Somehow Joe Flacco is ranked ahead of Wilson, just ahead. Best season passer rating, 93.6. One full point ahead of Wilson’s worst. Career rating, 84.5. Again, Wilson’s career rating, 99.6. Yeah, I can totally see ranking the guy with a career passer rating fifteen points worse above Wilson. Must be because Flacco is the old Darryl Lamonica mad bomber style player. Wait, his single season best is just 27 touchdowns. Wilson’s thrown 26 twice and 34 in his best season. Maybe Flacco doesn’t throw picks. Oh… he’s thrown at least 10 in every season. Wilson threw 10 and 11 in his worst seasons.
Wait a minute – I got it. Flacco is mobile! He’s run for…um…712 yards in nine seasons. Wilson had more than that in one year, even rushed for 259 last season on a bad ankle and knee. The Seahawks quarterback has almost 2700 yards rushing in just five seasons. So it has to be last year. It was Wilson’s worst, after all, despite throwing for over 4200 yards. Sure enough, that’s it! Flacco threw for 4317 yards. 998 yards more than Wilson. Okay, so Flacco had one less touchdown and threw four more picks than Wilson. You have to remember, he ran for… um, 58 yards.
How did Wilson get ranked behind this guy again?
How the rankings were determined
This may help. The author’s note on Wilson is as follows:
"“I didn’t think he could become a quality NFL pocket passer. And, to be clear, because of his height, there are still plays from the pocket that he simply can’t make. But to Wilson’s immense credit, and to Seattle’s, he has discovered some dropback discipline on quick-strike throws out of spread sets. The beauty is that this doesn’t come at the expense of his sandlot abilities.”"
So apparently because there are some plays “he simply can’t make” he gets shoved down to 11th among quarterbacks. Despite the fact that there are clearly plays he can make that others can’t. Like those 2,689 rushing yards, for example. Or extending plays with his scrambling ability.
I do want to point out that I agree with a lot of his rankings. One person created this list, and he has an explanation of his rankings you can find by clicking the link. Spoiler alert: the author says,
"“A player’s raw talent, cultivated skill set, and role within his team’s system were taken strongest into consideration. It was all film-based; very rarely were stats a factor. Ninety nine times out of 100, the film shows what the stats tell anyway. The beauty is the film shows it with context.”"
It makes zero sense to base the ranking on film. You need to watch every starter. That’s 700 players, roughly. Watch an hour on each player, or cut it to half an hour. That’s still 350 hours of film. That’s well over a month of simply watching film. Somehow, I think it would have been a good idea to look at the stats as well. This explains a lot. Like, how about seven quarterbacks that shouldn’t be there were ranked ahead of Russell Wilson.