To be fair to Donovan McNabb he didn't say he was better than Troy Aikman, but in making his case for why he was a Hall of Famer, he said that he had better numbers than Aikman. So I figured that I would compare McNabb's career to Aikman's. From the standpoint of traditional passer rating McNabb does have a better career rating to Aikman, but things tend to be easier for passers as the years go by. McNabb has a career passer rating of 85.6, which is better than Aikman's 81.6. Pro Football Reference has a stat called Passer Rating Index, or Rate+, that compares a quarterback's rating to the league average, where the league average is set at 100. They don't show the career rating for either McNabb, or Aikman, but that's where some good algebra comes into play. I can take a very good guess as to each player's rating by looking at their rating each season, and factoring in their pass attempts in each season. My estimates are 106.29 for McNabb, and 105.79 for Aikman. That's a slight edge for McNabb, but it's not much to choose from. While they don't have Passer Rating Index for the playoffs, Aikman's career postseason rating is 88.3, and McNabb's is 80.0. So Aikman has the edge there without even adjusting for the higher passer efficiency in McNabb's era. McNabb was obviously the better runner, but he also got sacked more often. While people may talk about how great the Cowboys' offensive line was, when you get past the Super Bowl years, there were some tough years for the Dallas' offense. One of the drawbacks about running quarterbacks is that they do get sacked more often, so this isn't all out offensive line. McNabb's sack percentage is 7.1 for his career, and for Aikman it's 5.2. In the postseason it's 6.3 for Aikman, 7.7 for McNabb. Lower is better for that stat. Sack Percentage Index works much like Passer Rating Index, adjusting for league average with 100 being average. In terms of that statistics a higher rating means that a quarterback was sacked less often compared to average. Once again using some math, I estimate Aikman's Sack Percentage Index at 110.11, and McNabb's at 95.52. Another thing to factor in was that Aikman was on more of a running team. Having Emmitt Smith around certainly helped Aikman, but it didn't help his touchdown numbers. The Cowboys usually gave the ball to Emmitt when they got close to the goal line. Football Outsiders' stats are very complex. When it comes to their DYAR (Defense Adjusted Yards Above Replacement) stat, Aikman had 7602 DYAR on 4932 pass plays, compared to McNabb's 5338, on 5776 pass plays. The Dallas Cowboys offense, in their 90s peak, was a ball control offense, and Aikman was one of the most accurate quarterbacks of all time. That helped Dallas to move the chains, and keep control of the ball.
The biggest difference between Aikman, and McNabb's Hall of Fame credentials is that Aikman won 3 Super Bowls. The list of quarterbacks with 3 or more Super Bowl victories isn't long. In fact it's just Aikman, Montana, Bradshaw, and Brady. 3 of them are in the Hall of Fame, and the other, Tom Brady, is a shoe in to get in, and the consensus greatest quarterback of all time. Aikman didn't just win 3 Super Bowls. He was important to those teams. He had one of the all time great postseasons for a quarterback in the 92-93 postseason where he threw 8 touchdowns without a single interception. In all three of those seasons Troy was one of the best quarterbacks in the league in the regular season, and he was very efficient each of postseason. McNabb never had a playoff run as good as what Aikman had during those Super Bowl seasons. McNabb has no Super Bowl wins. As unfair as it may seem, that is a large part of how quarterbacks are judged. McNabb led his Eagles to five NFC championships games, but lost 4 of them. They lost the 1 Super Bowl he got to, and his performance in that game wasn't that good. In terms of stats McNabb has the edge on Aikman in when it comes to traditional stats in the regular season, but Aikman has the edge in the playoffs. In terms of advanced statistics, the edge is clearly on Aikman's side. Should McNabb be in the Hall of Fame? That's hard to say. Right now I would say no. He put up good stats, but he did it in an era where a lot of quarterbacks put up big numbers. If McNabb had won 1 Super Bowl, he would probably be in the Hall of Fame right now.
