The Jets-Colts Super Bowl - a tangent

Lamonica is not a Hall of Famer.

 

in HIS best 4-year stretch, daryle lamonica -- namath's prime rival at the time AVERAGED 28 tds and 19 ints as the raiders went 44-8-3 in the games he started. like namath, 'the mad bomber' led a vertically pass-crazed attack in which he also completed just about 50 percent. lamonica took oakland to the playoffs FIVE times.

how d'ya like them apples, all you stat geeks? or check out lenny dawson's 'stats,' which also blow away namath's, including a % of more than 57, 239-183 td-int ratio, a record of 94-57-8 AND a super bowl upset victory almost as stunning as namath's, since many considered III a fluke until supe IV came along.

hey, thanks, i'm becoming more anti-joe than ever!

 

Shit.. I had to look up Griese 'cause I wasn't sure.



The fact Namath broke the 4,000 yard barrier is pretty impressive. And yeah a lot of his worthiness is based on the Super Bowl.
No Super Bowl there is NO way Namath gets in.

I think the same could be said of Terry Bradshaw.

 

I'm always a bit taken aback by the overemotional debates regarding current Hall of Fame candidates' credentials. I can't for the life of me figure out how y'all can hold on to the anger about a decision made 25 years ago.

 

as mike g. points out, daryle is not an hof'er.

and i understand the impact his knees had in shortening namath's career. but again, these comparisons to koufax are INSANE. and i LOVED marichal. koufax, gibson, marichal was about as good a threesome as there's ever been in the nl in the mid-to-late '60s. but neither gibson nor marichal was quite koufax during the five-year stretch that turned koufax into koufax. but, for the sake of this debate, marichal was also a FAR GREATER pitcher than namath was ever a qb.

 

"Mad Bomber" went 1-3 in AFL/AFC Title games and had a 4-4 record in the postseason, which could technically go to 4-5 if you add the fact he was pulled for Ken Stabler in the "Immaculate Reception" game (6-18, 45 yards, two picks will do that). Can't argue that his peak seasons (1967-70) were impressive, as was his 66-16-6 mark as a starter.

If Raiders fans want to be pissed about having one of their own screwed by the Hall, you should Black Hole the hell of the writers who (still) think Cliff Branch isn't worthy. I don't root for them and it pisses me off.

 

If there's an NFL player that bears a comparison to Kofax, it has to be Terrell Davis. Both had dominant four-year runs (though Kofax had five years), won multiple championships and were at the tops of their games when injuries terminated their careers.

 

except bradshaw on FOUR of 'em. if he'd lost all 4 he'd still be in (see: fran tarkenton, jim kelly). bradshaw had a body of work. namath barely had a 'body of work' at all compared to his fellow hof qbs. again, for 99% of those in the hall it's an acknowledgment of the greatness they brought to significant body of work; namath is in simply for one, historically signifcant moment. no one significant moment, no hof.

funny how our super bowl landscape is chock full of qbs not in the hall who had FAR better games than joe, like simms and doug williams, for example. timing is everything in life and namath certainly benefitted from great timing.

 

i know many have made this connection, but t.d. had only THREE great seasons. and again, t.d. wasn't koufax. ask people who've been around since koufax pitched to list the top five pitchers they've ever seen, i'm confident almost all would include koufax. ask those who've been around since, say, gale sayers to list the five best running backs they've ever seen and i'd opine that t.d. would not make the cut for many.

just sayin'. good barroom chatter here, though, for sure.

 

Namath was never as good of a quarterback as Koufax was as a pitcher. Not close. The comparison doesn't hold up at all.

 

With respect, there is no performance comparison between Koufax and Namath. None. Namath didn't come close to the dominance Koufax displayed from 1962-66.

Edit: Sorry. Late to the party on this post.

 

In his prime, Namath was one of the best quarterbacks of his time.
In his prime, Koufax was one of the best pitchers of all time.
Big difference in those two three-letter words.