NFL Power Rankings: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and the "Perfect" Games by QBs | News, Scores, Highlig

March 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Frank Ryan's 1964 performance for the Cleveland Browns in a 52-20 blowout win over the New York Giants is far and away the best statistical performance by a quarterback to date. 

Ryan completed 12 of his 13 passes and they went for 202 yards and five touchdowns. 

He received the best Passer Score of all time at 280.16. 

Now, just to justify the massive jump between No. 2 and No. 1, take a look at these numbers.

Craig Morton's completion percentage was 94.4 percent and Ryan's was "just" 92.3 percent, but those are very slight differences. 

He threw for 15.5 yards per attempt compared to Morton's 17.1 yards per attempt, but that's not a huge difference either because of the low number of throws. 

The real difference came in touchdowns per attempt. Ryan's number was .38 while Morton's was only .22. While that may not seem like to big a difference, it is because touchdowns are so valuable. 

Passer Score is broken down into four different components which are all added together once they're calculated. The components are calculations based on completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt and interceptions per attempt. 

While they were obviously tied in the last component, Morton came out ahead in the first two by almost 13. However, Ryan won the touchdowns per attempt component by a staggering 64.75. 

For that reason, Frank Ryan wins the prize. He can lay claim to the best statistical performance by a quarterback in the history of professional football. 

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