Which NFL QB has lost to the most teams?

There has been recent mention of Peyton Manning matching Brett Favre’s record of being the only quarterback who has beaten all thirty-two NFL teams.

But what about the flipside? Which NFL quarterback has lost to the most teams? Has any quarterback managed to lose against all thirty-two teams?

Favre’s come close - the only two teams he never lost a game to are the Redskins and the Texans. So Favre lost at least one game to thirty different teams in his career.

Has any other quarterback matched or exceeded that number? It would have to be somebody since 1995 obviously.

I’ve done a bit of digging, and Matt Hasselbeck has lost to every team, if I’m reading the splits right: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/H/HassMa00/splits/

To find him, I looked at a list of the players with the most losses since 1995, with at least one pass attempt (as pro football reference doesn’t seem to let you specify quaterbacks on their search), and I’ve been down the top 20, looking at their splits. Here is the list:QBs with most losses

There may be someone with a “better ranking”.

I’ve had a look at Brett Favre, and Pro Football Reference has Favre losing to the Redskins once, but it seems Billy Joe Tolliver was the main quaterback:

It seems that might apply to Hasselbeck as well. His only loss (and only game) against Seattle was one where he only had 6 pass attempts:Seattle Seahawks at Green Bay Packers - November 1st, 1999 | Pro-Football-Reference.com

Looking at the play-by-play Brett Favre was the starting quarterback, and Hasselbeck only replaced him with 7 minutes left. If we don’t count that, we are still looking for someone who lost to every team. When is a quarterback credited with a loss?

Very nice research.

Not a record since expansion, but Archie Manning played 150 games in his NFL career, with a record of 37-110-3, including losses to all 27 non-Saints teams in the league. Apparently he never played against the Saints during his time with Houston and Minnesota.

Well, we’d have to look to contemporary veteran quarterbacks who

  1. Were high draft picks (therefore thrown to the wolves immeiately as starters of lousy teams)

  2. Had long careers

  3. Had only mixed success, and therefore played for multiple teams- preferably mediocre or bad teams.

Who does that suggest?

Carson Palmer comes to mind. He’s started for the Bengals, the Raiders and the Cardinals, which gave him a chance to lose to a lot of different teams.

Trent Dilfer

Vinny Testaverde

Kerry Collins

Never lost to the Bears or Redskins, he’s 5-0 in total against them.

Never lost to Dallas, Kansas City, Miami, New England, Philadelphia, or San Diego.

Never lost to Tampa Bay or Seattle.

Seattle, Cincinnati.

I would have thought Ryan Fitzpatrick might have had a good shot at this. He’s played for ten years and started for five different teams and his overall record is 36-56-1. But he’s never lost a game to Buffalo, Carolina, Detroit, or Oakland.

A few other names… Jon Kitna? Jeff Garcia?

Kitna lost to thirty teams. The two exceptions were the Bengals and the Texans.

Garcia lost to twenty-nine teams. The three exceptions were the Buccaneers, the Chiefs, and the Dolphins.

Jeff Blake was very close. He lost a game to every team in the NFL except the Texans.

BTW, Blake never played New England or Washington, so he only reached 29.

The best I could find among people not in the top 20 of silverfish’s list was losing to 28 teams. Warren Moon retired before the Texans came into being and never played the Jaguars. He went 1-0 against the Panthers and 2-0 against the then-Oilers. Michael Vick (#21 on the list) has never played the Titans, but could get a shot at them in six weeks. He’s 2-0 against the Bengals, Jaguars, and (oh well) Jets.

My mistake. I was looking at a list of his career stats and I just counted the zeroes and subtracted that from thirty-two rather than counting up the number of teams.

Similarly, I also screwed up my earlier post about Jeff Garcia. He only played against thirty teams in his career (he never played against the Patriots or the Texans). So he only lost games to a total of twenty-seven teams in his career.

You could say he was defeated by the Saints when he was drafted.

Well, it seems as if we’ve covered all the likeliest suspects… so, while there are some very close calls, nobody’s done it yet.

But since Carson Palmer is still active and in the NFC, he’s still got a decent chance of losing to the Bears or Redskins eventually.