Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tony Romo on top!

LINK: http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Articles/11_2923_Week_7_first-response_team%3A_blowout_Sunday%21.html

The Cowboys quarterback pulled it all together in his team’s impressive 37-21 win over the Falcons, in what was easily his best game of the year. He displayed the mobility that has made him so dangerous to defend, and he outgunned Atlanta’s Matt Ryan.

Along the way, he also climbed onto the “official” NFL leaderboards in several categories.

With his 29 attempts Sunday, Romo has now attempted 1,501 passes in his career – the NFL requires a minimum 1,500 attempts to quality for its official records.

So Romo enters the record books today in some very, very lofty company.

His career passer rating of 94.7 (also his rating this year) is third all time. Here's the top five in career passer rating:
Steve Young – 96.8
Peyton Manning – 95.4
Tony Romo – 94.7
Kurt Warner – 93.5
Tom Brady – 93.4
Philip Rivers, who joined the "official" list earlier this year, is No. 6 at 93.3.

Now look at the top five in career passing yards per attempt:

Otto Graham – 8.63
Sid Luckman – 8.42
Norm Van Brocklin – 8.16
Tony Romo – 8.14
Steve Young – 7.984

Tony Romo is not only in the top five all time, he's the most prolific passer since Norm Van Brocklin retired at the end of the 1960 season. He's also one of just two players who appears on both lists, with Steve Young. This indicates that he's produced the highly efficient rating indicative of the modern game, with the very high average per attempt more common in earlier years of NFL football, before the "ball-control" style passing game became all the rage.

(Kurt Warner (7.977) and Ben Roethlisberger (7.968) are just a shade behind Young on the career YPA list and may even replace him in the top five by the end of the year.)