John Elway

[JackReacher]

But how many of these QBs were ELITE?

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

Favre played like he didn't give a **** during his last several seasons with the Packers. I don't think anyone would ever say that about Montana or Elway.

My lifetime (40 years), I'd go:

1. Montana
2. Elway
3. Manning
4. Brady
5. Marino
6. Favre
7. Bradshaw
8. Young
After that group, it's Moon, Kelly, Aikman, Fouts, Rodgers, Brees and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. I think another title would move Manning up to No. 2 and if Brady wins another title, and Manning doesn't, it might put him ahead of Manning.

 

[JackReacher]

Everyone's QB rankings are correct. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Favre played like he didn't give a **** during his last several seasons with the Packers. I don't think anyone would ever say that about Montana or Elway.

My lifetime (40 years), I'd go:

1. Montana
2. Elway
3. Manning
4. Brady
5. Marino
6. Favre
7. Bradshaw
8. Young
After that group, it's Moon, Kelly, Aikman, Fouts, Rodgers, Brees and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. I think another title would move Manning up to No. 2 and if Brady wins another title, and Manning doesn't, it might put him ahead of Manning.

You give TB a LOT of credit.

Brady (and I hate Brady)
Montana
Marino
Elway
Manning
Favre
Brees
Young
Fouts
Kelly

Others
Namath, Bradshaw, Moon, Roethlisberger

I don't think Rodgers has enough years in.

 

[The Big Ragu]

This is all subjective -- it's opinion. Something a lot of people refuse to acknowledge.

Of QBs I saw, my top 10 list is:

1) Montana
2) Brady
3) Elway
4) Manning
5) Marino
6) Favre
7) Young
8 ) Brees
9) Kelly
10) Fouts

I take into account everything. Reputation, numbers, big moments, supporting cast, championships, etc.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

As noted already, Marino's annual passing numbers were stratospheric. That's saying something given he proceeded the Fouts/Air-Coryell Era.

Are you trying to say Marino "preceded" the Fouts/Air Coryell era?

Fouts' career: 1973-87
Marino's career: 1983-99

Or is this another one of the blue-font-without-the-blue-font posts?

Orville probably meant the other way around.
But even by Marino's rookie year, Fouts was an old, oft-injured stationary target playing on some of the most unbalanced teams the NFL has seen.
Marino was better in his second year in the league than Fouts ever was.

I didn't look to see how long Fouts played, but I knew off-hand by 1984 his best years were behind him.
I meant Marino came in after the heyday of Fouts and Air Coryell. I'd say that high-water mark was circia 1982.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

Favre played like he didn't give a **** during his last several seasons with the Packers. I don't think anyone would ever say that about Montana or Elway.

My lifetime (40 years), I'd go:

1. Montana
2. Elway
3. Manning
4. Brady
5. Marino
6. Favre
7. Bradshaw
8. Young
After that group, it's Moon, Kelly, Aikman, Fouts, Rodgers, Brees and I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. I think another title would move Manning up to No. 2 and if Brady wins another title, and Manning doesn't, it might put him ahead of Manning.

You give TB a LOT of credit.

Brady (and I hate Brady)
Montana
Marino
Elway
Manning
Favre
Brees
Young
Fouts
Kelly

Others
Namath, Bradshaw, Moon, Roethlisberger

I don't think Rodgers has enough years in.

I can't say I'd argue with anyone who has Montana, Elway, Manning, Brady or Marino as their best ever.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Marino = Palmeiro

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

Marino = Palmeiro

Marino = Karl Malone.

Great stats, no title, dumb as a ****ing rock.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Marino = Palmeiro

Marino = Karl Malone.

Great stats, no title, dumb as a ****ing rock.

Haha.

 

[BTExpress]

Also, what is your obsession with quarterbacks who struggle to get to and/or win Super Bowls?

I'm obsessed with "analysis" that looks at, say, a Patriots team that held the high-flying Rams to 17 points in the Super Bowl and then uses that result to declare, "Yep, Tom Brady is now officially a winner."

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Also, what is your obsession with quarterbacks who struggle to get to and/or win Super Bowls?

I'm obsessed with "analysis" that looks at, say, a Patriots team that held the high-flying Rams to 17 points in the Super Bowl and then uses that result to declare, "Yep, Tom Brady is now officially a winner."

Leaving a little out of that equation, aren't we?

 

[BTExpress]

Leaving a little out of that equation, aren't we?

Yes. Sorry.

"... and then casts a disparaging eye toward Dan Marino and others like him whose defenses were lucky to hold the opposition to 17 points in a half."

Or did you mean the part of the equation about Tuck Rules and clutch kickers who never missed at the ends of games after their quarterback couldn't get the offense deeper than the opponents' 30 or so.

Whole lotta things go into whether a QB is a winner or not.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

Leaving a little out of that equation, aren't we?

Yes. Sorry.

"... and then casts a disparaging eye toward Dan Marino and others like him whose defenses were lucky to hold the opposition to 17 points in a half."

Or did you mean the part of the equation about Tuck Rules and clutch kickers who never missed at the ends of games after their quarterback couldn't get the offense deeper than the opponents' 30 or so.

Whole lotta things go into whether a QB is a winner or not.

So, your opinion of Tom Brady is?

 

[BTExpress]

He's a Hall of Fame quarterback who has been on the positive side of the "luck" equation a little more frequently than many other quarterbacks of comparable ability.

 

[MileHigh]

Is this even a serious thread? My bias is obvious, but since the merger, Elway is the second-greatest quarterback in the NFL.

No ****ing way.

He's great, but not second-greatest since the merger. I'd take Staubach, Montana, Manning, Brady, maybe Favre, maybe Rodgers (if he keeps up), maybe Young, maybe Brees, maybe Fouts and maybe Marino over Elway. If Tarkenton counts (about half his career was before the merger), I might take him too.

Still great, and in the end, a winner, but the hagiography about Elway because he finished on top gets tedious. He's an average (for an all-timer) 45th all-time in interception percentage, and for someone with decent mobility, he got sacked a ton (73rd all-time).

He did a lot of great things too and aged very fine indeed.

Bad receivers? Not sure I'm on that train. He had decent receivers, no better than that, but he usually had an accumulation of them. Mark Jackson, Steve Watson, Ricky Nattiel and Vance Johnson? None are All-Pros on their own, but as a unit, that's not an easy group to account for coverage-wise.

There's no doubt his running backs, until Terrell Davis, where almost uniformly brutal. You'd get an oddball 1,000-yard season out of someone like Bobby Humphrey, but it was flukey.

Saved for the absurd, inept and highly laughable line that Elway is "average" all-timer. Seriously?

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

This thread has been ridiculous.

 

[JC]

Is Gherig searching the interwebs for a response?

 

[Morris816]

Bronco fan here adding his two cents.

Elway does tend to get propped up as the "king of fourth quarter comebacks" more than he probably should, especially when Montana and Marino were just as capable in that department. And it is silly to say that Marino had the more talented teams built around him than Elway... but nobody can say they were better than the ones built around Montana.

But with that said, people exaggerate how good the teams were around Elway. The defenses, for example, had more to do with how good Joe Collier and Wade Phillips were as coordinators, than they had to do with the talent level.

In the years Elway was in his prime and took teams to Super Bowls three out of four years (and an AFC title game against Buffalo), there were several players from the original Orange Crush, but they were all past their primes. Among players in their primes, I would only put Karl Mecklenburg, Dennis Smith, Simon Fletcher and Steve Atwater as truly talented players, and Atwater is the only player I can safely say belongs in the HOF (Mecklenburg is debatable). Everyone else couldn't get in sniffing distance of the Pro Bowl.

The offensive line was terrible through those seasons. The running backs were mostly an average bunch... Sammy Winder had a couple of good seasons but didn't last long. Bobby Humphrey showed promise, but his contract holdout cost him. As for receivers, the Three Amigos are overrated, and it had everything to do with them getting one of those late 1980s posters that were all the rage.

With all that said, there are legitimate reasons to say Marino may have done better if teams around him were built better.

But what it comes down to is that Elway performed better in his later years, particularly after Jim Fassel got him to put a better touch on the ball. We all talk about how hard Elway threw, but that sometimes made it an issue for his receivers because he threw it too hard. When Fassel got him to put a better touch on passes, Elway did better.

As for where I would rank them, I'd put Montana ahead of Elway, and Elway ahead of Marino, when looking at the entire package, but recognizing that Elway and Marino could have performed as well as Montana with better talent around them. And it's also worth asking how much of Montana's success came through Bill Walsh coaching him up -- Montana did have talent coming into the NFL, but I always believed he needed the right coach to refine him a bit to truly make him a top passer. It's similar to how I view Tom Brady, in that Bill Belichick was the right coach to get the best out of him.

 

[BTExpress]

It's similar to how I view Tom Brady, in that Bill Belichick was the right coach to get the best out of him.

Brady also took only a small fraction of the Pats' salary cap money during his Super Bowl runs. Like Russell Wilson, these are once-in-a-decade bargains that the right team can ride an awful long way.