The real "clutch" and "unclutch" of quarterbacking

(This will first require a look at my article on QB/Passer rating, found at http://www.armchairgm.com/index.php?title=Article:QB/Passer_rating:_Yes,_there_is_a_better_way)

For as long as there has been debating over the best and worst, there has always been a reliance on the stupid and insane to back an argument.  In the world of sports, there is but one trump card.  And that is the hydrogen bomb of "clutch" and "unclutch". See, I don't believe in clutch ability, mostly because I have no reason to.  If a great player makes a great play at a crucial time, it's really to be expected.  Was the idea of Joe Montana throwing a perfect touchdown pass really unexpected?  Of course not.  Was him doing it late in a game unexpected?  No, I can't say it was.  Was him doing it in a Super Bowl unexpected?  Based on his own abilities and those of his teammates in a variety of situations, it's really not.  If I was told "You have two minutes to go 90 yards to win a title, and you can pick any quarterback", I'm narrowing that list down to 15 or 20.  You know who those guys are?  The best there have ever been.  I'm not taking some mediocre quarterback who happened to make a late touchdown pass in a game and putting him out there in that situation.  Why?  Because, as a wise man once mused, "The sun doesn't shine on the same dog's ass every day".  Quite the sage, he was.  A better phrase, albeit less entertaining, is "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while." But I hate the term and the usage of "clutch" because it is what I said earlier: the hydrogen bomb.  Nothing ends a debate quicker than "My guy was clutch, and yours was not", although in reality that's on par with "My dad can beat up your dad."

But I'm not here to hammer on this, dumb as it may be.  I'm going to define and quantify, then I'm going to list.  It's what I do best.

The absolute average for points that a quarterback produces in a given play over the entire span of NFL history is 0.420.  There have been over 4,500,000 passing yards since stats were first kept in 1932, along with 40,665 passing touchdowns (to over 46,000 interceptions).  There have been more passing yards than rushing by close to 1,800,000.  And although you wouldn't think of it, the first year that involved more passing production than running was 1947.

Anyway, we'll start with that magic number of 0.420 PG/OO (points generated/offensive opportunity).  To me, "clutch" would involve being at least 10% better than average in the postseason, "unclutch" would involve being at least 10% worse.  That means above 0.4620 and below 0.3780 will be listed here, everyone else in between is no different than average.  As far as how it relates to each player's actual career number, that's a story for another day.

There are 40 quarterbacks that fall into that "playoff average" territory, and it's quite an impressive list.  There are no fewer than 15 Hall of Famers, including some of the best ever.  But who falls into that "postseason gagging" territory?  There are 76 on that list.  There are a few Hall of Famers, to be certain, although most of them involve extremely small sample sizes.  Sonny Jurgensen, one of the best ever, is at the very bottom, although he only played one playoff game.  Tony Banks scores the worst ever (0/3 with 1 rush for -1 yards, although that's literally his entire playoff career).  Among those with 20+ passing attempts career, Brian Sipe is worst, although that was his only playoff game and the wind chill was something like -40.

But without further ado, here are the notables.
Norm Van Brocklin (0.359)
Jim Kelly (0.358)
Phil Simms (0.329)
Fran Tarkenton (0.323)
George Blanda (0.299)
Joe Namath (0.285)
YA Tittle (0.219)
Bobby Layne (0.189)

In a perfect example of the dumbth of "clutch", Sports Illustrated's Peter King referred to Layne as the "4th-most clutch quarterback ever".  This was based on a late touchdown drive to give Detroit a 17-16 title game win over Cleveland.  Let's look at that overall line, shall we?

Layne: 4 playoff games, 46/97 passing for 568 yards (5.856 y/a), 1 touchdown, 12 interceptions, 33 carries for 120 yards and 1 touchdown

That's beyond horrifying.  That's an abomination.

Now, who would be considered "clutch" (0.462 PG/OO)?  Here's the list of all 24 of them, and why most can be dismissed)
Rodney Peete
Don Majkowski
Lynn Dickey
Tobin Rote
Bart Starr
Gary Kubiak
Sid Luckman
Tony Eason
Jeff Hostetler
Daryle Lamonica
Jeff George
Frank Ryan
Don Strock
Terry Bradshaw
Mike Pagel
Kurt Warner
Joe Montana
Charlie/Charley Conerly
Ben Roethlisberger
Joe Theismann
Daunte Culpepper
Ken Anderson
Ken Stabler
Jack Trudeau

The bizarre thing is that former Packers make up four of the top five spots.  That's just weird, and I have no explanation.

But, who to dismiss as "clutch". First to go are Peete (32 passes in three games), Majkowski (one game), Dickey (two games), Kubiak (four games, 19 passes), Strock (six games, 64 passes), Pagel (one game), and Trudeau (one game).  I'm tempted to boot Theismann for being a terrible commentator, but I won't.  So here's who's left.
Tobin Rote (four games, 0.605)
Bart Starr (six games, 0.556)
Sid Luckman (six games, 0.552)
Tony Eason (five games, 0.548)
Jeff Hostetler (five games, 0.535)
Daryle Lamonica (eight games, 0.518)
Jeff George (three games, 0.517)
Frank Ryan (three games, 0.513)
Terry Bradshaw (19 games, 0.505)
Kurt Warner (seven games, 0.494)
Joe Montana (23 games, 0.490)
Charlie/Charley Conerly (six games, 0.484)
Ben Roethlisberger (seven games, 0.477)
Joe Theismann (eight games, 0.476)
Daunte Culpepper (four games, 0.475)
Ken Anderson (six games, 0.471)
Ken Stabler (13 games, 0.470)

I know, you're wondering how all these old-timers ended up on the list with so few games.  Well, there didn't used to be this many playoff games.  Rote's four games were a division playoff (with the winner playing for the title) and three title games.  Frank Ryan had only three playoff games, but all were for the league title.

But let's go back and compare.  Tobin Rote and Bobby Layne were contemporaries and very similar players.  The difference is that Rote scored much higher on the various indicators I use (ranking him as the 20th-best quarterback ever) than Layne (30th-best on the same rankings scale).  Rote did it on much worse teams than anything Layne could have imagined as well.  When considering playoffs, Rote ranks as the best playoff quarterback in professional history, Layne as the worst.  Layne is in Canton, Rote probably never will be.  Belief in "clutch ability" is how garbage like that happens.  Peter King didn't do 15 seconds of research before putting Layne among the five best ever in the "clutch" in a fairly popular book, and the legend of Bobby Layne will always include that, "He never lost a game, time just ran out on him".

Well folks, now you know who the real playoff performers and duds are.  Oh, you wanted that middle list of the "average"?  Of course. Frank Reich
David Woodley
Mark Malone
Bernie Kosar
Troy Aikman
Steve Young
Brett Favre
John Elway
Tommy Maddox
Peyton Manning
Jim McMahon
Earl Morrall
Jim Plunkett
Marc Bulger
Boomer Esiason
Roger Staubach
Otto Graham
Steve Fuller
Johnny Unitas
Chris Chandler
Len Dawson
Rich Gannon
Bob Griese
Babe Parilli
Drew Brees
Tom Brady
Paul McDonald
Dan Marino
Dan Fouts
Neil Lomax
Chris Miller
Kerry Collins
Dan Pastorini
Steve Beuerlein
Warren Moon
Donovan McNabb
Bob Waterfield
John Brodie
Steve DeBerg
Bill Wade

Now what makes this whole thing bizarre?  Out of the "unclutch", there are seven HOFers and one semi-serious candidate (9.2%,13.2% if Simms gets in) .  Out of the average, there are 15 that are or will be in Canton (37.5%).  And out of the "clutch", there are just four of 24 (16.667%).  Perhaps now you can see "clutch" for what it is...a tool of the image and shallow argument rather than something that can actually put someone into or take them out of consideration for the Hall of Fame.

• • • • Playoff stats for Cecil Isbell, Arnie Herber, and Sammy Baugh are still incomplete; this page will be updated when those are tracked down

Anonymous Fanatic #1

494 days ago

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Anyone that doesn't believe in clutch hasn't seen the same games I've seen in my life. If you go to any city basketball court in the country, you can see there are clutch guys and there are guys that aren't. They exist on the professional level as well. For the record, any guy in a bar debate that tries to use the stat "peagoo" to argue against the existence of clutch deserves to get punched. In the face. Twice.

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Ohio VolWaterboy

493 days ago

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This actually reminds me of a coaches meeting I was in a couple of years ago. We were discussing the offensive woes, and I pulled up all the game reports and future projections and drew them up on the board. Here's how it went.

ME: Guys, here's where we are. We have a decent but not great line, very good running backs, and two very good receivers. Based off of all my scouting and analysis, my only conclusion is that our starting quarterback must be changed.

HEAD COACH: Sounds to me like you're trying to bring "logic" into football.

ME: Well, consider the following. When he runs the offense, we average less than 2.0 yards per play. When he faces the following defensive alignments, he fails to check off to another play. And he's also been seen in practice numerous times dry humping the football instead of running the play, which would explain a lot.

HEAD COACH: You know something? Right now, I'm thinking about punching you in the face. Twice. In fact, I can visualize my fist exiting out the back of your head as we speak, and I can see the impact will be so great that you should actually be falling backwards right now from the strength of my mental image.

ME: Anyway, here's the deal. He's not getting any better; in fact, he's getting worse. He scored a 6% on our offensive knowledge quiz last week, whereas the backup runs things much more smoothly in practice, much better in games, and knows a heck of a lot more out there.

HEAD COACH: You don't know what I do. I saw our current starter out there on the city basketball court last week, and I can see that he had IT. Maybe it's because it's a different sport with a completely different skill set, maybe it's because he's second-team All-State in basketball, or maybe it's because he was playing against a group of one-legged midgets, but he showed that he had IT. And that's all you need.

All this stuff about "knowing the offense" or "producing yardage" or "getting the ball into the end zone" is absurd. I want guys that have IT. I want you to bench the interior line and replace them with two ostriches and a Shetland pony; I saw them at the county fair and they had IT.

ME: I project that we'll finish with a 4-6 record and miss the playoffs, and I've never missed the postseason at any point in my playing or coaching career. Frankly, that bugs the crap out of me that we simply will fail to be there.

HEAD COACH: Sounds to me like you don't have IT either. You're not CLUTCH. You could take a lesson from our inept, 6% scoring quarterback.

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AmphibiousSportsDuoVarsity

493 days ago

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Hrm, my apologies for posting as an anon. I love the idea that because I believe in clutch that I am illogical. No response to the point about the basketball court, just blindly call me a fool. Excellent counterpoint. Your logic is flawed in trying to take one blanket statistic to measure something that people have been trying to quantify for years. This little contrived retort again misses the point. I'm, sorry that your "head coach" didn't agree with your superior logic, but if your logic in that argument was as sound as it was in the initial premise of this piece, I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's a reason he's the coach.

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AmphibiousSportsDuoVarsity

493 days ago

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"To me, "clutch" would involve being at least 10% better than average in the postseason, "unclutch" would involve being at least 10% worse. "

This quote proves you don't understand the general concept of "clutch." It happens in a moment, to turn momentum, to keep a drive going at the end of the the half or the game, . I'm sorry that your dispelling of "clutch" through use of quarterbacks made it impossible to understand that someone might prove it through another sport, so I'll use your numbers instead...

You say Tobin Rote is the most "clutch" QB ever, using his four playoff games, but two of those were in the AFL. Ignoring that, two of the games were 40 point blowout victories, which allows for zero "clutch" opportunities. In the other two games, both of his TDs were in the first half, again not prime "clutch" time. He also only had one 4th quarter playoff TD in his career. The top guy.. . your number one... and this is his stat line? Talk about failing to deliver.

If you're going to talk about "clutch" and its existence or lack thereof, at least give us a guy that has thrown more than one 4th quarter TD.

You also say Rote played on terrible teams, but two 40 point blowout wins in the championship game hardly seems terrible.

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Taytay 24All-American

493 days ago

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I think you are both right and wrong here. First the wrong. While thorough, I don't think your statistical analysis captures what clutch is. It is not performance above league average, but rather performance above your own ability in a specific situation. What you have identified is a list of great (and poor) players who consistently performed as such. I would agree with you that it is difficult to define a player like Joe Montana as clutch because he was good all the time. Clutch is situational, which is why Peter King put Bobby Layne on the list--he performed far beyond his usual ability in a specific moment.

Two examples, crossing two sports to allow for obvious examples. In basketball, you have Robert Horry, a rather pedestrian player over the course of his career. But he has developed such a reputation for hitting important shots that he earned a nickname based on it. In baseball, you can look at Barry Bonds, who is clearly one of the greatest players of all time, despite the cream and the clear. Yet, he more often than not underperformed in the playoffs.
You got it right when you addressed coaches decisions based on any perception of clutch. Because clutch is situational, and therefore unpredictable, any coach who makes roster decisions based on it is a fool. Assuming that your analysis of your QB situation above is accurate, the second-teamer is the better player and should be starting. Clutch is not something you plan for or count on, it just happens in the moment.

Personally, I "believe" in clutch because I think some people handle pressure well while others wilt. But I don't think it is as prevalent as some would have us believe. Most of what is called clutch is merely a result of increased media scrutiny in important circumstances.

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Manny StilesMajor Leaguer

493 days ago

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Clutch and choke are myths. The only place they are real is on an old automobile. The clutch lets you change gears and the choke adjusts the air in the combustion.

Succeed in a pressure situation and you are called clutch. AFTER the fact. Similarly, fail and you choked... AFTER the fact.

For every "clutch" player there is an equal and opposite "choke" player.

You can't measure outcomes before they happen. You can't say a guy is clutch until he has been. It's stupid. You can only gather the results and define them to satisfy your agenda.

And... "Numbers will tell you anything you want them to."

How about this? - Good players usually get good results, but not always.

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Manny StilesMajor Leaguer

493 days ago

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I've been avoiding this article on purpose.

People who say that "pressure situations" only occur during parts of the games are ridiculous. Score 6 TDs in the first quarter and you won't NEED to be "clutch" at the end of the game will you? Yet shouldn't being really good at ANY point of the game considered "clutch"?

The last two minutes of a game really are equal to any other two minutes of the game. It would seem to me that you can't choke all game long and suddenly become clutch...

That's why it's a myth.

It's a romantic and needless term for winning... If you win you are clutch. No one is "clutch" 100% of the time.

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AmphibiousSportsDuoVarsity

493 days ago

Score 1

Would you rather have Karl Malone or Robert Horry taking the last shot for your team? One's a Hall of Famer, the other isn't (unless clutch counts for something) and no one would take Malone over Horry, unless they're trying to disprove the idea of clutch.

It's true that until you're in that situation you can't be called clutch, but can you be called a great soldier until you've been in combat? Can you be a great player until you've been on the field? Just because you can't adequately predict something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You point to the fact that someone can only be called a choker or clutch AFTER the games, but they give out the championships AFTER the game (as in after Nick Anderson missed four free throws, or after Adam Vinatieri made the game-winning FG).

The score early and you don't have to be clutch argument is wonderful, except when you consider what happened to UNLV in the 1991 NCAA championship game. They blew people out all year, and yet when the game was tight, they choked.

"The last two minutes of a game really are equal to any other two minutes of the game." You can't really believe this can you? In terms of time, yes, psychologically, no way in hell.

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Ohio VolWaterboy

493 days ago

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For one thing, UNLV lost in the national semifinals, not the national championship. For another, UNLV led Duke by two points with 2:00 to go. Is giving up five points and scoring one in any 2:00 span something that never happens? We're not talking about allowing 15 points down the stretch and bricking every layup and free throw; we're talking an unfavorable 5-1 run that happened to come at the end of a very close game.

To your combat "point", who is likely to be used on the front lines? Is it the guy who scored out at insanely high rankings on the rifle range, or the guy that came closer to hitting the DI than the target?

The best have the greatest likelihood of success in any situation. To the point of Robert Horry, he's a career 42.5% shooter, 34.1% 3-point shooter, and 72.6% free throw shooter. In the playoffs....42.6/35.9/72.2. He's got seven late game-winning shots in no fewer than 244 career playoff game.

So once out of every 35 games, a guy who's a pretty good player hits a late shot, and we're supposed to gush over he possesses some superhuman ability? That's a random spread, not a trend.

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Anonymous Fanatic #2

492 days ago

Score 1

You're right, I had blocked the Kansas game out of my mind. As a Carolina fan, I had attempted to purge all memories of the last final four, and I must have gotten that game as well.

You seem to misinterpret my responses. For instance, when I respond to a comment by you, it's directed to you. When I respond to a comment by someone else, it's to them. My point to Manny was merely that sometimes you can't predict things, and only AFTER the fact can you evaluate them, hence my combat "point."

Using "quotations" in an attempt to belittle my response is cute. The hyperbole is a good touch as well.Really, it is. When someone is trying to present a case based on flawed numbers and gets called on it, I suppose this is the only recourse.

It's also good to see you know as much about the military as you do about analyzing sports. A soldier who performs well on the firing range gets a ribbon. A soldier that performs well on the battlefield, gets a medal. A football player that performs well in the gym is a "Workout Warrior." A football player that performs well in pressure situations is clutch. I can draw you a picture if that will help.

No one asked you to gush over Robert Horry, I merely stated that the statistic you used is flawed at disproving the existence of clutch. When I used your own stats to show how flawed the PG/OO stat is for measuring this, you had no response.

I'm more than willing to agree to disagree, but you went on the attack from the first response. Whether or not clutch exists, your column doesn't disprove it. PG/OO has application, but you attempted to apply it in a way that doesn't work.

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AmphibiousSportsDuoVarsity

492 days ago

Score 1

Grr. I have mastered anonymous posting, but not staying logged in.

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Jerjets11JV Squad

492 days ago

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Some interesting stuff here ...

One, Peter King seems to serve up fast food as well as Burger King. But commentary has been that way in sports forever. The report seems to allude to a very key point : a QB is often only as good as his situation. Ask Vinny Testaverde about his early Tampa experiences, where he averaged 0.056 concussions per offensive play. A great QB on a bad team is a beat up guy in a dirty shirt. Meanwhile, Jeff Hostetler got a Super Bowl ring by agreeing not to punt on first down. Finally, and this true more in football than in any other sport: all games are not the same. Ever. A 7-6 win can be more incredible than any 40-36 shootout, or vice versa. It's a team game, and QBs get too much credit and blame for it. Also, some of these guys got to call their own plays, and some were simply robots. Some even ran for clutch first downs or TDs without ever being great rushers. So, there's more here than is covered. There always is.

Still, good article. Thanks.

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