Talk:List of starting quarterbacks in the NFL

Information removal

Perhaps this should be separated into a page per year? Deleting the content every year doesn't seem in the Wikipedia spirit to me. Kerfuffler (talk) 00:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Content is never deleted, it can simply be retrieved in the history of the article. Alternatively, I have taken every biography removed and placed it at User:Moe Epsilon/sandbox for viewing if we need them in the future. We do need year-by-year articles, but unfortunately, that would require myself and others to start over 90 articles, which would take a lot of time. I intend to do so, actually, but for now, this is the best option I could produce two weeks before the start of the 2012 NFL season. Regards, — Moe ε 18:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't jive. Readers are not expected to have to look through a page's history to find information. Kerfuffler (talk) 19:33, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The current information is listed on the page, so there's nothing to dig through the history to find. Regards, — Moe ε 20:55, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

To restate more clearly: If a reader wants to, say, see the list of starting QBs from 2011, they should not have to dig through the page history to find it. Wikipedia is not a scoreboard for only keeping current information; if the information is worth putting in at all, then it's generally worth keeping around. If people want only current lineups, the NFL has a web site for that. Kerfuffler (talk) 21:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Like I said, this would take an incredible effort to produce such information since it took me a month to write this article alone. I intended to create List of NFL starting quarterbacks in 2012, List of NFL starting quarterbacks in 2011 to 1920 (with biographies and a list of starters week-by-week probably), but that simply isn't feasible in a short amount of time. As the title of the article is List of NFL starting quarterbacks, the current 32 starting quarterbacks are the topic of the article, for now. Once all the articles year-by-year exist, this article would probably be turned into a simple list pointing to all the year-by-year articles. Regards, — Moe ε 21:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand this objection. E.g., you could have simply renamed the earlier version of this page to "2011 NFL starting quarterbacks”—that takes almost no effort. There's no requirement that the information exist for every year; other editors can fill it in as they see fit. Kerfuffler (talk) 21:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, there would be a few things that would have to be modified, like the other 10 or so quarterbacks not listed on the previous version. The version with the 2011 week seventeen starters didn't have a lot of quarterbacks, such as Aaron Rodgers, Matt Schaub, Matt Cassel and Sam Bradford on them because they were injured or taken out week seventeen and their replacement was the last listed quarterback. And prior to me editing the article at all, the article was nothing but a simple list of lists of quarterbacks. Now as for your suggestion, to have just 2011 and 2012 quarterbacks articles, it's possible. However, other editors aren't going to fill in the missing ninty years of information. Prior to me editing the article, one editor tried nothing but a simple list article for each year and stopped at 2009 I think. There's no objection to starting these articles, but for now, the article can stay as is until such a time when we actually start working on them. Regards, — Moe ε 21:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

In general, that's what a list article is for—a simple list. It's quite arguable that the article as it's presented now is misnamed because it's not a list. And really, shouldn't the detail about the QBs be on another page, either personal or for the team? This whole thing reads like a lot of advertising copy. Kerfuffler (talk) 21:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, holy crap those are long paragraphs. Kerfuffler (talk) 21:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

You can promptly fuck off if you're going to do nothing but complain about a stub being turned into an actual article and request me do ninety more. Regards, — Moe ε 21:45, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Can't we put the qb articles for non current qbs on the team qb list pages. They wouldn't have to be modified too much. Just a thought.Gilliganfanatic (talk) 21:07, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

You're free to take the content from my sandbox and place it on Wikipedia wherever you feel its appropriate, but a single quarterback biography on a list of all the teams quarterbacks might leave it a bit incomplete. Of course, if you wrote biographies for all the other quarterbacks as well, then that would be better. Regards, — Moe ε 21:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

College

Recently, there's been some edits involving me, Moe Epsilon (only once) and an IP over Russell Wilson and whether or not to list his college as NC State or Wisconsin, and also if we should list the college that they were drafted out of or what college they graduated from. Thoughts? ZappaOMati 21:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Like I stated in the edit summary, I believe the college they were drafted out of it the appropriate college to list. If they go back and complete a degree while in the NFL, it really has no bearing on them being a starting quarterback. It's appropriateness based on the context of the article. On the article of the individual, it's appropriate to say they attended both schools, on the article about what college the quarterback came out of (i.e drafted) it's the last college they attended. Russell Wilson was drafted after being in Wisconsin. His NC State graduation has about as much relevance to his professional football career as his high school degree. Regards, — Moe ε 01:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Either list the one they were drafted from or change it to list all the colleges they played for. It makes no sense to list only the one they went back to get a degree from later. If limiting it to one then the last place they actually played is far more relevant. Raugturi (talk) 18:49, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Concurring with the above, I believe the college from which a player is drafted is the official one used by the NFL, so to me that clinches it. Welcome to Wikipedia, User:Raugturi, by the way! Go Phightins! 19:00, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

How about listing both? That's what this edit says. ZappaOMati 23:44, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Week one nearing, QB speculation

The season openers are looming near, and though only one user did this, I need people to help monitor the page since people will most likely repeatedly change the headers to those of who they think will be the starting QBs. If it gets too radical, we could go for WP:RPP. ZappaOMati 01:25, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Watchlisted - will quash tomfoolery as I see it. Go Phightins! 01:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for watching over the page until I got back. A week late due to other commitments, but I think I've got the article up-to-date as of this writing. Made sure the list was right, updated references, fix ref errors, wrote short bios for EJ Manual and Geno Smith, made sure hidden comments were updated through week 1/2, updated some of the pictures to more recent or better versions and update the article in general. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 02:50, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Article is way too bloated

Is there really any need for these "bios" each QB has? That stuff is way better fit for the player's article. Not to mention it's a hassle everytime a new quarterback starts, and we have to add something or else it looks empty in comparison. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:10, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dissident93: Yeh I have to agree. The bios seem like more hassle than they're worth and they don't really belong here. Although I'm hesitant to remove them because they're all well-sourced – some of them are better sourced than the players' actual articles. Lizard (talk) 15:22, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

@Dissident93 and Lizard the Wizard: I had worked on this with Moe Epsilon back in 2013, but they do get annoying when a new QB starts, which is why User:Moe Epsilon/NFL biographies exists to make it easier to switch in/out. I think it's fine, but they make the article extremely hard to load due to its size. NFLisAwesome (ZappaOMati) 18:22, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

I've just gone ahead and removed all of it, since the table above contains the same info without having 1000s of bytes of unneeded text. The List of Presidents of the United States article doesn't give a 3-5 paragraph bio on every single President, just a neat and to-the-point table, so does anybody object? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 09:37, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I also agree. Those bios unnecessarily bloat the article, are hard to maintain, and should stay removed. —Lowellian (reply) 02:03, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

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Rams

Is there any way that we can change the st louis rams to the LA rams? it still says at the top that the rams are still in st louis and not LA.??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.136.213.240 (talk) 16:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

The template that hosted the table for starting quarterbacks needed to be updated. I just went ahead and updated this table to reflect the move of the Rams from St. Louis to LA. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:11, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

Whoever did the major trimming of this article (and for that I appreciate it as it now loads much more quickly on my computer) has insisted on something that I consider to be misleading. During the offseason, the editor insists on using the starting quarterback who started the week 17 regular season game, regardless of whether or not that player is still with the team. That's a convention that no other position uses (for instance, we don't consider a team that has fired its head coach, for that coach to still be the coach of that team, because he's no longer employed by that team). So, under this list, Brock Osweiler is still listed as starter for the Denver Broncos even though Osweiler is no longer even employed by the Broncos. There should be a way to indicate that a player who is listed as starter under this definition is not the starting quarterback anymore. (In other positions this would be simply to list the position as vacant, but I understand that with complications dealing with multiple quarterbacks on a roster, coach's decisions and playoff games, it may be more prudent to simply italicize those names as I had done in my edits.) There were icons for this purpose before the trimdown but those have since been removed. There should be some way of indicating concrete offseason changes such as when a starter from the previous season retires or changes teams. J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 01:28, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

• We've used this standard for the navbox for years, and it's not inaccurate if it clearly states that the starters are accurate as of Week 17, 2015 (which it does in the very first sentence). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:42, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've typed out my discontents with this article here several times, including about an hour ago, only to change my mind and hit cancel. So I'm glad someone brought it up when I figured it wasn't worth it. Yes, this is not a list of starting quarterbacks. This is a list of players who last played quarterback in a regular season game for each team. It may make more sense during the season, but during the offseason it's just silly. Ryan Fitzpatrick isn't even on the Jets' roster anymore, much less their starting quarterback. Kellen Moore for the Cowboys? Mettenberger for the Titans? Let's just scrap this article, and scrap the position templates too while we're at it. Lizard (talk) 01:50, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in having this article, and nobody seamed to care when it was a bloated mess of 3-5 paragraph bios for each QB. The article averaged 2,000 views a day during the regular season, and still maintains around 500 a day in the offseason. I know that shouldn't mean much, but I think it offers more value to the casual reader than it not existing at all. I think the main problem you have is how we maintain it in the offseason. Yeah, it's a bit odd having Moore as the listed Cowboys QB for 9 months of the year, but if we updated for the "true" starter at season's end, it would be more controversial with random IPs than the current policy. I wouldn't be against having an * next to projected starters though (as long as it's sourced), which would work for players like Jared Goff and Mark Sanchez, as well as teams with established guys that only didn't play due to injury (Mariota, Romo, Flacco) ~ Dissident93 (talk) 06:17, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

True, this is probably the simplest method. And if it's a high-traffic article then we should probably keep it. I still don't like the navboxes though but that's another issue for another talk page. Lizard (talk) 16:23, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Current < most recent

I changed the heading at Template:NFL quarterbacks table from "current starting quarterback" to "most recent starting quarterback." I still think this article is nothing but trouble, and the only reason it's worth keeping is the page views. But let's be realistic here. Its obviously ridiculous to say a quarterback who isn't even a member of a team anymore is that team's "current" starting quarterback. Lizard (talk) 20:36, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

• That's way better, but a starting QB in the NFL is a notable position in sports, so I think this article should be considered important. Imagine a reader who wants to know all 4 QBs that start in the NFC East, so they Google it, and finds this article as one of the top links. Wikipedia should be about providing information easily, and reliability about who will start each week should never be an issue, as it is widely reported on. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 21:32, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much more I can idiot-proof it. It might be best just to have the article semi-protected until week 1 since there's no reason anything should be changed until then. Lizard (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Interesting that you say a starting QB is a notable position in sports, but I just noticed the article does nothing to establish this fact. The lead is just a bunch of trivia that would mean absolutely nothing to someone unfamiliar with the quarterback position. Instead of the horrible "this is a list" verbiage, the opening paragraph should immediately establish the notability NFL starting quarterbacks and why they're notable. "Starting quarterbacks in the National Football League are among the most highly regarded figures in sports[ref][ref]..." or something like that. Shouldn't be hard to find supporting sources. Lizard (talk) 20:49, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

That's how you do it fam. Lizard (talk) 01:10, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Honestly, this is not on the same level as something like List of Washington Redskins players, which is just a massive unsourced (and very hard to maintain) list of players that breaks multiple Wikipedia policies. Compare this article to that, and I don't think this is anything that needs to be addressed (at least before articles like that). ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 02:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

What specifically is wrong with the Redskins one, in your opinion? WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 02:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Besides the massive violation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE? Every other team's article like this is just as bad and should be deleted/redirected, in my opinion. This type of list is better handled by other dedicated third-party websites, such as Pro Football Reference, and it's also why Wikipedia uses categories for these types of things. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 08:32, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't disputing the notability of this article, but rather that the article didn't establish its notability. Sports editors often assume that stuff like this is inherently notable, so they don't bother with commentary and independent sources. But anyway, I think it's been amended now for the most part. Lizard (talk) 23:14, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I had this article with a short biography of the current starting quarterback that was fully referenced (200+ references) and a detailed list. Now we have a half-referenced hot piece of garbage. You guys sure know how to fuck things up. If you were too lazy to update the article, you should have notified me to update it. I would have. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 10:29, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• WP:CIVIL, WP:OWNERSHIP, WP:ILIKEIT ~ all relevant Wikipolicies you should look at before throwing insults around. Anyway, the biographies were removed because they were highly redundant, bloated the page, and had to be redone each time a new quarterback started, which is pretty much at least once a week. You are the first person who's argued in favor of them, I believe. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 04:52, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• If you're going to throw out random policies and guidelines at experienced editors, at least know what they are about. It's not about ownership as I neither directly claimed to own it or even reverted back. ILIKEIT is about discussions such as AFD and justifying it with "I like it". No discussion took place, it was just removed. The List of United States Presidents was cited as not needing a biography, and no one reverted. That article at least has pictures and nice content, unlike this article now. As for civility, the article being garbage and half-referenced is not a personal insult unless you take it to be one (in which you need to fix it then). Don't remove 200 references then make a garbage list, it's simple. Like I said, if you were too lazy to take ten minutes to make a short biography, then let someone who will and you can still have a decent, well-referenced article that people can rely on. As it is now, though, it's garbage. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:32, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Chargers

How do we switch the Chargers to LA instead of San Diego since they have officially moved

It might be pedantic but no one has started a game for the LA Chargers yet. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 21:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

It shouldn't be changed until week 1, which is still months away. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 23:01, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Add ages of QBs to table?

Ages of NFL quarterbacks is a popular topic. It would probably be useful to have an "Age" column in the table. I added it to the first row (C.J. Beathard), commented out, not visible yet: <!-- 49ers age={{Age|1993|11|16 -->
What does everyone think? Facts707 (talk) 16:33, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Not sure. But it's at least as important as "Division" and "College," which I think could both be removed. Although honestly if there was already an "Age" column I'd probably be suggesting it be removed as well. Lizard (talk) 16:45, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I like to know who are the oldest and youngest QBs. There's a bit of veterans (Brady, Brees) vs. youngsters (we know who they are) lately. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 00:54, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I also disagree on the use of it. It's just more trivial bloat that lists like this love to accumulate. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 03:48, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Year and Draft Pick should be separate columns

Bad data juju to staple two logically separate data concepts into one column. Besides simply being ugly, it prevents sorting by Draft Pick.

• Do we honestly even need the draft pick selection number? Seems like it's more trivia that only stat nerds would care about and not the average reader. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 07:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Washington

The Redskins should be changed to Football Team. TdanTce (talk) 23:03, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Updates for playoffs?

Should this article be updated for the playoffs? Currently, this article is for each team's "most recently played regular season game", which makes the information look outdated / incorrect for playoff teams who rested their starters in the last week of the NFL season, e.g. the Philadelphia Eagles - Gardner Minshew started in week 18, but Jalen Hurts is the "true" starting quarterback. Can we change this to say "each team's most recently played game" (removing regular season)? Natg 19 (talk) 02:05, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

There are obviously other issues with this article, as mentioned in previous sections, but this should be a quick and easy change. Natg 19 (talk) 02:10, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Cross-posted at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League. Natg 19 (talk) 22:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I have made this change, as there was no opposition. Natg 19 (talk) 02:58, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

I oppose simply because of the inconsistency we'd have with the related navbox template sticking to the regular season. I'd bring this up on WT:NFL to get more attention before changing it. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 13:46, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

I did bring it up to the NFL Wikiproject but there wasn't much response or discussion. So I boldly made the change. Natg 19 (talk) 18:32, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikiproject topic was here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League#Suggestions_for_List_of_starting_quarterbacks_in_the_National_Football_League. Natg 19 (talk) 22:50, 6 February 2022 (UTC)