The List So Far:

1. Tom Brady, QB Patriots
2. Peyton Manning, QB Colts

With the #3 Pick in the SG 50, I hereby select Ben Roethlisberger, QB Steelers.

Ben Roethlisberger is dramatically underrated because he’s different. He plays quarterback drastically differently from anybody else in the NFL, and not only that, he’s wildly successful playing a style that’s not supposed to work in the NFL.There’s another article I’ll be writing soon about this, but Roethlisberger is bizarre in that he made it all the way to NFL stardom without every really being coached on how to play quarterback “right”.

I’m trying to keep this concise, but… what the heck. I want to rank the top three QBs in the league (Brady, Manning and Roethlisberger, in some order) according to each of the various skills you look for in an NFL quarterback. Some skills are more important than others. Starting with the most important skills:

Reading defenses/selecting the correct receiver
1. Manning
2. Brady
3. Roethlisberger

Handling pass rush pressure
1. Roethlisberger
2. Brady
3. Manning

Handling game situation pressure
1. Brady
2. Roethlisberger
3. Manning

Leadership
1. Brady
2. Roethlisberger
3. Manning

Mid-range accuracy
1. Manning
2. Brady
3. Roethlisberger

Long-range accuracy
1. Roethlisberger
2. Manning
3. Brady

Short-range accuracy
1. Manning
2. Brady
3. Roethlisberger

Escapability
1. Roethlisberger
2. Brady
3. Manning

Arm strength
1. Manning
2. Roethlisberger
3. Brady

It’s not really this simple, because there are matters of degrees that a 1-2-3 ranking doesn’t capture… maybe I should use a 1-10 scale for each guy. I’ll do that in another article, maybe, since I’m so fascinated by the topic. Roethlisberger, for instance, is way ahead of both Brady and Manning at handling the pass rush, and he’s way behind in short-range accuracy (Roethlisberger’s might be the worst in the league). The arm strength of the three is really quite similar… Manning’s arm is an 8.5, Roethlisberger’s an 8, Brady’s a 7.5, that kind of thing.

Anyway, Peyton Manning is the Technically Perfect Quarterback. He’s his own offensive coordinator, his accuracy is incomparable, and he’s fantastic at getting rid of the ball quickly. But being an NFL quarterback is also about being a leader of men and responding to pressure situations, and at this, Manning fails. That’s why, if I were picking second instead of third, I would have taken Roethlisberger over Manning.

Even a skills survey like this undersells Roethlisberger, because, again, he’s drastically different from how quarterbacks play in the NFL, and ruthlessly effective at it. Here’s the very simple argument: Yards per attempt. Roethlisberger’s YPA numbers are phenomenal. As of right now, he’s #4 in history in career yards per attempt, behind three dead guys. Roethlisberger holds the ball longer than anyone else in the league, and he completes more medium-deep passes (as a percentage of all his passes) than anybody else in the league.

Since Roethlisberger entered the NFL in 2004, here are where a couple QBs have ranked in YPA in the league each year:

Ben Roethlisberger: 2nd, 1st, 7th, 4th (average: 3.5)
Peyton Manning: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 3rd (average: 2.5)
Tom Brady: 10th, 6th, 16th, 1st (average: 8.25)

Well… I was going to give a list of guys to illustrate the point, but there really isn’t anybody else worth listing. When it comes to being at the top of the league in yards per attempt year after year, there’s Manning and Roethlisberger, and that’s it. (Tony Romo, but he’s only two years in; let’s wait another year and see where we stand.) Kurt Warner, another QB that holds the ball a while and throws a lot of deep passes, rates highly in YPA during the years when he’s played most of a season.

You look at YPA and rating–which factors in interceptions where YPA doesn’t–and Roethlisberger’s brilliance shines. And it’s not because (as popularly assumed) the Steelers offense keeps pressure off of him. Roethlisberger has been the Steelers offense since the moment he stepped onto the field in 2004, and in fact, the Steelers’ stubborn commitment to running too much puts Roethlisberger into many third-and-long situations, and he probably converts more third-and-longs than any other quarterback in the league.

I’ll stop now, but Roethlisberger is a guy you really should invest some time in watching this year. The Steelers’ offense last year, apart from their quarterback, was wretched, truly awful; their pass protection was possibly the worst I’ve ever seen. They don’t figure to improve much this year, so for Roethlisberger it’ll be another long series of third-and-longs and efforts to stay alive and in the lineup despite taking hits every time he drops back.