Ed Danowski

Discuss candidates for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the PFRA's Hall of Very Good
Post Reply
User avatar
TanksAndSpartans
Posts: 1218
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:05 am

Ed Danowski

Post by TanksAndSpartans »

Short career, but not atypical for the era:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... noEd20.htm

3 seasons with post-season honors, but these were really good seasons. Also, 2-1 as starting TB/QB in NFL Championship games. What brought him to my attention, aside from being one of the 45 players ranked in Chris Willis' 60-Minute Men book, was a thread I saw on another board about comparing QBs across eras by looking at how much better they did than their peers (The discussion was related to Otto Graham having done so much better in the OP's analysis, that it felt unfair). I'm not much into stats, but I contributed that I had seen something similar on PFR called "Rate+", that I thought looked to balance that issue out. To my surprise, Danowski had 2 of the top 5 seasons:

RatePlus
RatePlus
Screen Shot 2026-03-18 at 2.59.12 AM.png (62.03 KiB) Viewed 3183 times
ChrisBabcock
Posts: 1884
Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2014 3:36 pm
Location: Tonawanda, NY

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by ChrisBabcock »

What does Rate+ calculate? I can't find it on their site.
User avatar
TanksAndSpartans
Posts: 1218
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:05 am

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by TanksAndSpartans »

Here is link to the page that generated my ss: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... season.htm

It's annoying because when you hover over "Rate+" with your cursor, it mentions "See glossary for details", but when you go to the glossary, there isn't an explicit definition:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... ossary.htm

I think of it in terms of the problem that the OP I mentioned was trying to solve. Historically, someone like Graham or going back further Friedman, did way better than his peers as a passer. Brady or whoever you choose as a modern QB just isn't going to be that much better on any statistical measure. We see more "clustering" in modern times, so if you want to rescue the concept i.e. give the modern players at least a chance to do well, you have to do some type of normalization. Exactly what PFR does isn't clear to me, but they mention:

"we computed how many standard deviations away from the league average each player was"

which I think is on the right track for both using the "relative to peers" idea and normalizing so that a player in any era would have a chance to do well. You can search for the text above on the glossary page. Hopefully someone can explain it better than me.

I think it's really interesting - I may nominate him for HOVG.

P.S. This doesn't really solve the career issue that was the subject of the thread I reference since PFR comes up with a single season metric. I don't know how or if you can come up with some kind of career metric - all I think you can do here is see how many top 20 or top 50 or whatever single seasons a player had. Friedman has no chance here since his stats are unofficial, but Graham has 4 seasons in the top 20 and Baugh 3.
User avatar
Throwin_Samoan
Posts: 193
Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2016 5:17 pm
Location: Phoenix, Arizona

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by Throwin_Samoan »

More on Danowski (and the 1938 Giants) is here: https://youtu.be/eGQeWtF6DGI.
PFHOFlover
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2023 5:16 pm

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by PFHOFlover »

Has he ever been a finalist for the Hall of Very Good

There are five players from Chris Willis’s book The NFL’s 60-Minute Men: All Time Greats of the Two-Way Player Era, 1920-1945 Ward Cuff Ed Danowski Red Dunn Father Lumpkin and Jack McBride not in the Hall of Very Good

Let’s get them in the election this year
Bob Gill
Posts: 680
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 7:16 pm

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by Bob Gill »

PFHOFlover wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2026 5:27 pm Has he ever been a finalist for the Hall of Very Good

There are five players from Chris Willis’s book The NFL’s 60-Minute Men: All Time Greats of the Two-Way Player Era, 1920-1945 Ward Cuff Ed Danowski Red Dunn Father Lumpkin and Jack McBride not in the Hall of Very Good

Let’s get them in the election this year
In no particular order, I'd take Danowski, Dunn and McBride from that group. I'm not as sold on Cuff and Lumpkin.
PFHOFlover
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2023 5:16 pm

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by PFHOFlover »

Bob Gill wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2026 11:05 pm
PFHOFlover wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2026 5:27 pm Has he ever been a finalist for the Hall of Very Good

There are five players from Chris Willis’s book The NFL’s 60-Minute Men: All Time Greats of the Two-Way Player Era, 1920-1945 Ward Cuff Ed Danowski Red Dunn Father Lumpkin and Jack McBride not in the Hall of Very Good

Let’s get them in the election this year
In no particular order, I'd take Danowski, Dunn and McBride from that group. I'm not as sold on Cuff and Lumpkin.
How come
Bob Gill
Posts: 680
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 7:16 pm

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by Bob Gill »

PFHOFlover wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2026 5:42 pm
Bob Gill wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2026 11:05 pm
In no particular order, I'd take Danowski, Dunn and McBride from that group. I'm not as sold on Cuff and Lumpkin.
How come
Well, Lumpkin was a blocking back, except in 1929 (non-league) and 1930, and I don't think any blocking back has ever gotten much consideration for the Hall of Fame or even the Very Good. Was he good enough that he should be the first? Maybe, but it's just hard to get an objective handle on it, so I'd tend to be skeptical. As for Cuff -- well, he was one of those all-around backs who ran a little, caught some passes, placekicked and so on, and no doubt he was good. But without looking it up, my impression is that his only serious offensive stats (other than kicking) were compiled during the war years, and if you discount those years I don't know if he has enough left to qualify. That's all.
User avatar
TanksAndSpartans
Posts: 1218
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:05 am

Re: Ed Danowski

Post by TanksAndSpartans »

Great discussion!

@Throwin_Samoan, thanks for the video. I know Rev. Moran and the other guest is the one who does the uniform database, but I had never seen it. Very informative - I enjoyed the part on the A formation, etc.

I nominated Danowski for HOVG yesterday, but someone beat me to it! I wound up replacing him with Jack McBride who I actually nominated last year.

On blocking backs, maybe that could be a good niche for the HOVG - a chance to recognize something the HOF likely never will.
Post Reply