How Ratings Work
NFL Dynasty rates 2,949 offensive players and 183 team defenses on a 56–99 scale. The goal is to answer one question fairly across fifty years of football: how dominant was this player, at his best, with this franchise, compared with the league he played in? Here is the whole method, including its limits.
1. Start with real seasons
Every rating is built from actual regular-season statistics. Seasons from 1999 on come from the open-source nflverse project; 1970–1998 come from a public historical NFL statistics archive, with each player's position checked against nflverse's historical rosters (that's how tight ends and wide receivers are told apart in older seasons). A handful of all-time greats missing from the historical archive, such as Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw, were entered from their documented season totals.
2. Score each season
Each season gets a production score for its position. For running backs and receivers that's yards plus a bonus for each touchdown and catch. For quarterbacks it's split evenly between volume (passing yards and touchdowns, minus interceptions, plus rushing) and efficiency (passer rating), so a quarterback can't rate highly on attempts alone.
3. Adjust for the era
A 3,500-yard passing season meant something very different in 1978 than in 2018. So every season is compared with the average full-time starter at that position in that same year, measured in standard deviations. That's what lets a 1970s star and a modern one be compared on the same scale: each is judged against his own league.
4. Reward sustained excellence
A player's rating with a franchise blends his three best seasons there: 55% for the best, 30% for the second, 15% for the third. One fluke year can't produce a 99; a decade of dominance with one team rises to the top. Each player generally gets one card per franchise he starred for, placed in the decade of his best season there — so Peyton Manning has separate Colts and Broncos cards.
5. Convert to the 56–99 scale
The era-adjusted score maps onto the rating scale so that an average starter lands in the mid-70s, a Pro Bowl–level season in the high 80s, and only historically great peaks reach the upper 90s. Quarterbacks use a slightly steeper scale because blending in passer rating compresses their scores; without it, no quarterback could reach the top tier.
Team defenses
Defense is rated as a unit, from points allowed per game, based on the official final score of every game (FiveThirtyEight's historical NFL game data and nflverse schedules). As with players, each season is compared with that year's league average, and the best season each franchise had in a decade becomes its defense card. The 1975 Rams, for example, allowed just 9.6 points per game when the league average was far higher.
From ratings to wins
Your five ratings combine into a team rating weighted by position (QB 30%, defense 23%, WR 18%, RB 16%, TE 13%). The team rating sets the chance of winning each of 17 simulated games, capped between 3% and 90% so no team is a sure thing. A perfect 17-0 is reserved for team ratings of 88 and above. In 16-0 Boss mode, the 2007 Patriots play at the level of a 95-rated team. The How to Play guide has the full tables.
Known limitations
- Box-score bias. Value that doesn't show up in statistics — blocking, play design, a quarterback's pre-snap work — isn't captured. Efficiency-first quarterbacks from low-volume eras can rate below their reputations.
- One franchise at a time. A player who split his prime across teams may rate lower at each stop than his career suggests.
- Five positions only. There are no offensive linemen or individual defenders; defense is the team unit.
- Corrections welcome. If you spot a wrong team, season or stat line, email kaplan3281@gmail.com. Ratings are revised as errors are found — for example, Ottis Anderson's 1981 season was moved to the Cardinals in October 2026.