Ken Anderson: Hall of Famer?

Those two would have to be 1-2, at least of Super Bowl Era QBs. Their stats are remarkably similar. Simms has a ring. Anderson has a MVP. I think most consider Anderson to be the better of the two players. He's been a HOF finalist twice and I don't think Simms has ever been a finalist.

 

Joe Namath: Mythological.

Ken Anderson: Statistical.

 

Gee, Joe, funny the way that past Namath post (of yours) keeps getting recycled in threads that dare point out what a genuinely crappy QB Namath actually was, yet without including the ensuing posts that chop its reasoning to pieces (for example, in threads such as this one: http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/83728/).

Yes, Namath's career can essentially be summarized as "four good seasons and nine crappy ones." But here's the catch, his four good seasons did NOT occur against NFL defenses, they occurred against watered down pass happy pre-merger AFL defenses. As soon as Namath had to start regularly facing legitimate NFL defenses, he instantly started and never ceased sucking. And do you know who else that happened to? The "mad bomber" Daryl Lamonica and nearly every other pre-merger AFL QB that racked up crazy passing stats in the the pass happy pre-merger AFL.

Fact is early AFL pass defenses were nowhere close to the NFL, which is why their star QBs promptly came crashing back to earth after the merger. There's no way in hell Namath would've had the same sort of "four seasons" if he'd been competing in the NFL at the time, something that is amply supported by the fact that he promptly transformed into a truly crappy QB the moment NFL teams started appearing on his regular season schedule.

And, as for arguments such as this one:

Sorry, they have been thoroughly debunked in prior posts, for example such as this one (by someone, I forget who):

The truth is Namath is the single most overrated athlete in American sports history (with Pete Maravich being number 2) and the myth of his greatness is largely just a New York media creation. He was not a winner, he lost the vast majority of his games and only won two post-season games in his entire career. And, overall, he was not a good QB--not just by modern standards, but by the standards of his most of own 70s era as well--when he was just about the worst starter in the league. And he was not even the true hero of that 68 Super Bowl run (Matt Snell was the true offensive MVP of that game, Namath was simply the guy who took credit for it). Yeah, he had three or four fun seasons flinging it around in the pre-merger AFL, Yippee!, doesn't make up for the decade of suck that surrounded it.

 

Fine, then Terry Metcalf is an HOF'er too, because he was my kiddie favorite, and me and my dad have warm and fuzzy feelings about him too. Had posters of him on my wall and everything, we all thought he was really "special."

Fuck the actual facts, that's all that really matters.

 

coldhardfootballfacts.com has some great stuff on why Anderson belongs in.

Anderson and Simms both belong in, IMHO. Simms would be in if he hadn't gotten hurt toward the end of Parcells last season with the Giants. (1990?)

I can't believe there are still people who judge a QB based on team performance. Would Tom Brady be the greatest QB of all time if David Tyree doesn't make his famous catch? Would Jim Kelly be a better QB than he was if Scott Norwood makes the field goal? Absurd.

 

"I wonder about ticket sales at the Hall of Actual Facts."

- Gale Sayers, 123rd all-time in total NFL rushing yards

 

What a crock of shit. Namath was one of the most reckless decision makers with the ball in NFL history. If he was so sharp, why did he have such a remarkable penchant for throwing the ball to the wrong colored jersey? Wonder whose ass Shula was trying to kiss when he gave that quote.

And, as if a quote is evidence. Has quality of quotes become the new metric for measuring HOF worthiness? Or is that just what you resort to when you know the facts prove you wrong?

But, hey, as long as we're playing by those rules:

"Terry Metcalf is the greatest runner I've ever seen." My Dad, 1976.

"Terry Metcalf is superman." 8 year old me, 1977.

 

The Pro Football Hall is a weird animal...style points are huge.

Doak Walker, Bobby Layne, Paul Hornung, Joe Namath, Lynn Swann, Floyd Little, George Blanda and a handful of other guys are in on legend and anecdotes. They were good players, sometimes great, but their stats don't back up the myths. However, these are no Veterans Committee baseball picks where guys selected old teammates from the 1920s and 30s because they had "great stats" compared to 1960s players.

Those guys were legitimate "stars" in the NFL or AFL. Namath was probably the most popular player in North America in the late 1960s...it is something that had never happened before for any period of time. Plenty of contemporary players and coaches rave about Namath, while the stats don't show the story even when adjusting for time. I was working on a book a few years ago and researched the archives about 30 papers in the South in the early 1970s. Namath was essentially the only NFL story every August when preseason started (texas, georgia and lousiana papers obviously covered the local teams). What does that say? That for some reason Namath was considered a big story every year because of his comebacks. Hornung was the same way...

 

"Terry Metcalf sucked as a Toronto Argonaut" 13-year-old me, 1978.

Some years back, Dr. Z made a good case for Anderson being a much better QB than he was ever given credit for. He loved Namath too but that probably stemmed largely from having covered the Jets when he was the man there.