Packer Central

As Patrick Mahomes Chases Three-Peat, Never Forget Packers’ Bart Starr

Packers quarterback Bart Starr’s dominance for his time is unrivaled by any quarterback in NFL history, including Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes, who will try to win a third consecutive Super Bowl against the Eagles.
Bill Huber|
Green Bay Packers quarterback (15) Bart Starr in action during Super Bowl I at the Los Angeles Coliseum against the Chiefs.
Green Bay Packers quarterback (15) Bart Starr in action during Super Bowl I at the Los Angeles Coliseum against the Chiefs. | Tony Tomsic-Imagn Images

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – On Sunday, Patrick Mahomes will try to lead the Kansas City Chiefs to an unprecedented third consecutive Super Bowl win.

But not an unprecedented third consecutive NFL championship.

Each year, the greatness of Bart Starr recedes further and further into the dustbin of history. Last year at NFL.com, which certainly should know better, Bart Starr was ranked the 13th-best quarterback in Super Bowl history.

Really?

Before Tom Brady won seven Super Bowl championships in a span of 18 years and Mahomes won three in five years, Starr won five NFL championships in a span of seven seasons.

This isn’t to diminish what Brady accomplished and what Mahomes is on the precipice of achieving. Brady’s seven Super Bowl wins included sixth game-winning drives. Mahomes’ three Super Bowl wins all required fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives.

Rather, this is meant as what’s become an annual reminder of the stardom of Starr, one of the most efficient and clutch players in NFL history.

Starr lost his first playoff game, the 1960 NFL Championship at Philadelphia. Starr didn’t lose another playoff game the rest of his career. Starr won each of his final nine playoff starts. Mahomes will be going for a 10th consecutive playoff win on Sunday, but Starr did it long before there were wild-card rounds against inferior competition to fatten the ledger.

Starr was much more than just the coach-on-the-field game-manager for those legendary Vince Lombardi teams. He was a weapon, an X-factor, a decisive reason why the Packers won again and again and again.

In NFL history, 74 quarterbacks have thrown at least 170 passes in the postseason. Mahomes is No. 1 all-time with a 105.8 playoff passer rating. Starr is second at 104.8.

It’s almost impossible to compare eras because the rules of engagement have changed so drastically. The last thing on officials’ minds when Starr played was protecting the quarterback. The quarterback was no different than a running back or a receiver. They could be hit and hit hard.

Today, it’s almost laughable. According to NFL Penalties, Mahomes drew six roughing-the-passer penalties this season, second-most in the NFL behind the scrambling Steelers quarterback, Justin Fields. (Jordan Love drew one and the Eagles’ Super Bowl quarterback, Jalen Hurts, got zero).

That’s why Starr’s passer rating is so incredible. In NFL history, seven quarterbacks have a career postseason passer rating of 100-plus. All of them played in the 2000s. In fact, of the 12 quarterbacks with a playoff passer rating of at least 96, all of them played in the 2000s and seven played into the 2020s.

Dialing the playoff attempts back to account for how games were played at the time and the limited playoff games of the period, 30 quarterbacks threw 50 postseason passes through the 1971 season (when Starr retired). Starr’s passer rating of 104.8 wasn’t just No. 1 but it was 40 points better than the median of the time.

Put another way, when Starr won NFL MVP in 1966, he finished with what was at the time a record 105.0 passer rating. That was almost 17 points better than the runner-up, Cleveland’s Frank Ryan. The league average was 67.4.

Today, a 67.4 passer rating would mean a one-way trip to the UFL. No starting quarterback has finished with a passer rating that low since 2010. This year, the league average was 92.3.

In the playoffs, Starr threw 15 touchdowns vs. three interceptions, a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 5.0. Of the 30 quarterbacks with at least that many touchdown passes in playoff history, only Buffalo’s Josh Allen (25 touchdowns, four interceptions, 6.25 ratio) and Mahomes (43 touchdowns, eight interceptions, 5.38) are better.

Again, remember the difference in eras. Hall of Famers Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, Len Dawson, Joe Namath and George Blanda all had more interceptions than touchdowns in the playoffs.

Even today, of every Hall of Famer in NFL history, Starr’s touchdown percentage of 7.0 ranks No. 1 all-time.

The genius of Mahomes, really not unlike Starr, is he finds ways to win. This year, Mahomes ranked a mediocre 16th in passer rating. But when it’s time to win games, none are better. Of the Chiefs’ 15 wins in the regular season, Mahomes led the NFL in game-winning drives (seven) and fourth-quarter comebacks (five).

Mahomes delivered in the AFC Championship Game against the Buffalo Bills two weeks ago, just like he did against the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl last year.

Starr was at his best in the big games, too.

The Packers crushed the Giants 37-0 in the 1961 NFL Championship Game. Against the league’s No. 1 defense, Starr had a 130.9 passer rating.

In the 1966 NFL Championship Game at Dallas, a shootout the Packers won 34-27, Starr posted a 143.5 passer rating – the highest ever for a quarterback in a playoff road game until Jordan Love beat it at Dallas last year. In Super Bowl I against the Chiefs two weeks later, Starr had a 116.2 rating and won MVP.

In the 1967 NFL Championship Game against Dallas, the infamous Ice Bowl, Starr had a 111.6 rating, two touchdown passes and the game-winning sneak. In Super Bowl II against the Raiders two weeks later, the last stand for what was left of the Lombardi Legends, Starr had a 96.2 rating and won MVP again.

Mahomes and Brady authored NFL legacies that are beyond reproach. Their places on the Mount Rushmore of Super Bowl quarterbacks are deserved. But never, ever forget that Starr was super before there was a Super Bowl.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.