Dennis Lyons raised the point that in the days long gone, a 300-yard passing game tended to me said quarterback’s team probably lost – and thus was playing more. I decided to run the numbers.
I have all of the 300-yard passer games for 1978 thru 2013 in a sortable database (I haven’t loaded the 2014 numbers in there yet).
Turns out if you rank them by winning percentage, the 10 worst winning percentages tended to come in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s (I’ve got those in bold below).
The higher winning percentages (tag with a block dot •) have tended to come more recently.
WINNING PERCENTAGES OF 300-YARD PASSERS | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Year | W | L | G | Pct |
1978 | 5 | 10 | 15 | .333 |
1979 | 20 | 24 | 44 | .455 |
1980 | 25 | 29 | 54 | .463 |
1981 | 21 | 35 | 56 | .375 |
1982 | 20 | 23 | 43 | .465 |
1983 | 25 | 41 | 66 | .379 |
1984 | 36 | 34 | 70 | .514 |
1985 | 31 | 35 | 66 | .470 |
1986 | 30 | 31 | 61 | .492 |
1987 | 30 | 28 | 58 | .517 |
1988 | 28 | 26 | 54 | .519 |
1989 | 33 | 32 | 65 | .508 |
1990 | 27 | 16 | 43 | •.628 |
1991 | 28 | 27 | 55 | .509 |
1992 | 20 | 22 | 42 | .476 |
1993 | 20 | 17 | 37 | •.541 |
1994 | 35 | 29 | 64 | •.547 |
1995 | 41 | 39 | 80 | .513 |
1996 | 29 | 21 | 50 | •.580 |
1997 | 20 | 26 | 46 | .435 |
1998 | 27 | 25 | 52 | .519 |
1999 | 43 | 29 | 72 | •.597 |
2000 | 34 | 31 | 65 | .523 |
2001 | 37 | 35 | 72 | .514 |
2002 | 44 | 35 | 79 | •.557 |
2003 | 29 | 31 | 60 | .483 |
2004 | 36 | 45 | 81 | .444 |
2005 | 31 | 33 | 64 | .484 |
2006 | 36 | 29 | 65 | •.554 |
2007 | 43 | 38 | 81 | .531 |
2008 | 47 | 29 | 76 | •.618 |
2009 | 67 | 37 | 104 | •.644 |
2010 | 47 | 49 | 96 | .490 |
2011 | 66 | 55 | 121 | •.545 |
2012 | 61 | 65 | 126 | .484 |
2013 | 61 | 60 | 121 | .504 |
—Ian Allan