Two years ago, I wrote a 6-part series describing how to adjust passer rating for era. I posted the career results in Part V, and the whole series is background reading for anyone who wants to learn how to adjust passer rating for era.

Last year, I updated those numbers based on the 2017 results. Earlier this year, I posted the 2018 single-season results, and today, I am going to update the career ratings.

Here’s how to read the table below. Otto Graham threw 2,626 passes, and played from 1946 to 1955. His actual passer rating was 86.6, but his era adjusted passer rating was 95.2, the best in pro football history. The final column shows whether a player is in the Hall of Fame, is a HOF lock (attributed to five players), is not in the Hall of Fame, or has never been eligible for the HOF.

Eli Manning remains one of the most fascinating players in NFL history. He is now clearly below-average for his entire career when it comes to passer rating (and also below his father), which admittedly is not one of Manning’s better stats. But there are no quarterbacks in the HOF who were below-average for their career in passer rating. And it’s even more interesting to compare Manning to two other quarterbacks who entered the NFL in 2004: Philip Rivers and Tony Romo.

The graph below shows the same data as the table above, listing all players with 1500+ pass attempts. The X-Axis displays the first year for each player, while the Y-Axis shows their era-adjusted passer rating. The gold dots represent HOFers, the red dots the HOF locks, and the black dots everyone else. Oh, and along the vertical line for the 2004 year, I have color-coded the circles for Romo, Rivers, and Manning in Cowboys, Chargers, and Giants colors. If Manning one days makes the Hall of Fame, he would be the biggest outlier there, at least according to this graph:

The notable non-HOFers on this list are the same ones we always see: Ken Anderson, Bert Jones, Daryle Lamonica, Charlie Conerly, Chad Pennington, Frank Ryan, Neil Lomax, Jeff Garcia, Danny White, Daunte Culpepper, and Roman Gabriel each threw 2,000 passes and rank in the top 40 in era-adjusted passer rating. Of that group, Anderson, Lamonica, and Conerly have the best HOF cases, in my opinion.

What stands out to you?