The Hall of Fame debate around Eli Manning surrounds one concept: clutchness. And he’s the central figure in one of the greatest sports stories of the modern era.
The sixth-seeded New York Giants, double-digit underdogs, were up against the greatest team in NFL history and a quarterback who would go on to earn the title of the greatest ever.
Until the fourth quarter, the Giants had scored just three points. But with a touchdown to start the fourth quarter, New York took the lead over the New England Patriots. After a rally to retake the score, Eli Manning found himself with the ball with 2:45 left remaining on their own 17-yard line.
The drive itself was fantastic, but no one remembers the drive. They remember the play.
Manning, escaping pressure from Adalius Thomas and the clutches of Jarvis Green, heaved the ball deep downfield to David Tyree, a sixth-round pick with 650 career yards and just two catches in this game for 11 yards.
We know what happened. He caught it, the Giants went on to score and in doing so authored an epoch-defining event in the sport.
The helmet catch was so iconic that the referee who chose not to call the sack while Manning was “in the grasp” of Green was tasked with interviews about his decision. He even broke down his film on the play.
It doesn’t matter that the pass was inaccurate to a well-covered player. Or that Manning would take a sack later in the drive or that the Giants left Tom Brady with 39 seconds to drive 50 yards for the game-tying score. Manning won.
Football is somewhat unique when it comes to the concept of clutchness. The value of an individual performer is already difficult to capture and doing so in vanishingly small samples even tougher. It also doesn’t tend to materialize in single moments, like a walk-off home-run or buzzer-beater three. These moments tend to begin – and often end – deep in opponent territory with minutes left.
The Hail Mary walk-off touchdown seems to be a much rarer event than anything Kobe Bryant did as the seconds faded.
But clutchness still stands out – an individual win in football is worth much more than in any other major sport because of the scarcity of games, both in the regular season and in the playoffs, where the single-elimination format stands out among its major sport peers.
That gives us an odd relationship with the concept. It’s harder to see but it matters much more. Very often, we point to single drives – the 13-second drive from Patrick Mahomes, the original Hail Mary that coined the name, the Eli Manning 2007 Super Bowl comeback drive, the Minneapolis Miracle – because they stand out in our memory.
Sometimes, we compile multiple drives from the same quarterback and develop a narrative about that player, positive or negative. John Elway, Joe Montana and Roger Staubach became prototypical examples of clutch quarterbacks, while players like Dan Marino and Tony Romo developed the opposite reputation.
Manning’s reputation as a clutch performer is built off of two playoff runs. His career comeback rate is 23.2 percent. The NFL average is 19.4 percent. He ranks 79th of 187 quarterbacks in comeback win rate and failed spectacularly in his other playoff comeback attempts — 2007 and 2011 aside.
Clutchness is just a label people retroactively apply to players they like, who otherwise have exhibited a level of performance below where the labeler thinks they should be ranked - Chase Stuart
Rarely, some quarterbacks can change their reputation. Through 2016, Aaron Rodgers was known as a quarterback that couldn’t come back from behind. In fact, he had an 0-35 record when entering the fourth quarter trailing by more than a point against winning teams.
Wide Left is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
It certainly seems like conversations about clutchness dominate basketball conversations more than football conversations, but they are a nice punctuating feature of the discourse. After all, what separates Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen?
In this piece:
What is Clutchness?
What Does It Mean for Clutchness to Be Real?
Is Clutchness a Trait? A List of the Most “Clutch” QBs of All Time
What Have Other Sports, Like Baseball and Basketball Found?
What Studies on Clutchness Exist in Football?
Analytics Writers on Clutchness
What I, An Idiot, Found
Those with an analytical bent might immediately reject the concept of clutchness out-of-hand. After all, that has been the general consensus in other sports that have studied the concept. In order to find out more, I read several studies about clutchness and talked to football analytics experts to nail down this question.
I asked Kevin Cole of Unexpected Points, Chase Stuart of Football Perspective and Timo Riske of Pro Football Focus to define clutchness and speak on their perceptions of its persistence.
Some of the defining studies on the topic have defined “clutch” as a positive change in performance under pressure, with “pressure” largely defined by situational context rather than social context (e.g. a close late-game situation rather than the presence of a hostile or friendly crowd).
When asked, Cole said the “nerdy” definition would be “a positive correlation between performance (efficiency or success rate) and win probability leverage on a play-by-play basis,” with his more laymen definition coming through as “playing better (or not worse) in the highest pressure/impact situations.”
That wasn’t too different than what Stuart said, though he pointed out that the definition doesn’t matter that much because clutchness is primarily a storymaking tool – so it is what we want it to be to suit our needs in the moment.
“Everyone has a different definition of clutchness,” said Stuart, “and there is a lot of ‘moving the goalposts’ when it comes to it.”
He added, “I think what people are trying to get at with clutch is essentially a combination of two variables: when a situation is very high-leverage (alternatively defined as say, third downs, when there is a high expected swing in WP before a play (i.e., close and late), or in the playoffs), a quarterback plays better than he does in normal situations.”
All three analysts referred to a quarterback’s baseline as the measuring stick instead of their absolute performance. A quarterback must elevate their level of play (or not fall below it) rather than simply be better then their peers. As Riske pointed out, “I would say that clutchness is the potentially existing trait that some players might perform above their usual baseline when “things are heating up”, while others might play worse than their baseline.”
He added, “I think it’s important to put the baseline in the definition, because even if Zach Wilson were ultimately clutch and Peyton Manning were not, I’d still take a Peyton who sh*ts his pants over a Zach Wilson with ice in his veins every day of the week.”
If everybody followed this, articles which are split 50:50 about whether Peyton or Eli Manning is the better quarterback just a few months before Peyton goes on to have a record-breaking season might never happen again - Timo Riske
Riske also touched on the difficulty of nailing down when it’s time for things to be clutch. “The hardest part about the definition is what does it mean for things to heat up?” he asked.
“In football specifically, we could say it means the 4th quarter in a close game,” he said. “But then again, it could also mean an important game, for example a game in December when the playoffs are on the line. Or even a playoff game or the Super Bowl. Then, there is the combination of both, say the 4th quarter of a close playoff game. Analysts’ brains finally start to explode when it’s the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl.”
Even if one identifies a clutch situation, one might have trouble defining a clutch performance in that situation. “There are also different definitions of which kind of close games qualify for clutchness,” said Riske. “Does closing out a one-score lead count, even though the defense could still bail you out if you don’t score? Or does true clutchness mean that the QB performs when not scoring would basically end the game in the opponent’s favor?”
Share
As Stuart pointed out, clutchness is used in media circles more to tag elite quarterbacks with something special than to genuinely identify quarterbacks who elevate their games in pressure situations. “It’s also not something that fits on a bell curve; there are many more players who are “not clutch” than “clutch”, at least if you listen to the general football discussion,” said Stuart.
He used former Jets and Eagles quarterback Mark Sanchez as an example. “Mark Sanchez was really clutch by just about any definition,” said Stuart. “Especially if you are comparing a player’s performance in high-leverage situations vs. regular ones. But is he one of the most clutch QBs ever? Jeff Hostetler was remarkably clutch: he still owns, without any era adjustments, the highest passer rating in postseason history among passers with at least 100 attempts.”
But they are not in the discussion for “most clutch” quarterback.
It’s difficult to define the idea and even more difficult to be consistent about it. Generally speaking, we think of clutch athletes as ones that rise to the occasion. That’s still a murky definition, so a more precise one from inpredictable is useful here.
Or, to put it simply, clutch plays are when a play (either positive or negative) has a greater than average impact on win probability, and garbage time is when a play has a lower than average impact.
If we throw in what Cole, Riske and Stuart mentioned and bring up the baseline, we could modify it to say that the greatest clutch athletes accumulate the most positive win probability in those high-pressure moments, relative to their baseline level of performance.
That definition that generally accords to the appeals of consistency that analysts want and something that is somewhat testable. So we have a working definition.
What Does It Mean for Clutchness To Be Real?
The next thing to do is to ask what it means for clutchness to be “real.”
Certainly, when we see fantastic plays in big moments, those are undeniably clutch. In that sense, clutchness is real. But that’s not what people mean when they refer to clutch athletes – they don’t mean that a player had a clutch moment or even that they had a few clutch moments. They mean that that player regularly rises to the occasion and repeatedly has clutch moments.
They also mean that this quarterback does so in high-leverage circ*mstances. The playoffs just matter more for this conversation, fair or unfair. Let’s momentarily shelve the definition produced above and talk about perception.
Romo is the perfect test case for this. He has one of the highest fourth-quarter comeback percentages in NFL history, ranking eighth among quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era. That’s ahead of Andrew Luck and just barely behind Peyton Manning, Joe Montana and Tom Brady.
But again, is it "clutch" that makes Mahomes and Allen and Rodgers great in those situations versus Jackson, or are they just better equipped with skills and play-style to thrive in higher leverage plays when you mostly need a big pass play - Kevin Cole
But that’s just for the regular season. In the playoffs, Romo has had one comeback in five comeback opportunities. At 20 percent, he ranks 65th among all quarterbacks with at least one playoff win in the Super Bowl era. Among those with at least five playoff starts, he ranks 45th.
This still pretends that these conversations are consistent. They are not. Manning isn’t known as a playoff producer, but he has a stronger clutch reputation than Romo. But his comeback rate in the regular season is nearly identical to Romo’s, and his playoff comeback rate is worse than Romo’s, ranking 60th among those with at least five playoff starts.
Romo is also ahead of Troy Aikman, Aaron Rodgers and Luck in playoff comeback rate.
It seems to be the case that clutchness just means having a memorable moment and owning a ring. Or in the case of Andrew Luck, being perceived as a player who inevitably would have achieved those things.
What about Kirk Cousins? After years of being derided for an inability to produce clutch moments, Cousins led the league in fourth-quarter comebacks in 2022. In fact, his 2022 comeback total is an NFL record for most comebacks in a season, shared with Matthew Stafford’s 2016 season.
This run included the largest comeback by point differential in NFL history.
Cousins’ career fourth-quarter comeback rate, 23.4 percent, is just above the league average.
But in the last three years, his comeback rate of 39.3 percent was the second-best in the NFL, just behind Patrick Mahomes and just ahead of Tom Brady. He is still not regarded as a clutch quarterback, despite this change in his close-game results.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t engage with the conversation – just because some of the narratives that emerge around quarterbacks are inconsistent doesn’t mean the concept itself is bankrupt.
Is Clutchness A Trait?
We can identify who the clutch quarterbacks have been but can we determine who the clutch quarterbacks will be?
Which is to say, is there evidence that clutchness is an essential feature that quarterbacks carry with them as a trait rather than something we identify in moments after the fact? If it’s a trait, we should see successful quarterbacks pull it off after having established themselves as successful.
