After the Super Bowl, one of the many debates was whether Matthew Stafford would eventually be able to wear a yellow jacket at Canton after his career. A few years ago, there was a touting of Stafford's qualification for the Hall of Fame but not proving himself in the playoffs, and the topic has never been taken seriously. Now Stafford has arrived on the West Coast, winning not only his first career playoff win, but also four straight wins — lifting the Super Bowl and suddenly his chances of being inducted into the Hall of Fame suddenly become even higher.
When Stafford during the Lions was hailed as a potential candidate for the Hall of Fame, a line was drawn between statistics and efficiency metrics, and Stafford excelled statistically. He is already in the top 12 in the history of the league in terms of the number of passes and touchdowns, but the price is that the number of passing attempts is also more than 12 in history. Before this season, Stafford was more of a data brush than a victory guarantee, but that has improved this season.
If you add the Super Bowl, Stafford's passing EPA this season leads the league, after his high ranking dates back to fourth in the league in 2011. In an analysis that cast doubts about Stafford's ability to rise to elite level, the veteran who has been with the Lions for 12 seasons before the trade to Los Angeles is definitely a quality quarterback in the league, although far from a great quarterback.
So the question now is whether Stafford, who has led the Rams to success on the biggest stage, will turn the trajectory of his entire career and make him a true candidate for the Hall of Fame. The last thing we want to do is get caught up in the moment, overestimate his recent achievements, and certainly not unfairly underestimate this great season. To avoid these pitfalls, I did what nerds do best: look at data. I've collected a number of metrics that are relevant to judging a quarterback's career, including season efficiency rankings, stats, playoff efficiency, Super Bowl appearances, and wins.
After several rounds of statistical analysis, I analyzed the data with a relatively simple logistic regression model and let it do some tedious work, such as finding the variables most relevant to the Hall of Fame and how we should measure each one. I've found the most influential variables to be Super Bowl wins, single-season efficiency values in the league's top five, Super Bowl and single-season efficiency values in the league's top ten.
To get a reliable sample and align the model data with today's league, I only used quarterback data from 1980 or each season after that, and based on the net number of yards adjusted for each pass attempt, I came up with the efficiency value of each quarterback to see if they could make the top five.
The adjusted net code count for each pass attempt contains different results, which we usually refer to simply as ANY/A, as follows:
(Number of passes – number of yards killed + 20 × passes touch the ground – 45 × intercepted) / number of passing slots
While the EPA data is more accurate, it's only the last two decades or so, so we use ANY/A to evaluate quarterbacks.
We can use the results of the model to predict the probabilities of each quarterback who has been inducted into the Hall of Fame and qualified for the Hall of Fame. In the first table below, model data values > 95%, including quarterbacks most likely to enter the Hall of Fame in the historical dataset.
Hall of Fame threshold
All quarterbacks in the table above are model data with a 95% or more probability of being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and indeed every quarterback on the list has been, or is essentially guaranteed, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Super Bowl victories are the most important factor in this mode, so every quarterback in the chart above has lifted the Super Bowl at least once. The only exception is "uncrowned king" Dan Marino, whose efficiency has been in the top five for nine seasons of his career, tied for second place on all quarterbacks. In addition, he has five seasons of single-season efficiency in the league's top ten, which means that he is at least in the league's top ten in 14 out of 16 starting seasons in his career.
Big Ben, Troy Ekman, Terry Bradshaw, John Elvey and Colt Warner were the least efficient in the group to make their first five seasons, but they all made the Super Bowl at least three times and won at least once.
It is possible to be selected
In the second group in the table above, the Hall of Fame probability is higher than 35%, but it is different from the previous group. Russell Wilson has an 86.5 percent chance of being selected, even though he has a season with efficiency in the league's top five.
Model data is more bullish on the chances of Rivers the Great River, higher than Eli Manning, although the latter has a much higher success rate in the Super Bowl. Manning Jr. was the weakest in his group, but two Super Bowl wins were enough to give him a place in the model, which could not even calculate that Eli had defeated the patriots twice.
My assessment of Tony Romo was "unable to qualify" because this was his first year of qualification and he was not on the 120-man primary. Romo lacked playoff success, winning just two playoff wins in his career, but he had four efficiency points to finish in the top five and another four in the top ten, and with only nine seasons of passing up to par, Romo's results were not easy. Although we hoped in our hearts that Romo would enter, reason told me that it would be difficult.
"Viper" Kenny Stableer is the only quarterback who is not in the model data, but is finally selected, after all, it is difficult to evaluate the quarterback from forty or fifty years ago, and it is difficult to evaluate with modern eyes and standards.
Stafford has a chance
If the Hall of Fame probability falls below the 30 percent threshold, we'll see a roster where most quarterbacks won't make the cut, and there are active quarterbacks who can go on to write legends. Stafford now has a 10.8% chance of being selected, and there's a chance to replicate the season's success in the coming seasons. If he can complete another season in the league with an efficiency value of the top five, plus a Super Bowl, Stafford's chances of being selected will also increase to nearly 40%. So keep two more elite seasons, and maybe Stafford can actually be in the Hall of Fame.
Matt Lane ended up being lower than I expected, but this model data doesn't include his MVP honor because adding this variable would compromise the accuracy of the model. I'd love to see Ryan recognized in some way, but it's more like he's going to be named to the list of "Greatest Non-Hall of Fame Quarterbacks in History."
Warren Moon's chances of being inducted into the Hall of Fame based on model data are by far the lowest, but there's a lot of historical context behind his experience. With blacks not getting the final they deserved at the time, Moon was forced to spend the golden years of his career in the Canadian CFL, winning the Gray Cup (the Equivalent of the Super Bowl) five times in a row before joining the NFL and completing several brilliant seasons in the NFL in the final year of his career.