Flip through the NFL Record & Fact Book and you’ll quickly discover that the modern passing era has wiped out the records of the great quarterbacks of the past: Whether you look at the records for yards or completions or completion percentage or passer rating or touchdown passes or fewest interceptions, you’ll find nothing but recent names. With one major exception.
The record for the highest postseason passer rating still belongs to Bart Starr, who played his last postseason game more than 50 years ago.
Starr, who died on Sunday at the age of 85, still has the NFL record for the highest postseason passer rating, at 104.8.
Starr’s postseason stats are, for their era, absolutely amazing. He averaged 8.2 yards per pass and threw 15 touchdowns and only three interceptions. All of his postseason games were played in the 1960s, when the typical TD:INT ratio was about 1:1, and quarterbacks typically averaged a little over six yards per pass.
In the 1966 season, the league average passer rating was 67.4. That postseason, Starr had a 143.5 passer rating in leading the Packers to a win at Dallas in the NFL Championship Game, then had a 116.2 passer rating in leading the Packers to a win over the Chiefs in Super Bowl I.
To Starr, the most important stat of all was that the Packers went 9-1 in the 10 postseason games he played.