Andrew Luck

[Bryan]

Anyway, I decided to translate Andrew Luck's career into Bert Jones' era. Luck played from 2012-18 and did not play in 2017, and Jones played from 1973-82. I decided to convert Luck's career to 1974-1980, with him missing the 1979 season. This is Luck's career translation:



As you can see, the final career stats are pretty similar to Jones, 2355 projected passes for Luck for 2551 for Jones, 121 projected TD passes is a little better than Jones 101 actual, the the projected percentages for completion percentage (.565 for Luck) is similar to Jones .561. Jones yards per pass is a little higher than Luck's projection but not much, and as I mentioned, Luck does have an edge in TD percentage while Jones has a slight edge in interception percentage.

I thought I would turn it around, and project Bert Jones into the modern era. I converted Jones career to the 2009-2018 seasons:



This time, Luck has a slight edge in completion percentage and interception percentage.

Here are their actual season-by-season stats:





Is Jones in the HOVG? If not, he should be. I would take him over Luck for the HOVG, but it would be close.

Jones' 3-year run of 1975-1977 saw him post Rate+ numbers of 123, 139 and 118. For that short period, he was superior to nearly every other NFL QB. I think Football Outsiders/Aaron Schatz did their mathematical gyrations and said Jones' 1976 season was the best season by a QB in NFL history. The best Rate+ Luck produced was 111...which is fine but it kind of shows that Luck's greatness never stood out among his peers.

[JohnTurney]

Jones' 1978 injury effectively ended his HOF chances because he never really got back on track and was pretty much done when the Rams grabbed him.

The Rams bringing in Bert Jones in 1982 was similar to their bringing in Joe Namath in 1977; they were trying to milk one last hurrah out of them but mostly I think it was to stimulate ticket sales. Jones and Namath were there to get their one last big paycheck.

Have to disagree with that to some degree. Jones had shown in 1980-81 that his arm was back, that his skills were back. Rams really thought he'd play until he was 35 or so. They thought 1981 was an aberration and that with good QBing they would be a contender. Then he hurt his neck.

Namath was all Rosenbloom. Knox didn't want him. But the owner brought him in and ordered that he play. It was the last hurrah, they knew he had little left, but for some reason, the owner thought that his skills were there, along with top-notch running game, good defense and good STs he could get them over the hump that Haden, Harris, and Hadl couldn't. And he couldn't have been more wrong,

But Jones was really, then them, a franchise QB with 4-5 years left, they wanted to trade Ferragamo but no one would pay the price the Rams wanted, so they kept both, and when Jones went down they had Ferregamo

[Rupert Patrick]

Anyway, I decided to translate Andrew Luck's career into Bert Jones' era. Luck played from 2012-18 and did not play in 2017, and Jones played from 1973-82. I decided to convert Luck's career to 1974-1980, with him missing the 1979 season. This is Luck's career translation:

(snipped for brevity)

Jones' 3-year run of 1975-1977 saw him post Rate+ numbers of 123, 139 and 118. For that short period, he was superior to nearly every other NFL QB. I think Football Outsiders/Aaron Schatz did their mathematical gyrations and said Jones' 1976 season was the best season by a QB in NFL history. The best Rate+ Luck produced was 111...which is fine but it kind of shows that Luck's greatness never stood out among his peers.

I think it could be argued that Jones was the best QB in the NFL from 1975-77, and there were a LOT of great QB's in the league at that time (Bradshaw, Stabler, Tarkenton, Anderson, Griese, Staubach).

[BD Sullivan]

Have to disagree with that to some degree. Jones had shown in 1980-81 that his arm was back, that his skills were back. Rams really thought he'd play until he was 35 or so. They thought 1981 was an aberration and that with good QBing they would be a contender. Then he hurt his neck.

...But Jones was really, then them, a franchise QB with 4-5 years left, they wanted to trade Ferragamo but no one would pay the price the Rams wanted, so they kept both, and when Jones went down they had Ferregamo

In his three big years (75-77), Jones threw for 59 touchdowns and 28 interceptions.

In his two "comeback" seasons (80-81), Jones did throw for over 3,000 yards in each season, but his TD/INT numbers were decidedly average: 44 TD's, 41 INT's.

[Bryan]

Namath was all Rosenbloom. Knox didn't want him. But the owner brought him in and ordered that he play. It was the last hurrah, they knew he had little left, but for some reason, the owner thought that his skills were there, along with top-notch running game, good defense and good STs he could get them over the hump that Haden, Harris, and Hadl couldn't. And he couldn't have been more wrong,

Namath's time with the Rams was a big success when compared to Dan Pastorini's 1981 performance with the Rams. I had forgotten he was part of that QB carousel...perhaps because he was so terrible.

I think it could be argued that Jones was the best QB in the NFL from 1975-77, and there were a LOT of great QB's in the league at that time (Bradshaw, Stabler, Tarkenton, Anderson, Griese, Staubach).

Yeah, I think that sets Jones apart from Luck. I don't think Luck ever cracked the 'top tier' of QBs when he played.

[JohnTurney]

Namath's time with the Rams was a big success when compared to Dan Pastorini's 1981 performance with the Rams. I had forgotten he was part of that QB carousel...perhaps because he was so terrible.

Throw in Steve Bartkowski's time there. It was no picnic, either.

[SixtiesFan]

Namath was all Rosenbloom. Knox didn't want him. But the owner brought him in and ordered that he play. It was the last hurrah, they knew he had little left, but for some reason, the owner thought that his skills were there, along with top-notch running game, good defense and good STs he could get them over the hump that Haden, Harris, and Hadl couldn't. And he couldn't have been more wrong,

Namath's time with the Rams was a big success when compared to Dan Pastorini's 1981 performance with the Rams. I had forgotten he was part of that QB carousel...perhaps because he was so terrible.

I think it could be argued that Jones was the best QB in the NFL from 1975-77, and there were a LOT of great QB's in the league at that time (Bradshaw, Stabler, Tarkenton, Anderson, Griese, Staubach).

Yeah, I think that sets Jones apart from Luck. I don't think Luck ever cracked the 'top tier' of QBs when he played.

I read at the time that acquiring Dan Pastorini for the Rams was the idea of GM Don Klosterman. While Rosenbloom thought Namath could put the Rams in the Super Bowl, Klosterman coveted Pastorin for his physical talent. He finally got him in 1981, with as noted above, poor results.

[JuggernautJ]

Sadly, because of his abbreviated career, Andrew Luck is not (imho) worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame.
He may with a lot of work from enthusiastic supporters someday convince enough voters to make it into the Hall of (the) Very Good.

He (and Bert Jones) are already firmly ensconced in the "Hall of What Might Have Been...."

[sluggermatt15]

Andrew Luck is not a hall of fame quarterback, in my honest opinion.

He could be elected to the HOVG, though, but I don't see him as a lock either. It really depends who he is up against. He is arguably a Top 10 QB for the years he played in the league.

[Rupert Patrick]

Andrew Luck is not a hall of fame quarterback, in my honest opinion.

He could be elected to the HOVG, though, but I don't see him as a lock either. It really depends who he is up against. He is arguably a Top 10 QB for the years he played in the league.

I think he is the fourth-greatest QB in Colts history, behind Manning, Unitas and Bert Jones. I don't see HOF argument for him; he comes up well short on the Earl Campbell/Butkus/Sayers short-but-brilliant career test. Even compared to the oft-maligned Terrell Davis, Luck doesn't compare as a marginal HOF candidate.

As a HOVG candidate, I think he also comes up short. I think a very good HOVG case could be made for Bert Jones, who in my opinion had a more impressive career and a much higher peak than Luck.