Here is the most Trent Green stat ever: from 2001-2005 the Chiefs lost 15 games when they scored at least 24 points (including the playoffs) which makes up nearly 42% of their losses over that time frame. I haven't looked at this for other QBs but I bet it is a top 5 mark.
You absolutely understood the assignment Marc. That is a very Trent Green statistic. I'll do the rest. Let's go by star by team, since this is basically Trent's whole Chiefs career. Spoiler alert: there is more coming, just not as much as there used to be. I'm not sure if you included the playoff game or not, but the analysis below doesn't.
In Trent's Chiefs career, he scored 24 points or more in 40% of his losses. Let's compare that to everybody on my top 15 QBs of all time list. I'll use only their best team.
Peyton Manning Colts: 67 losses in total. The Colts scored at least 24 points in 22 of them. 32.8%.
Dan Marino Dolphins: 95 losses in total, and in just 26 did the Dolphins score 24 points. 27.3%.
Patrick Mahomes Chiefs: 23 losses, and the Chiefs scored 24 points in 11 of them. That's 47.8%, but I think we can all acknowledge that Patrick plays in a different offensive era than Trent did.
Steve Young 49ers: 33 total losses. In just eight of them did the 49ers score as many as 24 points. A pitiful 24.2%. If the 90s 49ers ever lost a game, you know why they lost it, looking at numbers like that.
Dan Fouts Chargers: I'm going to skip this one, because a lot of Dan's career was played before even the first round of rule changes in the 70s that made passing a lot easier.
Joe Montana 49ers: Joe lost while scoring at least 24 points twice in his 49ers career. Literally just twice. 5.1% of all losses. I suppose I can see why some people think this is the GOAT now. He had no wins robbed from him by poor defence at all ever.
Aaron Rodgers Packers: I thought this would look a lot more like Trent, and I suppose he does relative to Joe Montana, but it's still just 25 out of 75. 33.3%.
Drew Brees Saints: We've finally found a real comparable, as Drew Brees is known for having a lot of wins stolen from him by some of the worst defences of the 2010s. 86 total losses, 34 of them while scoring 24 points or more. 39.5%. Pretty much right on Trent's level.
Josh Allen Bills: Much like Steve Young and Joe Montana, Josh does not lose often, but tends to be the reason for the loss when he does. Six out of 33. 18.2%.
Tom Brady Patriots: Don't make me laugh. 14 out of 64 losses. 21.9%.
Kurt Warner doesn't really have a prime in the conventional sense, never playing more than two and a half good seasons in a row anywhere, so I'll just skip him too.
Philip Rivers Chargers: Another one I thought would be higher, but it's only 23 out of 101. 22.8%, indicating that Philip was the reason for the loss more than I remember him being.
Jim Everett Rams: Jim is in my top 15 QBs of all time despite a 64-89 career record, and a big reason for that is him losing despite scoring 24 points 12 times, even while playing a lot of his career in the 1980s, where such a thing was much more difficult to do. It's only 12 out of 59 for 20.3%, but I think Joe Montana (the only other pre-90s QB on this list) indicates that we need some era adjustment here.
Trent Green Chiefs: And here on my all time QB list lies Trent Green, with his 16 out of 40.
In sum, amongst the people Trent Green can statistically be compared with on an individual basis, we have found one real comparable, Drew Brees, who suffered as much as Trent did in terms of his defence making it difficult for him to win games, and maybe two more (with caveats) in Patrick Mahomes and Jim Everett. Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers are also hanging around the lower reaches here, but are more 'A' tier players (as opposed to 'S' tier players) in terms of being robbed by their defences of wins.
My number did include the playoff game against the Chiefs. Also, we got a two for one. Trent Green analysis plus Robbie’s top 15 QBs which appears to be in order.
Speaking of Trent, here is a list of all the unlucky things that has happened to him:
Doesn’t get real playing time until his 30s
Gets his knee blown out
Doesn’t get to be a part of the GSOT due to 2
Constantly saddled with bad defense due to poor drafting
Loses his father mid-season
Plays in some of the greatest conferences in NFL history.
It's absolutely in order. In my opinion, you can always tell what kind of an NFL fan someone is based on how they rank Dan Marino and Steve Young relative to Joe Montana. Individually, I don't think Joe has any argument over either of them. Certainly not Marino. The two are in different tiers. The comparison against Steve is a bit closer, but I still don't give it to Joe. He did a lot of winning, but we've seen a lot of the reason why through this comparison to the other greats. Steve Young and his 24.2% is not exactly Trent Green levels of unlucky, but it's leaps and bounds above Joe Montana's letdown rate of 5.1%.
This is why this series is called We Need to Pump Up Trent Green, and one day we may get a We Need to Pump Up Jim Everett. My formula for this legitimately spits them out in 14th and 15th.
14th and 15th ever. One spot behind 13th place Philip Rivers. One spot ahead of 16th place Brett Favre. Both miles and miles ahead of 30th place John Elway, but before I got really deep into running this newsletter I had never really given much thought to either of them. That seems to me like a total failure has happened somewhere in the football culture, and this series is my attempt at trying to rectify some of that in whatever way I can.
As far as the bad luck blues you've mentioned there, he did start 14 games in Washington at the age of 28, but other than that I can't argue with any of them. Patrick Mahomes got to play in the murderers' row that was the 2019 AFC, and had all the contenders self destruct in front of him that year, and beyond that has had a very weak conference most of the time. If the contenders all prolapsed in front of Trent the way they did in front of the current Chiefs, they wouldn't have taken so long to win another championship. Instead, Trent has had to play in these stacked AFCs and play all of the contenders multiple times, while saddled with the worst defence in the NFL over this five year period.
Countless games against the Broncos over the years. Four games against the Raiders back when they used to be contenders. Three Colts games over the course of this story. Three New England games. One game against the fantastic 2005 Bengals team (that was a 37-3 win by the way). 2003 Ravens. 2004 Ravens. 2002 Pennington. Hell, even the best game of Brian Griese's career. You name anything important happening in the 2000s AFC (except Steve McNair), Trent managed to get in their way at some point.
What can you even do about that? Even being one of the best QBs in the history of the NFL with the four headed dragon at his back was not enough. As I progress through this story further, I get the feeling that almost nothing could've been enough. Short of actually being Peyton Manning or Dan Marino (the clear two best QBs ever), I don't know if anybody could've saved these circumstances, and you never know. Maybe on two legs Trent could've been that, but we never really got to see him play on two legs, so we never get to know the answer to that. It's a legendary story that he even got the career he had. We're not to the end of the Trent Green bad luck either.
I'll put it this way. If 2001-2005 Tom Brady and Trent Green trade places, which team do you think wins more AFC Championships?
Here is the most Trent Green stat ever: from 2001-2005 the Chiefs lost 15 games when they scored at least 24 points (including the playoffs) which makes up nearly 42% of their losses over that time frame. I haven't looked at this for other QBs but I bet it is a top 5 mark.
You absolutely understood the assignment Marc. That is a very Trent Green statistic. I'll do the rest. Let's go by star by team, since this is basically Trent's whole Chiefs career. Spoiler alert: there is more coming, just not as much as there used to be. I'm not sure if you included the playoff game or not, but the analysis below doesn't.
In Trent's Chiefs career, he scored 24 points or more in 40% of his losses. Let's compare that to everybody on my top 15 QBs of all time list. I'll use only their best team.
Peyton Manning Colts: 67 losses in total. The Colts scored at least 24 points in 22 of them. 32.8%.
Dan Marino Dolphins: 95 losses in total, and in just 26 did the Dolphins score 24 points. 27.3%.
Patrick Mahomes Chiefs: 23 losses, and the Chiefs scored 24 points in 11 of them. That's 47.8%, but I think we can all acknowledge that Patrick plays in a different offensive era than Trent did.
Steve Young 49ers: 33 total losses. In just eight of them did the 49ers score as many as 24 points. A pitiful 24.2%. If the 90s 49ers ever lost a game, you know why they lost it, looking at numbers like that.
Dan Fouts Chargers: I'm going to skip this one, because a lot of Dan's career was played before even the first round of rule changes in the 70s that made passing a lot easier.
Joe Montana 49ers: Joe lost while scoring at least 24 points twice in his 49ers career. Literally just twice. 5.1% of all losses. I suppose I can see why some people think this is the GOAT now. He had no wins robbed from him by poor defence at all ever.
Aaron Rodgers Packers: I thought this would look a lot more like Trent, and I suppose he does relative to Joe Montana, but it's still just 25 out of 75. 33.3%.
Drew Brees Saints: We've finally found a real comparable, as Drew Brees is known for having a lot of wins stolen from him by some of the worst defences of the 2010s. 86 total losses, 34 of them while scoring 24 points or more. 39.5%. Pretty much right on Trent's level.
Josh Allen Bills: Much like Steve Young and Joe Montana, Josh does not lose often, but tends to be the reason for the loss when he does. Six out of 33. 18.2%.
Tom Brady Patriots: Don't make me laugh. 14 out of 64 losses. 21.9%.
Kurt Warner doesn't really have a prime in the conventional sense, never playing more than two and a half good seasons in a row anywhere, so I'll just skip him too.
Philip Rivers Chargers: Another one I thought would be higher, but it's only 23 out of 101. 22.8%, indicating that Philip was the reason for the loss more than I remember him being.
Jim Everett Rams: Jim is in my top 15 QBs of all time despite a 64-89 career record, and a big reason for that is him losing despite scoring 24 points 12 times, even while playing a lot of his career in the 1980s, where such a thing was much more difficult to do. It's only 12 out of 59 for 20.3%, but I think Joe Montana (the only other pre-90s QB on this list) indicates that we need some era adjustment here.
Trent Green Chiefs: And here on my all time QB list lies Trent Green, with his 16 out of 40.
In sum, amongst the people Trent Green can statistically be compared with on an individual basis, we have found one real comparable, Drew Brees, who suffered as much as Trent did in terms of his defence making it difficult for him to win games, and maybe two more (with caveats) in Patrick Mahomes and Jim Everett. Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers are also hanging around the lower reaches here, but are more 'A' tier players (as opposed to 'S' tier players) in terms of being robbed by their defences of wins.
My number did include the playoff game against the Chiefs. Also, we got a two for one. Trent Green analysis plus Robbie’s top 15 QBs which appears to be in order.
Speaking of Trent, here is a list of all the unlucky things that has happened to him:
Doesn’t get real playing time until his 30s
Gets his knee blown out
Doesn’t get to be a part of the GSOT due to 2
Constantly saddled with bad defense due to poor drafting
Loses his father mid-season
Plays in some of the greatest conferences in NFL history.
It's absolutely in order. In my opinion, you can always tell what kind of an NFL fan someone is based on how they rank Dan Marino and Steve Young relative to Joe Montana. Individually, I don't think Joe has any argument over either of them. Certainly not Marino. The two are in different tiers. The comparison against Steve is a bit closer, but I still don't give it to Joe. He did a lot of winning, but we've seen a lot of the reason why through this comparison to the other greats. Steve Young and his 24.2% is not exactly Trent Green levels of unlucky, but it's leaps and bounds above Joe Montana's letdown rate of 5.1%.
This is why this series is called We Need to Pump Up Trent Green, and one day we may get a We Need to Pump Up Jim Everett. My formula for this legitimately spits them out in 14th and 15th.
14th and 15th ever. One spot behind 13th place Philip Rivers. One spot ahead of 16th place Brett Favre. Both miles and miles ahead of 30th place John Elway, but before I got really deep into running this newsletter I had never really given much thought to either of them. That seems to me like a total failure has happened somewhere in the football culture, and this series is my attempt at trying to rectify some of that in whatever way I can.
As far as the bad luck blues you've mentioned there, he did start 14 games in Washington at the age of 28, but other than that I can't argue with any of them. Patrick Mahomes got to play in the murderers' row that was the 2019 AFC, and had all the contenders self destruct in front of him that year, and beyond that has had a very weak conference most of the time. If the contenders all prolapsed in front of Trent the way they did in front of the current Chiefs, they wouldn't have taken so long to win another championship. Instead, Trent has had to play in these stacked AFCs and play all of the contenders multiple times, while saddled with the worst defence in the NFL over this five year period.
Countless games against the Broncos over the years. Four games against the Raiders back when they used to be contenders. Three Colts games over the course of this story. Three New England games. One game against the fantastic 2005 Bengals team (that was a 37-3 win by the way). 2003 Ravens. 2004 Ravens. 2002 Pennington. Hell, even the best game of Brian Griese's career. You name anything important happening in the 2000s AFC (except Steve McNair), Trent managed to get in their way at some point.
What can you even do about that? Even being one of the best QBs in the history of the NFL with the four headed dragon at his back was not enough. As I progress through this story further, I get the feeling that almost nothing could've been enough. Short of actually being Peyton Manning or Dan Marino (the clear two best QBs ever), I don't know if anybody could've saved these circumstances, and you never know. Maybe on two legs Trent could've been that, but we never really got to see him play on two legs, so we never get to know the answer to that. It's a legendary story that he even got the career he had. We're not to the end of the Trent Green bad luck either.
I'll put it this way. If 2001-2005 Tom Brady and Trent Green trade places, which team do you think wins more AFC Championships?
You know my vote.