Last updated on December 28th, 2025 at 01:47 am
In the NFL to dream the impossible dream is to strive to go beyond just winning a Super Bowl. It is having the goal of creating a dynasty. A team that for a set timeframe dominates the landscape and wins multiple Super Bowls. In the Super Bowl era here is a timeline of NFL dynasties.
If that is the goal what teams are on that path? While multiple factors are involved it comes down to some major determining ones. The four that stand out are the team composition, the quarterback, the coaches and management. In this first part of a series I take a look at the quarterbacks. One piece of data that is useful in measuring player value across multiple seasons and positions in the Approximate Value (AV) metric used on Pro Football Reference. The details of how that is derived and why it is a good metric are best researched at their site. Just a few details are that as a player’s value increases so does his AV value. What is a good AV can vary among positions and seasons. However I find that generally an Av of eight or better seems to be the threshold for a good player and there would be higher thresholds as you go to very good and elite.
Here is a spreadsheet of the quarterbacks for the dynasties shown above and their AV values for each of the seasons of the dynasty. I color coded the AVs for good (red, 8-9.9 AV), very good (yellow, 10-14.99 AV), pro bowl (green 15-19.99 AV) and elite (dark green, 20+ AV) based on their numeric values. Don’t let the red throw you – these are all good quarterbacks just is a relative coding. The blank lines are seasons in the dynasty that the quarterback did not achieve an AV of 8 or better.
For the most part all these quarterbacks had consecutive year after year during the dynasty with an AV of 8 or better. It is a picture of many Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
Taking a look at today’s quaterbacks and using the same criteria I arrived at a classification of who the next franchise dynasty quarterbacks may be. The classification is based on their AV values going back to 2020. This gives 5 years of potential AV values. The AV rating is not available for a current season. In order to take the current season into account I present their QBR (ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating). That is shown under the AV column for the 2025 season. Like AV I hae color coded the QBR based on the folowing scale
Elite: 75+ (typically seen in MVP-level seasons)
Very Good: 65–74 (indicates strong control and efficiency; Pro Bowl level)
Good (Above Average): 50–64 (solid contribution to team success; an average performance is considered 50)
Poor (Below Average): 35–49 (may require improvement or better support)
Terrible: Below 35 (often linked to losses or ineffective play; scores rarely fall below 5 for a starting QB who isn’t benched)
I do not show quarterbacks that are no longer on a team and I do show a quarterback’s prior history for ones on a new team. Here is the summary chart of the top potential franchise dynasty quarterbacks. Following I have a downloadable spreadsheet that shows every team. On this a 20+ AV (elite) is shown in black.
You can download the full team spreadsheet here. They are listed on two separate sheets.
2025 Quarterbacks by AV and QBR
Picture: File:Pittsburgh Steelers five rings.jpg. (2025, August 5). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved December 23, 2025, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Pittsburgh_Steelers_five_rings.jpg&oldid=1066674870.
