This story had me thinking about how marriage might have altered the stats of some QB's throughout history and today.

I went through the dates of marriages (and several divorces) and just wanted to see if there was any statistical evidence relating marriage and a loss of "competitive edge." These findings do not take into account what team each quarterback played for, what players were lost around the same time, or significant rule changes which could alter the numbers.

AVERAGE                     GS   Win%     Comp. %   Yds.   TD   INT   RAT.

(Pre) Dan Marino           14    85%        60.6%     3810    33    15    96.3

(Post) Dan Marino          14    57%        59.1%     3566   25    15    84.6

1. (Pre) T. Bradshaw       12    54%       46.7%     1852   10    19    51.4

1. (Post) T. Bradshaw      9     89%        49.4%     1183   10    15    54.5

2. (Pre) T. Bradshaw       10    72%        50.3%     1339   12     9     69.5

2. (Post) T. Bradshaw     12     69%       54.0%      2301   18    15    84.1

(Pre) Peyton Manning     16     54%       60.4%     4096    28    19   85.5

(Post) Peyton Manning    16    71%         66%       4168    31   14   99.5

(Pre) Eli Manning             14    53%        53.7%     2824   19    16   70.6

(Post) Eli Manning           16     81%       60.3%     3238    21    10   86.4

(Pre) Brett Favre              15    61%        62.6%     3706    27    16   86.9

(Post) Brett Favre            16     63%       66.4%     3869    27    19   85.5

Possible Findings

• Dan Marino might have focused less on football after marriage.
• Terry Bradshaw could not have been luckier in the team that drafted him. Without the Steelers defense, no one else would be able to carry him.
• Brett Favre was not affected at all by his marriage as far as the statistics say.
• Perhaps marriage helps quarterbacks with decision making skills or another attribute as all showed significant increases in their statistics afterwards (Marino being the exception.)
• The maturing could also just be adapting to the game or maturing as a person individually.

NOTES

A trend of marriage is seen after 2-3 years of a starting job in the NFL. All players in this post followed this trend.

Eli's post marriage numbers are so high because he had a good year last year. It was first season since marriage.

Peyton is not coincidentally the best overall quarterback shown.

All stats are taken from Pro Football Reference.