What Is the Dalton Line?
The Dalton Line (also known as The Dalton Scale) was a concept created by NFL podcaster Chris Wesseling. The idea was simple: if your quarterback is better than Andy Dalton, you had your franchise guy. Any worse? You should be looking for a replacement.
This concept crystallized around 2014, as Dalton transitioned from rookie-contract QB to veteran starter. So at this moment in 2014, Dalton represented the exact middle ground of NFL quarterback evaluation: clearly competent, a legitimate starter, but not a player anyone would call a cornerstone. The Dalton Line represents the dividing line between quarterbacks teams commit to long-term and quarterbacks teams eventually try to replace. In a sense, it’s the worst place in the NFL to be: QB purgatory.
How This Site Works
Based around this 2014 timeframe as The Dalton Line came into being, this tool uses 3-year rolling averages of QB play to identify where a quarterback sits in the league’s pecking order over time. The benchmark in this tool is Dalton’s own 3-year Adj EPA/play entering 2014: +0.0954. QBs above that threshold are franchise-caliber. QBs below it are players a team should be actively trying to upgrade from. QBs right at it are stuck in purgatory — the Dalton Line itself.
Each year, every qualifying quarterback is sorted by their 3-year rolling average for the selected metric. The tool identifies three reference points: the QB whose value sits closest to the benchmark (the current "Dalton Line" quarterback), the QB immediately above that threshold (the floor of franchise QB status), and the QB immediately below (the ceiling of the replacement tier).
By default, this tool uses Adj EPA/play as the primary metric; that is, Expected Points Added per play, adjusted for opponent strength and game situation. It could be argued that this metric is the most complete single-number measure of quarterback efficiency. You also have the option to sort QBs by EPA/play (the unadjusted version of Adj EPA/play) or CPOE (Completion Percentage Over Expected, which measures accuracy relative to what a given set of throws would be expected to complete).
Data & Methodology Notes
Regardless of what metric you choose, this tool uses a 3-year rolling average of the selected metric. A rolling average was chosen to reduce the volatility of single-season performance and better capture sustained quarterback quality over time. It will use the 3 most recent seasons where a QB had enough plays to qualify (minimum of 320 plays). For quarterbacks without three full prior seasons of data, earlier available seasons are used to complete the rolling window where possible. Any QBs who have less than 3 qualifying seasons have their rolling average based on as many seasons are available (e.g., a rookie would only have one season’s worth of data). While this tool starts in the 2014 season, it includes data back to 2011 to complete the 3-year rolling averages.
Create Your Own Dalton Line
This page also features the ability to create your own Dalton Line. Scroll to the bottom of the page to turn on this interactive mode.