In your opinion, is Brett Favre a .....

That's an interesting stat.

Bart Starr was 8-1 in the playoffs with Green Bay, losing his first postseason game and then reeling off eight consecutive wins, culminating in five championships and two Super Bowl wins. And, of course, the first two Super Bowl MVP awards.

No one has a higher winning percentage among QBs in the playoffs. Starr has the highest passer rating (104.3) in NFL postseason history. In 213 pass attempts, he threw for 15 touchdowns and only three interceptions.

The more I think about it, and the more Favre destroys his own legacy, the more I'm convinced that he's not even the best QB who ever wore a Packers uniform.

 

While I certainly understand that there is a certain undercurrent of the here and now that bothers old timers in all of these kinds of discussions, this is an example of going way too far the other way.

No way is any of those guys, except perhaps Unitas, in the discussion given how much the position has changed and evolved since they played.

 

You don't think that the QBs of the 70s wouldn't light it up today under the current rules?

 

Be careful about using stats to rank QBs of the era before tightened pass interference rules and loosened blocking rules. Quite a few really good passers before the late '70s/early '80s had as many or more INTs as TDs.

 

Does Favre win four Super Bowls with that Steelers defense, Swann, Stallworth, Harris and Bleier? Oh, I think so.

 

Staubach threw 52 TD passes (with only 25 INTs) when he was 36 and 37. That happened after 1978 when they stopped allowing Mel Blount to beat the living shit of guys.

 

And Marino probably wins five if he played for the Packers if you want to use that logic.

Oh, no way is Favre 3-0 against Doomsday and the Purple People eaters.

 

If he plays with the Steelers teams of the 1970's, yes, I think he does.

 

You evaluate greatness against their era. On my list, Johnny U is No. 2, just behind Montana. Bobby Layne might have had the best combination of arm, guts and leadership in the history of the game. Graham's passing attack revolutionized the game, not to mention the fact he took his team to a championship game every season he played. Van Brocklin was Dan Marino before Dan Marino, putting up Space Age numbers in the NFL's Stone Age, stats that still hold up today (check who has the record for most passing yards in a game, as well as which team holds the records for average points and yards per game in a season -- you might be surprised). Baugh was the league's most feared passer for 15 years.

 

And none of those guys ever played the position as well as Peyton Manning is right now

 

When it came to big games, and big moments in those games, he was certainly better than Favre.

In the fourth quarters of his four Super Bowls, all of them wins, Bradshaw went 11-16 for 292 yards and four touchdowns. His passer rating in those four fourth quarters - 151.0. For the four games themselves, his rating is 112.8. Only Montana's is better, as far as I'm aware.

Plus you can't argue with 4-0 in the Super Bowl and 14-5 in the postseason, as opposed to 1-1 and 12-10 for Favre.

 

Really? Manning is protected by guys who can extend their arms and open their hands in blocking. Every play would have been a penalty when Unitas played. Not to mention the way he's protected by the officials -- roughing the passer was a joke then. And his receivers would be fighting off defenders all the way down the field instead of running free after five yards.

Unitas was every bit as formidable a weapon in his time as Manning is in his. The numbers look different because the game has changed. If Unitas had been born in 1983 instead of 1933, he would be a star in today's game. He'd be bigger and stronger (remember, they didn't have nutritionist or strength/conditioning coaches then -- in fact, they didn't lift weights) and just as savvy. Remember, he was already calling his own plays back then, so I'm sure he'd have no trouble with Manning's gyrations and audibles at the line. And he'd have better protection and more open receivers.

Same goes for the others.

Now, that's not saying Manning isn't one of the greatest QBs ever. Surely, he's in the top 10, maybe top five. What I'm saying is just because those old guys played in a different era doesn't mean they can be dismissed out of hand.