With Big Ben at 38, history shows older NFL QBs can thrive, but drop-off can come quickly

Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and John Elway made the Pro Bowl and won at least one playoff game during their age-38 seasons as NFL quarterbacks. Elway guided a team to a Super Bowl title as a 38-year-old. Brady pulled that trick at 39 and again at 41.

In other words, there is precedent, particularly in the modern NFL, for a quarterback in his late 30s to succeed. That is relevant to the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose plans for this week’s draft could have been altered if there was no faith in franchise quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s ability to perform at a high level after turning 38 last month.

“Guys are playing so much longer,” said Elway, who retired at 38 after leading the Denver Broncos to consecutive Super Bowl wins his final two seasons. “You’re talking about late 30s and early 40s with (Brady). They’re playing much longer and can still play at a high level.”

The Steelers, by all indications, are pushing all of their chips in on Roethlisberger maintaining the form that allowed him to lead the Steelers to the playoffs in four of his past five full seasons, winning the NFL passing-yardage title twice in that span.

The risk in riding with Roethlisberger, though, isn’t as simple as hoping he doesn’t slip at 38. Roethlisberger had elbow surgery last September and will enter the 2020 preseason having played seven quarters of live football over the previous 20 months.

Despite it all, Steelers brass spent the offseason expressing little worry he could perform at 38.

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“I just think the possibility is real he could be a better football player coming out of this surgery, just as much as he might be a more regressed football player,” general manager Kevin Colbert said. “I’m encouraged and excited about where he can go.”

It has become increasingly common for quarterbacks 38 or older to thrive. According to pro-football-reference.com, through 1992 there were only seven occasions in NFL history of a quarterback 38 or older making at least eight starts in a season.

Over the past 13 seasons, there have been 20.

Older quarterbacks seem to be having more success, too. Though it is difficult to gauge performance across eras, looking at win-loss record, just three of those initial seven age-38-plus QBs won more than half of his starts. But 16 of the 20 such quarterbacks since 2007 posted winning records as a starter.

Speaking during an appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio this week, Roethlisberger insisted he can maintain the level of performance he established over more than a decade.

“Yeah, your physical attributes might fall off (and) you might not be as fast or as big or whatever,” Roethlisberger said, “but you still can be as sharp because you can be mentally sharp and you can maybe hone your skills differently. I’ve been doing it for a long time, but I still feel like I got gas in the tank.”

Elway attributed quarterbacks’ newfound longevity to rule changes that have shielded passers from taking as many hits as they used to.

“We protect them so much better now than we used to,” Elway said in February from the NFL Combine. “… As long as (teams) can keep them upright and prevent them from being hit, then I think they still have a chance to be successful.

“(Because) when it starts to go, it goes pretty fast.”

Elway retired before “it” — appreciably, at least — “started to go.” Good thing, too, based on historical precedent of Hall of Fame quarterbacks suffering swift drops in play to force what would be their final pro seasons.

Manning had a steep drop-off in his final season (2015) at age 39. Even while leading the Broncos to a Super Bowl win, he was benched in favor of the unheralded Brock Osweiler twice during that regular season.

Hall of Famer Dan Marino, too, had his worst season in his 1999 NFL swan song as a 38-year-old. During just one of his first 16 seasons was his passer rating below 80.0. In 1999, it was a career-worst 67.4.

Favre went from having the best passer rating of his 19-year career (107.2) in 2009 to having the worst of his career (69.9) the next season at age 41.

An underlying lesson seems to be older quarterbacks can flourish, but once their abilities start to fade, they fade rapidly.

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Longtime former Dallas Cowboys executive Gil Brandt said his organization kept that in mind even when they had future Hall of Fame QB Roger Staubach. The Cowboys drafted seven quarterbacks during the 1970s while Staubach was leading the team to five Super Bowl berths.

“We always felt we always wanted to have ‘a pair and a spare,’ so to speak,” said Brandt, a 2019 Hall of Fame inductee who is a regular on SiriusXM NFL Radio.

Brandt alluded to some potential high-ceiling, low-risk options such as Michigan’s Shea Patterson or Missouri’s Kelly Bryant as quarterbacks the Steelers might want to target in the late rounds. But the most recent time the Steelers drafted a quarterback — third-rounder Mason Rudolph in 2018 — Roethlisberger did little to hide his displeasure.

What would his reaction be if the organization makes a similar pick this time around?

“They have to do what they have to do,” Roethlisberger said during his SiriusXM NFL Radio appearance. “We’ve got some quarterbacks on the roster (Rudolph, Devlin Hodges, Paxton Lynch, J.T. Barrett), but if they feel like there’s a better one out there then they got to go get him. And that’s their prerogative. That’s why they’re the owners, the GMs and the coaches, and we just play.

“It’s not going to change my mindset, my mentality, my motivation.”

Because of myriad factors ranging from lack of draft capital to having plenty of other holes to fill, it would seem a longshot the Steelers seek Big Ben’s successor in this draft.

Assuming that is true, that is a lot of faith placed in a 38-year-old right arm. But as the likes of Brady, Brees and others have shown in recent years, it’s not a risk that can’t reap rewards.

Staff writer Joe Rutter contributed.

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