Indeed. Note that the very bottom guy on that list, Arnie Herber, was a Hall of Famer, and one of the first great passers in the NFL…but still had a 9.0% interception rate!
Yeah, and Slingin’ Sammy Baugh was way up there, too… It looks like Roman Gabriel was the lowest % of pre '80s-on up crowd, tied for 56th.
It depresses me that Eli is tied with Favre on that list. I knew Eli was bad with the picks, but I would never have guessed he was that bad.
Well he has a lot fewer attempts than Favre, so this year is probably having a bigger proportional effect.
Interceptions are such a misleading stat, how many times have you seen the football bouncing off of the receivers hands and right to a defender, or the receiver runs the wrong route?
In some cases, that’s certainly true enough – for example, Aaron Rodgers threw his first interception in several games on Sunday, on a pass which bounced off of Greg Jennings’ hands.
OTOH, I don’t expect that more than a small minority of interceptions really fall into the “not the QB’s fault” camp. And, having watched Favre for 19 years, I’d say darned few of his passes were in that camp. He earned the vast majority of his picks. 
The minority are certainly bobbled or dropped by the WRs leading to picks, but I suspect average fans would be amazed at how many apparently terrible INTs are the result of WRs running wrong routes and/or improvising at the wrong time. A fairly large number are probably a result of ambiguous reads in which the QB and WR assume different routes in which there’s no clear right and wrong meaning the can equally share culpability. It’s really impossible to know without knowing the coaches playbook and the schemes that are discussed during the week’s practice and the subsequent post-game film study.
Long story short, I bet QBs catch the blame for WAY more than they should and it might be in the ballpark of a 50-50 split in actuality. Of course in the specific case of Favre, they are certainly seem to be his fault.
Almost as many times as I’ve seen a receiver make a circus catch on a pass that was virtually uncatchable.
Slightly shorter time needed if they go to the 18-game season as discussed. 
Wasn’t the record 116 games or something like that when Favre broke it? That puts Peyton’s current streak in a different perspective, as well as Favre’s. I think some of the drama surrounding Favre has been overblown; he’s had a great career and is amazingly tough. Few players at any position would consider playing with a hand that looks like this never mind a quarterback.
Good memory. It was 116 games exactly, in fact, by Ron Jaworski.
But only because the NFL counts Marino’s failure to cross the picket line against him. According to Wikipedia, he started 145 consecutive, except for the three replacement player games in 1987. Still, Favre more than doubled that (and Manning has passed it as well.)
Manning’s streak is even more impressive when you realize he has started every Colts game since he entered the league.
At this point I think it’s clear there was never any chance Favre was going to play this week. He said Sunday or Monday that his whole hand was numb. The Vikings were just being coy about his status, which is what a lot of teams do.
Peyton’s streak is pretty remarkable in itself and is probably unfairly eclipsed by Favre’s in terms of attention.
I do think that Peyton really has been pretty lucky, though. He hasn’t been significantly hurt, and has been rather fortunate with generally good pass protection. He doesn’t get hit much. He’s not a scrambler, and he has a really quick release.
He’s starting to show some age, though. We’re seeing some cracks this year. This is already his 13th season. I don’t know if he’s got six more left in him. Simply starting at the QB position at all for 20 years is amazing, much less doing it without missing a game.
When you consider the style of game he played I think his interception rate really isn’t that bad. Of course he’s thrown some goofy ones at bad times but he never shied away from the deep passes and he didn’t baby his QB rating like some others we’ve seen (Kurt Warner, I’m looking at you). He just accepted the INTs as a consequence of his style and never made excuses for them (that I can recall). Retired, not retired, cell phone pics - I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that. If I judge him by what he did on the field he was tough and he was successful. I can’t say I’m a fan but I do admire what he did and it’s sad that a lot of it is getting diminished because he isn’t a perfect human being.
Assuming the Colts can keep a halfway decent line in front of him, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t go six more years. I mean, look at the guys who are usually starting on the Colts line- they’re nearly always other teams’ castoffs or undrafted free agents. Tarik Glenn was pretty much the sole exception.
He’s a machine, and I’m willing to bet he holds the league record for lowest sacks per attempt.
Heck, passing yardage is a misleading stat too when you take into account yards after the catch.
Kicker? Punter?
I wonder how much the new league concussion rules will have to say in this. Favre quite likely played a number of games that he wouldn’t have been allowed to under the new rules. Manning is so uncommonly good at avoiding hits that this probably doesn’t apply to him. I can’t recall him ever really getting blasted in the pocket, and he has never scrambled at all, which is when a lot of the hits take place.
If Manning breaks it, he’ll hold it forever IMHO. And I’d say the odds of him doing that are maybe 50/50 at best. He’s still got the eighth all-time start streak to go to cath Favre.
At almost exactly 31 attempts per pass, I’d bet you’re right. Here’s a list of the current starters who have a firm grip on the starting job, with spaces to help visualize the gaps:
31.0 Peyton Manning
26.5 Drew Brees
24.3 Matt Ryan (wow!)
19.8 Eli Manning
19.5 Tony Romo
19.3 Tom Brady
18.1 Matt Schaub
17.6 Philip Rivers
17.6 Sam Bradford (rookie)
17.0 Josh Freeman
16.4 Jay Cutler
16.0 Kyle Orton
15.5 Mark Sanchez
13.6 Joe Flacco
12.9 Aaron Rodgers
12.7 Matt Cassel
12.7 David Garrard
10.1 Ben Roethlisberger
9.6 Mike Vick