What is Dalton Scale? How Andy Dalton went from being a starter in the NFL to a standard of determining the potential of quarterbacks
Follow Us
Andy Dalton
How do you judge any quarterback in the NFL? From his stats and a comparative analysis of how he has played in the years that he has been in the NFL. However, each player comes with a set of intangibles as well such as leadership skills and abilities, and locker room presence, at times, the quarterback is the glue that holds all the components or wide receivers together. It is of course near impossible to make a scale or any sort of metric that effectively measures the values of the intangibles that any player brings to the table, however, you can give it a shot since intangibles do carry some value with them, they also play a role in the amount that any QB is worth.
There is an interesting analogy that aims to determine the value that a quarterback is worth. The league has witnessed hundreds of QBs in the last decade or so, though many of these players were certified ballers during their college careers once they began to play amongst grown men in the league, most of them could not carry on the momentum that they set forth in their college careers. Take Jay Cutler, for instance, the man with a billion-dollar arm, he was Patrick Mahomes before Mahomes showed us what it was like to have a cannon for an arm. However, as we know, his career was all hype and no substance.
What is the Dalton scale?
The Dalton Scale is a theory propounded by NFL analyst Chris Wesseling. What it essentially states is that Andy Dalton is the Prime Meridian of quarterbacks across the entire league. On one side of the Dalton scale, on the left are the franchise quarterbacks, the studs, the ones who you can close your eyes and hand over the keys of your franchise and be rest assured that they are in good hands. On the other side, however, are the quarterbacks who have immense talent and have shown potential but lack consistency, they are slightly above average at best and if you are the General Manager of a team and place your quarterback on this side of the spectrum, that means you need to start looking for a replacement as this player is not the one for you.
But why Andy Dalton?
Andy Dalton’s role and purpose here is to serve as the medium that separates the champs from the chumps. The quarterback himself has been to the NFL playoffs on numerous occasions but never has he ever won a game there. If you never saw him play and never knew anything about his history and were given a sheet with his entire career statistics, you would think he is a good player and is someone that teams may not die to get but is definitely worthy of being in a starter’s role.
But that is far from the truth, he has been floating from team to team despite stellar stats and featured in “the most talented roster in the NFL.” Andy is the prime meridian, that separating element that comes in between being a successful QB with playoff wins and just being another QB in the NFL.
Is there really a need for such a scale?
The Dalton scale answers one primary question, which is if the quarterback is carrying the team or if the team is carrying the quarterback? The scale helps teams analyze if they stand a chance to reach the Super Bowl and win, they cannot do this if they cannot win playoff games or even regular-season games for that matter.
Teams want to filter through which QB to trade for or draft, if the player is better than Dalton, then he is not a bad choice, however, if he is not good enough at worst, then you may want to look elsewhere…
There are many ways that you find this out ranging from career resumes to peer reviews and taking into account their intangibles, etc. Needless to say, the Dalton scale has made it much easier to determine if a quarterback fits in well with a team and if he has the potential to take the team to the next level.
Stay Updated!
/techfirstnow/media/agency_attachments/kATjCXskQdJKkXN0OuqW.png)