Rankings

I'm often asked "What is your criteria for ranking quarterbacks?" The answer is longer than I could hope to summarize in one post. It's not just statistics. It's not just wins, losses and rings. It's not just regular season performance, postseason performance, Championship game performance or voted-on awards. It's all of these things, but so much more. Football is the ultimate team sport and there's really no such thing as "individual" statistics, awards or wins. It's a collective effort and it's a tremendous challenge to attempt to quantify the individual-impact on the results of team-driven football games.

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There's no substitute for watching film. Not highlight reels or casual viewing during 1:00 and 4:00 television broadcasts. Studying film is an imperfect science but a great joy if you approach it with an open mind and a desire to consistently improve. Statistics are important, often a footprint of on-field performance, but context is just as important. Totality matters. Windows impress but sometimes mislead. My rankings aren't narrative-based, they're performance-based. "What did you contribute to your team's chances of winning?" matters more to me than end-results bereft of context and touted with certainty.

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My rankings are ever-evolving, imperfect and more importantly—just one man's opinion.

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—Ryan Michael