A few days ago Deadspin.com’s former editor Will Leitch returned to the site to preview the Arizona Cardinals. The “preview” didn’t so much look ahead to the 2008 season but took a stroll down memory lane, or nightmare lane depending on what kind of Cardinals fan you are.

Leitch went through the progression of Cardinals quarterbacks briefly describing each season and listing the quarterbacks who played. Yes, even Tom Tupa who was a punter (read the article to get the joke).

His piece made me wonder exactly what the stats look like for the past, present and “future”, Matt Leinart, Cardinal quarterbacks.

After hours and hours of research, and thousands of horrible memories I found some very interesting things.

Many experts would tell you that a quarterback’s success is based on his quarterback rating. If that is the case the Cardinals have had very few “successful” quarterbacks, not that you need a QB rating to tell you that. The top 5 Cardinal starting quarterbacks ratings of all-time are:

Top 5 QB Ratings
Name	QB Rating	Number of games played
Kurt Warner	88.21	31
Neil Lomax	86.68	14
Steve Beuerlein	74.57	25
Chris Chandler	73.13	19
Dave Krieg	72.57	16

The fact that names like Dave Krieg and Chris Chandler show up in the top 5 is sad but the names in the bottom 5 evoke memories of 3-13 seasons gone by.

Bottom 5 QB Ratings
Name	QB Rating	Number of games played
Stan Gelbaugh	42.12	6
John Navarre	43.88	2
Jim McMahon	46.56	3
Stoney Case	48.5	5
Shaun King	57.73	3

(The all-time worst QB rating for a Cardinal is 5.3 held by Tony Sacca who saw action in two games in 1992 but did not start. Still better than Matt Leinart’s 2.8 performance against the Raiders)

If QB rating isn’t your cup of tea how about winning percentage?

The top 5 winning percentages for Cardinals starting quarterbacks are,

Top 5 QB Winning Percentages
Name	Winning %
Neil Lomax	.500 (7-7)
Josh McCown	.455 (10-12)
Matt Leinart	.438 (7-9)
Steve Beuerlein	.429 (9-12)
Dave Brown	.429 (3-4)

What do John Navarre, Shaun King, Stoney Case, Jim McMahon, Stan Gelbaugh, Cliff Stoudt have in common? If you answered they all have Superbowl rings you’d be wrong, only Shaun King and Jim McMahon do. As Cardinals starting quarterbacks though all six had a .000 winning percentage.

Winning percentage isn’t always a fair evaluation of Cardinals quarterbacks seeing as there has only been one winning season during their time in the Valley. One stat that is mostly predicated on the quarterback is the completion percentage.

The top 5 completion percentages of all-time for a Cardinals starter are:

Top 5 QB Completion Percentages
Name	Completion %
Kurt Warner	63.4% in 31 games
Josh McCown	58.8% in 35 games
Dave Krieg	58.3% in 12 games
Steve Beuerlein	57.7% in 25 games
Neil Lomax	57.6 % in 14 games

Anyone starting to see a familiar name emerging?

The Bottom 5 aren’t that far off from the top 5’s percentages,

Bottom 5 QB Completion Percentages
Name	Completion %
John Navarre	50.0% in 2 games
Tom Tupa	51.4% in 25 games
Stan Gelbaugh	51.7% in 6 games
Jake Plummer	52.3 % in 82 games
Kent Graham	52.6% in 9 games

So much for the argument that Jake Plummer was the top quarterback of all-time. He may have “led” the Cards to the playoffs but almost half of his passes found the turf or an opponents waiting arms. If memory serves me correct it was mostly the opponents hands.

Another interesting stat that can tell a lot about a quarterback is the touchdown to interception ratio.

Top 5 Touchdown to Interception Ratios
Name	TD/INT Ratio
Kurt Warner	44 TDs/31 INTs
Neil Lomax	20 TDs/11 INTs
Kent Graham	16 TDs/12 INTs
Chris Chandler	19 TDs/19 INTs
Jeff Blake	13 TDs/15 INTs

Only three quarterbacks have thrown for more touchdowns than interceptions in 20 + years. No wonder fans have only enjoyed one playoff appearance.

Looking at these lists one thing is abundantly clear. The Cardinals quarterbacks of the past have been abysmal, the future, Matt Leinart, doesn’t look all that bright, pun intended, but the present, Kurt Warner, is one of the best to ever suit up in Cardinal red.

Looking at the stats it’s tough to argue against Warner being the Cardinals starter this year. If he is he will continue to pad his stats as the “greatest” Phoenix/Arizona Cardinal quarterback of all-time. Also known as fairly average by any other franchises’ standards.

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