List Of Green Bay Packers Starting Quarterbacks
As rules changed and the NFL began adopting a more pass-centric approach to offensive football, the importance of the quarterback position grew. Beginning in 1950, total wins and losses by a team's starting quarterback were tracked. Throughout the late 20th century and early 21st century, the significance of the position has grown exponentially. The modern starting quarterback is often viewed as the leader of the team and its player spokesperson. The position is often the highest paid player on an NFL team's roster, with teams assigning significant resources in trying to draft, acquire or trade for a franchise quarterback. These resources are based on the high expectations placed on the position, which include handling the ball on every offensive play (whether it be to pass the ball or hand it off to another player), relaying plays (or sometimes calling plays themselves) to the offense and understanding every teammate's role, formation and responsibility for every play. The emergence of the dual-threat quarterback has also seen additional focus on the position, with quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen leading their team in both passing and rushing yards during any given game.
Prior to 1950, the Packers had numerous players identified as playing the quarterback position, including Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Arnie Herber. However, the combination of unreliable statistics in the early era of the NFL and the differences in the early quarterback position make tracking starts by quarterbacks impractical for this timeframe. Since 1950 however, the Packers have had 33 starting quarterbacks in the history of their franchise. Five of those quarterbacks each made over 70 starts and between them started over 75% of the team's games in that time period, with varying levels of success. Tobin Rote, who started 73 games in the 1950s, and Lynn Dickey, who started in 101 games in the late 1970s and early 1980s, saw little on-field success. However, Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers all led the Packers to Super Bowl victories, with Starr winning five NFL championships in the 1960s. All three quarterbacks were named the NFL's Most Valuable Player at least once in their careers. Favre started the most games as quarterback for the Packers, both in the regular season (253) and during the playoffs (22). Favre never missed one start with the Packers, contributing to his NFL record of 321 consecutive starts by a quarterback. After Favre was traded to the New York Jets, Rodgers took over as starting quarterback, a role he would hold for 15 seasons. Combined, from Favre's first start in 1992 to Rodgers' last start in 2022, the two quarterbacks started 476 out of 495 possible regular season games. After Rodgers was traded to the Jets in 2022, the Packers named Jordan Love starting quarterback for the 2023 NFL season. Love started all 17 regular season games and 2 playoff games for the Packers in 2023.
Starting quarterbacks
![Playing card showing a picture of Rote in uniform](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Tobin_Rote_-_1952_Bowman_Large.jpg/220px-Tobin_Rote_-_1952_Bowman_Large.jpg)
![Starr in uniform tossing a football underhanded](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Bart_starr_bw.jpg/220px-Bart_starr_bw.jpg)
![Favre in uniform jogging on a football field](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/BrettFavre.jpg/220px-BrettFavre.jpg)
![Rodgers in uniform wearing his helmet](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Aaron_Rodgers_2008_%28cropped%29.jpg/220px-Aaron_Rodgers_2008_%28cropped%29.jpg)
† | Inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame | ||||
‡ | Inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame |
Regular season
Quarterback | Seasons with the Packers |
Seasons with at least one start as QB |
Games started |
Record | Refs | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
W | L | T | % | |||||
Zeke Bratkowski † | 1963–71 | 1966–68, 71 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | .500 | |
Carlos Brown | 1975–76 | 1976 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | .000 | |
Jack Concannon | 1974 | 1974 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .000 | |
Jim Del Gaizo | 1973 | 1973 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | .333 | |
Lynn Dickey † | 1976–85 | 1976–77, 79–85 | 101 | 43 | 56 | 2 | .436 | |
Anthony Dilweg | 1989–90 | 1990 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 0 | .286 | |
Brett Favre ‡ | 1992–2007 | 1992–2007 | 253 | 160 | 93 | 0 | .632 | |
Matt Flynn | 2008–11, 13–14 | 2008–11, 13 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | .500 | |
Joe Francis | 1958–59 | 1958 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .000 | |
John Hadl | 1974–75 | 1974–75 | 19 | 7 | 12 | 0 | .368 | |
Don Horn | 1967–70 | 1969–70 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | .667 | |
Brett Hundley | 2015–17 | 2017 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 0 | .333 | |
Scott Hunter | 1971–73 | 1971–73 | 29 | 15 | 11 | 3 | .569 | |
Randy Johnson | 1976 | 1976 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | |
Blair Kiel | 1988–91 | 1990–91 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .000 | |
Jordan Love | 2020–23 | 2022–23 | 18 | 9 | 9 | 0 | .500 | |
Don Majkowski † | 1987–92 | 1987–92 | 49 | 22 | 26 | 1 | .459 | |
Lamar McHan | 1959–60 | 1959–60 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 0 | .636 | |
Don Milan | 1975 | 1975 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .000 | |
Babe Parilli | 1952–53, 57–58 | 1952–53, 57–58 | 14 | 3 | 11 | 0 | .214 | |
Alan Risher | 1987 | 1987 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | .667 | |
John Roach | 1961–63 | 1963 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | .750 | |
Aaron Rodgers | 2005–22 | 2008–22 | 223 | 147 | 75 | 1 | .661 | |
Tobin Rote † | 1950–56 | 1950–56 | 73 | 26 | 46 | 1 | .363 | |
Bart Starr ‡ | 1956–71 | 1956–71 | 157 | 94 | 57 | 6 | .618 | |
Jerry Tagge | 1972–74 | 1973–74 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 0 | .500 | |
Bobby Thomason | 1951 | 1951 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .000 | |
Scott Tolzien | 2013–15 | 2013 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .250 | |
Mike Tomczak | 1991 | 1991 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 0 | .286 | |
Seneca Wallace | 2013 | 2013 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .000 | |
David Whitehurst | 1977–83 | 1977–79, 81 | 37 | 16 | 20 | 1 | .446 | |
Randy Wright | 1984–88 | 1984–88 | 32 | 7 | 25 | 0 | .219 | |
Jim Zorn | 1985 | 1985 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | .600 |
Postseason
Quarterback | Seasons with the Packers |
Seasons with at least one start as QB |
Games started |
Record | Refs | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
W | L | % | |||||
Lynn Dickey † | 1976–85 | 1982 | 2 | 1 | 1 | .500 | |
Brett Favre ‡ | 1992–2007 | 1993–98, 2001–04, 07 | 22 | 12 | 10 | .545 | |
Scott Hunter | 1971–73 | 1972 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .000 | |
Jordan Love | 2020–23 | 2023 | 2 | 1 | 1 | .500 | |
Aaron Rodgers | 2005–22 | 2009–16, 19–21 | 21 | 11 | 10 | .524 | |
Bart Starr ‡ | 1956–71 | 1960–62, 65–67 | 10 | 9 | 1 | .900 |
See also
- List of starting quarterbacks in the National Football League – updated list of current starting quarterbacks for each NFL team
- List of Green Bay Packers team records – statistics and records by Green Bay Packers players, including passing records
- Lists of Green Bay Packers players – various lists of different Green Bay Packers players