Joe Montana. Joe Cool. “The Catch”. Four interception-free Super Bowl wins. Etc. etc. I’m guessing if you polled football fans or football experts on who’s the greatest quarterback of all-time, Montana would get the most votes. And if you’re over 30, I’d be insulting your intelligence if I explained why. The real challenge is trying to come up with reasons for why Montana isn’t the greatest ever. But I enjoy a challenge. And I don’t want to pick Montana as the greatest ever! What can I say, I was a Marino fan back in the 80’s and it irked me to no end to see Montana get all the credit for winning and Marino get all the blame for not winning even though a chimp could see how much better Montana’s teams were. But that’s petty. The more important reason to hold a grudge against Montana was the way he acted during the 1987 NFL players strike. While guys like Marino sacrificed their huge incomes to honor the picket line and hold the union together, Montana sat back to see which way the wind blew, made no public pronouncements in support of the union, and finally broke the picket line and reported to work while the strike was still going, leaving his fellow players to twist in the wind and helping to doom their noble effort to claim their right to free agency. The great Joe Montana; lining up with a bunch of scabs. Despite his on-field greatness, that proved Montana to be a me-first, selfish jerk who showed no understanding of the issue or of the sacrifices earlier union members had made to make Joe Montana one rich football player. Marino and a whole lot of other guys (Boomer Esiason comes to mind) acted far more honorably off the field than Montana ever did. Ok, now properly motivated let me nitpick a few reasons why Montana might not quite be the greatest of all-time.
1) Teammates
Football’s a team sport and obviously Montana didn’t win four Super Bowls by himself. I already pointed out in my Dan Marino post just how great the 1984 49ers were. And most of the great players on that squad had already won a title on the 1981 Niners. On offense, four All-Pro lineman protected Montana from his opponents’ pass rush. Montana could pass to his All-Pro receiver Dwight Clark, or hand off (or pass to) to his great backs Wendell Tyler and Roger Craig. Montana’s teams rarely trailed by many points as that defense featured arguably the greatest secondary of all-time, plus great pass-rushers like Hall-of-Famer Fred Dean and four-time all-pro Keena Turner. By 1988-1989 some of those players had retired or were past their prime. No problem. San Francisco just added the likes of Jerry Rice, the greatest freaking receiver of all-time, All-Pro tight end Brent Jones, and All-Pro lineman Harris Barton to the offense, while the defense added a seemingly inexhaustible supply of All-Pros like Charles Haley, Matt Millen, Mike Walter, Don Griffin, Kevin Fagan, Pierce Holt, and probably some more I’m missing. It’s endless! God, did the Niners ever miss in the draft? Honestly, every one of Montana’s Super Bowl squads was loaded. They had no weaknesses. And let’s not forget that the greatest offensive mind of the last three decades (maybe ever!) designed the offense and called the plays: Bill Walsh.
So how much was Joe and how much was the rest of the team? We know the Niners kept right on winning after Montana left though they added just one more title. No one can take away anything that Montana accomplished. But if he’d traded places with Dan Marino or John Elway, would those guys have won titles in the 1980's like Montana did and conversely, could Montana have elevated their less-talented teams to championships? The answer seems obvious to me. If Montana and Marino switched places in Super Bowl XIX than Dan Marino would be wearing at least one ring right now. I’m pretty sure Bill Walsh could have designed a few plays to take advantage of Marino’s skills while Montana wouldn’t have been doing anything but running for his life at QB for the Dolphins.
2) Adverse Conditions
Montana posted a stellar 16-7 career postseason mark. But check his postseason home/road split (which I’ve never seen anyone do before). Montana played in seven road playoff games and won but two, and one of those was a late-career wild-card game with the Chiefs. In Joe’s six road playoff games with the Niners dynasty he won only once. One out of six. Now that record’s far from unusual; the vast majority of the greatest quarterbacks of the last 40 years have losing road playoff records (I checked). It’s just really, really hard to win on the road. But despite his reputation for clutch play Montana wasn’t any better than Marino, Elway, or anybody else when it came to playoff road games.
As for bad weather playoff games, I believe Montana only played in one. And he won it. And as luck would have it that was also the one playoff road game he won as a 49er. San Francisco routed the Chicago Bears 28-3 in the 1988 NFL Championship Game despite 17-degree temperatures and a wind-chill factor of -26. So only once did Montana triumph in a bad weather road playoff game. He deserves a lot of credit for that win but one game certainly isn’t enough to say Montana had anything like a track record of success concerning big wins in tough situations.
3) The New York Giants
Oftentimes, a good part of a quarterback’s reputation comes from his performances against his biggest rival. Brady vs. Manning’s the obvious example. And in the past we’ve seen Aikman vs. Young, Bradshaw vs. Staubach and Stabler, and Unitas vs. Starr. Unfortunately, Joe Montana lacked a great rival quarterback. The other great QB’s of his era, Marino and Elway, played in the AFC and Montana’s Super Bowl battles with them wound up as embarrassing one-sided routs. Other than San Francisco, the best teams of the 1984-1990 period were the Bears, the Giants, and the Redskins, but of them only San Francisco had a great quarterback. Those four teams were also the only teams to win Super Bowls between 1984 and 1990, with just the Niners and Giants winning multiple Super Bowls. San Francisco and New York also met four times in the playoffs in that period, more than the Niners met the Bears and Redskins combined, so it’s fair to say the Giants were the Niners biggest rival in the 1980’s. But somehow, for some reason, this matchup never registered with the public as a great NFL rivalry the way the Colts and Patriots are today. I can’t say why but, as great rivalries seem to revolve around the quarterbacks, my guess would be that Phil Simms, while a good player, just wasn’t anywhere close to the level of Montana, Marino, or the other top QB’s of the day. Without an intriguing QB matchup, the game failed to capture the interest of the general public. New York’s biggest stars, especially Lawrence Taylor, played on defense not offense and fans prefer offense to defense.
Montana and his team beat the Giants in the first playoff matchup. But that was in 1984, only Bill Parcells’ second season as coach and New York squeaked into the playoffs that year with a 9-7 mark (following a 3-12-1 campaign in ’83). After that it was all G-Men. Following one of the great seasons in NFL history, the Niners lost 17-3 in the first round to the Giants in ’85. The next year, an even more embarrassing first-round loss: 49-3. In 1990, the worst loss of all: the Niners, at home and owners of the league's best record, fell 15-13 to New York and blew their chance to win an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl. Three straight playoff losses to the Giants and in those three games Joe Montana could only lead his team to a combined 19 points. Montana's team beat just about everyone else when it mattered, but Bill Parcells' New York Giants had his number.
4) Arm Strength
The reason Joe Montana lasted until the third round of the draft was because of his lack of arm strength. Turns out that part of the game is way overrated and all those teams that let Montana slip through their hands look really stupid now. But, while arm strength is far from the most important attribute of a QB, surely we can picture a situation where it might come in handy right?
I bring all of the above up for a reason. If you base your choice on the greatest quarterback of all-time on a quarterback’s career accomplishments, than Joe Montana might well be your choice. Stats, championships, clutch performances. Arguably nobody in the last quarter century, if not ever, accomplished more on the field than Joe Montana. But what if your choice was the answer to this question: If you absolutely had to win one football game, who would you want to be your quarterback? Is it still Joe Montana then? What if the game was on the road? What if it was played in terrible weather conditions? What if your team was playing its biggest rival, a team with a great defense and pass rush? What if your team had no running game to speak of? If some of those conditions applied, would you still pick Montana?
If you did, you’d probably have at least as good a chance to win as anybody. But I say that based upon his body of work there’s one man who would give you an even better chance to win that game than Joe Montana. And I shall reveal his name in the final entry in this series of posts.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Not The Greatest Quarterback of All-Time: Part Six: Sammy Baugh; Otto Graham
Sammy Baugh and Otto Graham. The two greatest quarterbacks from the pre-1960’s NFL. Ok, how am I supposed to fairly rank these guys? Either Slingin’ Sam or Automatic Otto may well be the greatest QB of all-time, but how could we possibly know? The only person around who ever saw Baugh play was Baugh himself. At 94, he’s pretty much outlived all of his fans. There’s hardly any existing film clips of either guy either. What we do know is that when each man was active, he was the most accurate passer the league had ever seen. I’m no expert in old-timey football so let me just jot down a few of the problems you'd have with listing Baugh or Graham as the top QB of all-time.
If anyone wants to say Sammy Baugh was the greatest player of all-time I’m not going argue with them. Besides his brilliant quarterback play, the man holds several NFL punting records and once picked off 11 passes in a season as a defensive back. Let me just make two points. First, addressing only passing here, note that while his passing stats were incredible compared to his contemporaries it must be pointed out that a lot of teams weren’t even using what we would today call quarterbacks. Teams used tailbacks who would throw or run. For years Baugh himself was a tailback in the double wing formation though he threw more than everyone else as the short passing game developed. The T-formation began to take over in the 1940’s. The game was still in the primitive stages before WWII and not every club was playing the same offensive game that Baugh and the Redskins were.
Second, let’s face it, the competition back in Baugh’s day wasn’t anything like it is now. In the first place, the NFL was strictly minor league. The game had no hold at all on the popular imagination; baseball, college football, and boxing were the defining sports of Baugh’s era. The best athletes of that time almost certainly weren’t playing professional football. And that’s before recognizing that African-American players weren’t welcome in the NFL until 1946 at the earliest. And several of Baugh’s best seasons, including his very best (1945), happened during WWII when much of the NFL’s already shaky talent base wore Army uniforms rather than football ones. As dominant as Baugh was, in a much weaker league with many fewer teams than today, you might expect a player that dominant to win more than “just” two championships. To elevate Baugh to the very top, he’d have to have been in the title game practically every single year. Too many other QB’s since his time have won more. Based on what others have written about Baugh’s skills and style of play I’m quite sure if he was in his prime today he’d be one of the best QB’s in football. But I just don’t have enough to justify putting him at the very top of the list.
Speaking of playing in the title game practically every year, there is one quarterback who did exactly that: Otto Graham. In his ten-year career Graham played for the title every single year, winning seven times in all! If a QB’s greatness is defined by winning, than without a doubt Graham is the best. But let’s look closer at exactly what Graham won. His first four titles came while he played in the All-American Football Conference, not the National Football League. The Cleveland Browns won that league in every one of its four seasons while dropping just four games in all. One could not call the AAFC a well-balanced league. In his six NFL seasons, Graham played in the title game each year and won three times. Very impressive but that’s still only six seasons. And I’m not quite sure just how tough it was getting to those title games. It looks like the only other really good teams from 1950-1955 were the Rams and the Lions, and one or the other of those teams was always Graham’s opponent in his six NFL title games.
Graham also had an edge that no modern-day QB could. Paul Brown built that Cleveland Browns team outside the existing NFL structure. Meaning, he could assemble an all-star team of the best talent not in the NFL, which he did. And Brown, arguably the most innovative figure in NFL history, ran a more sophisticated and advanced offense than anyone had ever seen. The Browns were the first team to use playbooks and game films and to perfect timed passing routes. Graham executed Paul Brown’s offense to perfection but if he played today those structural advantages would not exist. Like Baugh, I’m sure he’d be great in any era but in the end you just can’t put a guy at the top who played in the NFL for only six seasons.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
If anyone wants to say Sammy Baugh was the greatest player of all-time I’m not going argue with them. Besides his brilliant quarterback play, the man holds several NFL punting records and once picked off 11 passes in a season as a defensive back. Let me just make two points. First, addressing only passing here, note that while his passing stats were incredible compared to his contemporaries it must be pointed out that a lot of teams weren’t even using what we would today call quarterbacks. Teams used tailbacks who would throw or run. For years Baugh himself was a tailback in the double wing formation though he threw more than everyone else as the short passing game developed. The T-formation began to take over in the 1940’s. The game was still in the primitive stages before WWII and not every club was playing the same offensive game that Baugh and the Redskins were.
Second, let’s face it, the competition back in Baugh’s day wasn’t anything like it is now. In the first place, the NFL was strictly minor league. The game had no hold at all on the popular imagination; baseball, college football, and boxing were the defining sports of Baugh’s era. The best athletes of that time almost certainly weren’t playing professional football. And that’s before recognizing that African-American players weren’t welcome in the NFL until 1946 at the earliest. And several of Baugh’s best seasons, including his very best (1945), happened during WWII when much of the NFL’s already shaky talent base wore Army uniforms rather than football ones. As dominant as Baugh was, in a much weaker league with many fewer teams than today, you might expect a player that dominant to win more than “just” two championships. To elevate Baugh to the very top, he’d have to have been in the title game practically every single year. Too many other QB’s since his time have won more. Based on what others have written about Baugh’s skills and style of play I’m quite sure if he was in his prime today he’d be one of the best QB’s in football. But I just don’t have enough to justify putting him at the very top of the list.
Speaking of playing in the title game practically every year, there is one quarterback who did exactly that: Otto Graham. In his ten-year career Graham played for the title every single year, winning seven times in all! If a QB’s greatness is defined by winning, than without a doubt Graham is the best. But let’s look closer at exactly what Graham won. His first four titles came while he played in the All-American Football Conference, not the National Football League. The Cleveland Browns won that league in every one of its four seasons while dropping just four games in all. One could not call the AAFC a well-balanced league. In his six NFL seasons, Graham played in the title game each year and won three times. Very impressive but that’s still only six seasons. And I’m not quite sure just how tough it was getting to those title games. It looks like the only other really good teams from 1950-1955 were the Rams and the Lions, and one or the other of those teams was always Graham’s opponent in his six NFL title games.
Graham also had an edge that no modern-day QB could. Paul Brown built that Cleveland Browns team outside the existing NFL structure. Meaning, he could assemble an all-star team of the best talent not in the NFL, which he did. And Brown, arguably the most innovative figure in NFL history, ran a more sophisticated and advanced offense than anyone had ever seen. The Browns were the first team to use playbooks and game films and to perfect timed passing routes. Graham executed Paul Brown’s offense to perfection but if he played today those structural advantages would not exist. Like Baugh, I’m sure he’d be great in any era but in the end you just can’t put a guy at the top who played in the NFL for only six seasons.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Not The Greatest Quarterback of All-Time, Part Five: Johnny Unitas
My favorite Johnny Unitas memory? It would have to be his marvelous work as the suffering football announcer who can’t get a word in edgewise thanks to the incessant chatter from his broadcast partner Bob Crane. In the end Crane finally got his (bludgeoned to death with a videocam tripod), and Johnny U triumphantly got to call the winning score without interference from his no-longer annoying boothmate. I speak of course of the movie Gus, a typical Disney slapstick effort of the 1970’s, this one a touching saga about a mule who kicks field goals with the support of a generous helping of beloved classic TV sitcom stars who worked cheap: Crane, Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Ed Asner, Dick Van Patten, and Tom Bosley. As I said, a typical Disney movie of its time, stupid, silly and shoddy (special effects-wise). And I loved it! And yes, only in real life did Crane meet the gruesome fate described above. I think in the movie, his last, the poor sex-addicted bastard was stricken with sudden laryngitis as the crucial football sequence played out (in slow motion naturally).
I bring up this cinematic classic as my way of conveying that, unlike the previous quarterbacks discussed in this series, I have no memories of seeing Unitas play. To decide whether or not he was the greatest QB ever I must rely solely on his on-field accomplishments and what I’ve read about the man. And based on those things the man was one hell of a quarterback. One-time owner of every major passing record, three-time NFL champion, six-time All-Pro, four seasons with an MVP award, selected as the QB for the NFL’s 50-year anniversary team, one of four QB’s on the 75th anniversary team, etc., etc., etc. When he died in 2002, Sports Illustrated proclaimed him, “The Best There Ever Was”.
But they were wrong.
Unitas made his legend early. In just his second full season as a starter he earned All-Pro votes and led the league in just about every major passing stat. The next year he led his team to its first title, an overtime win versus the Giants in the so-called “Greatest Game Ever Played”. The year after that, the Colts won a second-straight title with Unitas as the league’s MVP. After four seasons as a starting QB, Unitas was the most famous player in the game. As you can see he played brilliantly in his first two postseason triumphs:
It never got any better than that. In his excellent book Big Play, Allen Barra writes: “I’ve never heard anyone mention one, simple, obvious, and very important fact: After 1960 Johnny Unitas never played a single good postseason game”. He’s right. See for yourself:
Now his team didn’t do all that badly despite his poor performances. The Colts went 3-2 in those games if you don’t include Super Bowls III and V where Unitas played only parts of those games; 4-3 if you count them. I don’t know how much credit Unitas deserves for the 1970 championship. He played horribly that year:
His postseason stats that year are crazy. He was incredibly inaccurate but connected on enough deep passes to post a good QB rating for at least the first game. In Super Bowl V he was totally ineffective, completing only 3 passes, before getting knocked out of the game partway through the 2nd quarter. Yet his last pass of the game, an overthrown twice-deflected ball, wound up in the hands of John Mackey for a 75-yard TD that tied the game 6-6. Earl Morrall took over and guided the Colts to a last-second 16-13 victory (mainly thanks to Dallas turnovers). So can we say Unitas won a third championship? Or was he along for the ride? I don’t know.
What I do know is that Mr. Barra may have been slightly unfair to Unitas. While he clearly played badly in the postseason after his first two triumphs, those subsequent games were not exactly Johnny U in his prime. Not only did Unitas never play a single good postseason game after 1960, he never had a good season after 1967. And with the exception of the 1964 title game loss, all of those bad performances came after 1967. The reason Morrall famously took over for Unitas in 1968 and started (and blew) Super Bowl III was because of the serious hand injury Unitas suffered in the 1968 preseason. Sadly, Unitas suffered for the rest of his life from that injury. Due to either age (he was 34 in 1967), the injury, or a combination of both, Unitas was never the same player after he came back. Considering only games in Unitas’ postseason prime leaves us with his great 1958-1959 games and his awful 1964 one, where Unitas’ heavily favored Colts got blanked by the Cleveland Browns 27-0 (and it was 0-0 at the half so that one can’t be pinned on the defense).
Well, two out of three ain’t bad and we’re left with just those three games to go on. Or are we? Think about this. Before 1967, the NFL consisted of two conferences. The team with the best record in each conference was the conference champion and the two conference champions would play for the championship. No wild-cards, no playoff rounds. Just one game. So regular season were more important (especially in a 14-game season), and the most important regular season games would be the ones against the other best team(s) in the conference because those head-to-head matchups represented two-game swings in the standings. And from 1964 to 1967, the two best teams in the Western Conference (and in the league) were the Baltimore Colts and the Green Bay Packers. We now remember the Packers as the dominant team of that time period but look at the team’s combined records over those four seasons:
Baltimore 42-11-3
Green Bay 39-14-3
Baltimore was actually a little bit better! Yet Green Bay won three titles in that four-year span to Baltimore’s none and part of the reason was the head-to-head matchups. In 1964 it was the 12-2 Colts sweeping the Packers in two close games to help them win the conference by 3.5 games. The Colts led the league in offense and defense but Unitas and his team blew it in the title game, losing to the Browns 27-0. The next year, the Colts and Packers tied for the Western Conference title at 10-3-1 forcing a special playoff game won by Green Bay in OT. Unitas missed the game with an injury so that wasn’t his fault but had the Colts won just one of the two head-to-head regular season matchups with the Packers, no playoff would have been necessary. The Colts couldn't beat the Pack when it mattered in either 1965 or 1966, when the Pack again swept the Colts. Green Bay won the conference by 3 games over the runner-up Colts. If Baltimore had earned the sweep, then they would have gone on to play for the championship. In 1967, Unitas finally broke the losing streak to Green Bay by leading a last-second comeback. However, the NFL changed to a four-division format that year and the two teams now played in separate divisions and only met once. The new best team in the Colts’ division, and the team Unitas had to beat that year, was the Los Angeles Rams. In one of the most bizarre unforeseen outcomes in NFL history the Colts tied the Rams for the league’s best record that year yet missed the playoff entirely! You see, only the four division winners made the postseason. The Colts tied the Rams at 11-1-2, but lost the division on a tiebreaker. The Colts were undefeated until the final week, when the Rams crushed them in the showdown for the title and Unitas played badly that day. And had Baltmore been able to beat L.A. in their earlier-season matchup instead of settling for a tie, the final-week showdown with L.A. would have been meaningless (playoff-wise that is; Baltmore still blew an undefeated season). Unitas couldn't beat the Rams when he had to.
So let’s add up Unitas’ biggest games from 1964-1967. Totalling all the Packers games plus the two 1967 Rams games along with the 1964 Championship Game loss gives us a record of 3-6-1. I don’t have boxscores for all of those game but I believe Unitas had costly turnovers in just about every one.
I’m not trying to prove anything here. It goes without saying Unitas was one of the greatest players in NFL history. Many of the greatest football experts put him at the very top. Upon the occasion of Unitas’ death, Frank Deford wrote, “"If there were one game scheduled, Earth vs. the Klingons, with the fate of the universe on the line, any person with his wits about him would have Johnny U. calling the signals in the huddle."
But the overall record appears to show Unitas was below-average in the biggest games of his career and since we’re talking about who THE greatest quarterback of all-time is, I can’t put Unitas at the top. Allen Barra’s the first person I’ve ever seen note Unitas’ big-game failures so I’ll let his response to Deford’s words be the last words: “I'm afraid if there were one big game between Earth and the Klingons and Frank Deford was choosing the quarterback, we'd all be speaking Klingonese.”
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
I bring up this cinematic classic as my way of conveying that, unlike the previous quarterbacks discussed in this series, I have no memories of seeing Unitas play. To decide whether or not he was the greatest QB ever I must rely solely on his on-field accomplishments and what I’ve read about the man. And based on those things the man was one hell of a quarterback. One-time owner of every major passing record, three-time NFL champion, six-time All-Pro, four seasons with an MVP award, selected as the QB for the NFL’s 50-year anniversary team, one of four QB’s on the 75th anniversary team, etc., etc., etc. When he died in 2002, Sports Illustrated proclaimed him, “The Best There Ever Was”.
But they were wrong.
Unitas made his legend early. In just his second full season as a starter he earned All-Pro votes and led the league in just about every major passing stat. The next year he led his team to its first title, an overtime win versus the Giants in the so-called “Greatest Game Ever Played”. The year after that, the Colts won a second-straight title with Unitas as the league’s MVP. After four seasons as a starting QB, Unitas was the most famous player in the game. As you can see he played brilliantly in his first two postseason triumphs:
| Year | Comp | Att | Comp % | Yards | TD | Int | Rating |
| 1958 | 26 | 40 | 65.0 | 349 | 1 | 1 | 90.5 |
| 1959 | 18 | 29 | 62.1 | 265 | 2 | 0 | 114.9 |
It never got any better than that. In his excellent book Big Play, Allen Barra writes: “I’ve never heard anyone mention one, simple, obvious, and very important fact: After 1960 Johnny Unitas never played a single good postseason game”. He’s right. See for yourself:
| Year | Comp | Att | Comp % | Yards | TD | Int | Rating |
| 1964 | 12 | 20 | 60.0 | 95 | 0 | 2 | 32.3 |
| 1968 | 11 | 24 | 45.8 | 110 | 0 | 1 | 42.0 |
| 1970 | 6 | 17 | 35.3 | 129 | 2 | 0 | 106.2 |
| 1970 | 11 | 30 | 36.7 | 245 | 1 | 0 | 77.8 |
| 1970 | 3 | 9 | 33.3 | 88 | 1 | 2 | 68.1 |
| 1971 | 13 | 21 | 61.9 | 143 | 0 | 1 | 62.2 |
| 1971 | 20 | 36 | 55.6 | 224 | 0 | 3 | 39.6 |
Now his team didn’t do all that badly despite his poor performances. The Colts went 3-2 in those games if you don’t include Super Bowls III and V where Unitas played only parts of those games; 4-3 if you count them. I don’t know how much credit Unitas deserves for the 1970 championship. He played horribly that year:
| Comp | Att | Comp % | Yards | TD | Int | Rating |
| 166 | 321 | 51.7 | 2213 | 14 | 18 | 65.1 |
His postseason stats that year are crazy. He was incredibly inaccurate but connected on enough deep passes to post a good QB rating for at least the first game. In Super Bowl V he was totally ineffective, completing only 3 passes, before getting knocked out of the game partway through the 2nd quarter. Yet his last pass of the game, an overthrown twice-deflected ball, wound up in the hands of John Mackey for a 75-yard TD that tied the game 6-6. Earl Morrall took over and guided the Colts to a last-second 16-13 victory (mainly thanks to Dallas turnovers). So can we say Unitas won a third championship? Or was he along for the ride? I don’t know.
What I do know is that Mr. Barra may have been slightly unfair to Unitas. While he clearly played badly in the postseason after his first two triumphs, those subsequent games were not exactly Johnny U in his prime. Not only did Unitas never play a single good postseason game after 1960, he never had a good season after 1967. And with the exception of the 1964 title game loss, all of those bad performances came after 1967. The reason Morrall famously took over for Unitas in 1968 and started (and blew) Super Bowl III was because of the serious hand injury Unitas suffered in the 1968 preseason. Sadly, Unitas suffered for the rest of his life from that injury. Due to either age (he was 34 in 1967), the injury, or a combination of both, Unitas was never the same player after he came back. Considering only games in Unitas’ postseason prime leaves us with his great 1958-1959 games and his awful 1964 one, where Unitas’ heavily favored Colts got blanked by the Cleveland Browns 27-0 (and it was 0-0 at the half so that one can’t be pinned on the defense).
Well, two out of three ain’t bad and we’re left with just those three games to go on. Or are we? Think about this. Before 1967, the NFL consisted of two conferences. The team with the best record in each conference was the conference champion and the two conference champions would play for the championship. No wild-cards, no playoff rounds. Just one game. So regular season were more important (especially in a 14-game season), and the most important regular season games would be the ones against the other best team(s) in the conference because those head-to-head matchups represented two-game swings in the standings. And from 1964 to 1967, the two best teams in the Western Conference (and in the league) were the Baltimore Colts and the Green Bay Packers. We now remember the Packers as the dominant team of that time period but look at the team’s combined records over those four seasons:
Baltimore 42-11-3
Green Bay 39-14-3
Baltimore was actually a little bit better! Yet Green Bay won three titles in that four-year span to Baltimore’s none and part of the reason was the head-to-head matchups. In 1964 it was the 12-2 Colts sweeping the Packers in two close games to help them win the conference by 3.5 games. The Colts led the league in offense and defense but Unitas and his team blew it in the title game, losing to the Browns 27-0. The next year, the Colts and Packers tied for the Western Conference title at 10-3-1 forcing a special playoff game won by Green Bay in OT. Unitas missed the game with an injury so that wasn’t his fault but had the Colts won just one of the two head-to-head regular season matchups with the Packers, no playoff would have been necessary. The Colts couldn't beat the Pack when it mattered in either 1965 or 1966, when the Pack again swept the Colts. Green Bay won the conference by 3 games over the runner-up Colts. If Baltimore had earned the sweep, then they would have gone on to play for the championship. In 1967, Unitas finally broke the losing streak to Green Bay by leading a last-second comeback. However, the NFL changed to a four-division format that year and the two teams now played in separate divisions and only met once. The new best team in the Colts’ division, and the team Unitas had to beat that year, was the Los Angeles Rams. In one of the most bizarre unforeseen outcomes in NFL history the Colts tied the Rams for the league’s best record that year yet missed the playoff entirely! You see, only the four division winners made the postseason. The Colts tied the Rams at 11-1-2, but lost the division on a tiebreaker. The Colts were undefeated until the final week, when the Rams crushed them in the showdown for the title and Unitas played badly that day. And had Baltmore been able to beat L.A. in their earlier-season matchup instead of settling for a tie, the final-week showdown with L.A. would have been meaningless (playoff-wise that is; Baltmore still blew an undefeated season). Unitas couldn't beat the Rams when he had to.
So let’s add up Unitas’ biggest games from 1964-1967. Totalling all the Packers games plus the two 1967 Rams games along with the 1964 Championship Game loss gives us a record of 3-6-1. I don’t have boxscores for all of those game but I believe Unitas had costly turnovers in just about every one.
I’m not trying to prove anything here. It goes without saying Unitas was one of the greatest players in NFL history. Many of the greatest football experts put him at the very top. Upon the occasion of Unitas’ death, Frank Deford wrote, “"If there were one game scheduled, Earth vs. the Klingons, with the fate of the universe on the line, any person with his wits about him would have Johnny U. calling the signals in the huddle."
But the overall record appears to show Unitas was below-average in the biggest games of his career and since we’re talking about who THE greatest quarterback of all-time is, I can’t put Unitas at the top. Allen Barra’s the first person I’ve ever seen note Unitas’ big-game failures so I’ll let his response to Deford’s words be the last words: “I'm afraid if there were one big game between Earth and the Klingons and Frank Deford was choosing the quarterback, we'd all be speaking Klingonese.”
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Not the Greatest Quarterback of All-Time, Part Four: Dan Marino
Dan Marino’s my favorite player of all time so if you’re here looking for critical things to be written about him, you’re in the wrong place buddy. Past Interference isn’t going there. Ever! Do you hear?! Suffice it to say, since Marino never led the Miami Dolphins to a championship team and as he has now ceased to be the NFL’s all-time leading passer, it’s not possible for him to be considered the greatest QB of all-time. His brilliant passing was more than good enough to have won championships had he been surrounded by enough quality players but sadly that just didn’t happen.
What I do want to write about is about what happened in Marino’s one Super Bowl appearance. Too many have talked about that game as if it represented some sort of failure on Marino’s part which is just flat-out wrong. Marino played heroically in Super Bowl XIX but no heroics on his part could have made a difference. Dan faced off against one of the great teams in NFL history while being supported by players who were outmatched, outplayed, and outcoached every step of the way.
Let’s start with the Niners. When people talk about the great 49ers teams of the 80’s they’re usually talking about the 1989 team or the 1988-1989 team that won back-to-back titles. But it’s the 1984 team that won more games than any team in history. They went 18-1, and that single loss came on a late field goal. The 1984 49ers may not have had Jerry Rice or Steve Young, but they scored more points than the 1989 team, allowed fewer points, and probably had a better defense. Specifically, consider the secondary. Marino was throwing against Ronnie Lott (A Hall of Famer), Eric Wright (an all-pro), Dwight Hicks (an all-pro), and Carlton Williamson (two-time Pro Bowler). If a better secondary has ever stepped foot on the field, please tell me ‘cause I’d really like to know who it could be. I sure as hell know it wasn’t the garbage Miami was putting out there (Judson, Lankford, and the Blackwood Brothers). And against the greatest secondary of all-time, Marino tore it up in the early going. The Dolphins scored on their two first-quarter possessions and led 10-7 as the second quarter started.
Miami’s offensive production slowed down after that. You know why? Because Bill Walsh wasn’t an idiot. The guy saw what Marino was doing. So “The Genius” made a change, he went with six defensive backs. And it worked. Marino struggled after that, especially as San Francisco managed to keep the heat on him rushing only four men. Miami’s O-line couldn’t stop them. So under all that pressure, and against that flood of defensive backs, Marino understandably started having some problems. Now there would seem to be one obvious strategy for dealing with those problems: RUN THE BALL! Make those undersized d-backs come up and have to make some plays. Don’t let the Niners D sit on the pass. But Miami didn’t run. Ok, they ran it a whole 8 times. Sure, when your team’s leading rusher that year is Woody Bennett and sure, when your team’s averaging less than three yards a carry putting the ball in the hands of your running game might not seem like the best strategy as you fall further and further behind, but great coaches adjust. Don Shula just yelled at his team to play harder. Bill Walsh changed things up and team took control of the game.
Miami could only add 6 more points in the second quarter. Still, both then and now 16 first-half points is a very good total. Up to that time only five Super Bowl teams had bettered it. And of all 84 Super Bowl teams to date, only 15 teams have topped that first-half number. So Marino and the Miami offense posted a well-above average scoring effort for the first half, and they were getting killed 28-16! How was that Marino’s fault!?!?!
Contrast Marino’s predicament with Joe Montana’s situation. Miami’s defenders could barely lay a hand on him (which would have been tough even if Miami had had any kind of pass rush, which they most certainly didn’t. Joe’s O-line featured 4 All-Pro’s: Ayers, Quillan, Fanhorst, and Randy Cross). Unlike San Francisco’s D, Miami couldn’t sit back and play the pass because the Niners had a great running game. Not just Roger Craig, but Wendell (Tippecanoe and) Tyler too. Tyler was injury prone but when healthy the guy was a fantastic player, a 1000-yard rusher who averaged 5.1 yards a carry that year. Pure speed. Both backs were tremendous pass catchers as well. Not to take anything away from Montana who played brilliantly, maybe the greatest quarterbacking performance in Super Bowl history, but there was an obviouse talent disparity between the two teams. The only advantage the Dolphins may have had was with the Marks Brothers at receiver, but that edge wasn’t huge. The Niners countered with Dwight Clark, an all-pro, Russ Francis, an excellent tight end, and Tyler and Craig, who each caught 70-plus yards worth of balls each that night. Montana had no shortage of weapons and no shortage of time in which to repeatedly find them wide open. Of course, passing was a choice for San Francisco. His team also ran for 211 yards and controlled the clock for over 37 minutes. Marino on the other hand had to pass on practically every play, setting a then-Super Bowl record for attempts with 50. Near the end of the third quarter Marino tossed his first interception of the game. The score at the time? 38-16. Forced to take chances in a hopeless cause, Marino threw another pick on the 4th quarter. The score was still 38-16. Final score: 38-16. Those two picks ruined Marino’s stats but they obviously played no role in the outcome. The game had already been decided when the Niners opened up a three-score lead in the third quarter. Marino kept fighting till the end anyway.
Hearing people slam Marino for losing that game makes me sick. The defense gives up four straight TD drives in the first half, the offensive line can’t give Marino any time to throw, Miami’s all-pro punter kicks nothing but short easily-returned line drives, and the coach has no answers. Marino got no help. One guy can’t win a game! And just why does Marino come in for criticism for the loss while Don Shula goes completely unscathed?
People point out that Shula won championships without Marino yet he couldn’t win with him. Ergo Dan couldn’t have been that great. Right. I’ve written about Shula’s big-game failures before. He coached in seven title games and lost five times. Marino quarterbacked one of those five losses. So what happened in the other four? Were those Marino’s fault too? Of course not. Miami's offense just did in Super Bowl XIX what all of Shula’s team did in championship games: not score in the second half. Just 14 total points in the second half of the seven combined title games. Pathetic. That includes games quarterbacked by Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Bob Griese. Did they suck too? Even in Shula’s two Super Bowl wins note how many total first-half points Miami put up: 7 in Super Bowl VII and 17 in Super Bowl VIII. Pretty comparable to Marino's 16 in Super Bowl XIX no? So what was the difference? Well, Miami shut out their opponents in the first half of their 1972-1973 Super Bowl wins while Marino’s defense gave up 28 freaking points in the first half, that’s the difference! Miami’s 314 yards on the day topped the 1972-1973 efforts of 253 and 238 yards.
Shula’s two highest scoring teams in Super Bowl play were the 1973 Dolphins and the 1982 Dolphins. Both put up 17 in the first half. The former added a TD in the second and won handily. The second added nothing and lost. Marino’s 1984 team put up 16 points but truly that was a much better offensive effort than the 1982 team as the latter team scored on a kickoff return, a flukey 76-yard TD bomb, and a FG set up by another long kick return. In Super Bowl XVII, Miami didn’t have one sustained drive the whole game and wound up with only 176 yards of offense, just a pathetic 80 in the air. So really, only one of Shula’s many Super Bowl squads ever surpassed the offensive performance of Dan Marino’s offense in Super Bowl XIX. And that one team, the 1973 Dolphins, featured a dominating defense and running game. Such things were missing from the 1984 Dolphins and thus Dan Marino went down to defeat. And clearly that has to be considered more Don Shula’s fault than Dan Marino’s. Marino didn't have the horses.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
What I do want to write about is about what happened in Marino’s one Super Bowl appearance. Too many have talked about that game as if it represented some sort of failure on Marino’s part which is just flat-out wrong. Marino played heroically in Super Bowl XIX but no heroics on his part could have made a difference. Dan faced off against one of the great teams in NFL history while being supported by players who were outmatched, outplayed, and outcoached every step of the way.
Let’s start with the Niners. When people talk about the great 49ers teams of the 80’s they’re usually talking about the 1989 team or the 1988-1989 team that won back-to-back titles. But it’s the 1984 team that won more games than any team in history. They went 18-1, and that single loss came on a late field goal. The 1984 49ers may not have had Jerry Rice or Steve Young, but they scored more points than the 1989 team, allowed fewer points, and probably had a better defense. Specifically, consider the secondary. Marino was throwing against Ronnie Lott (A Hall of Famer), Eric Wright (an all-pro), Dwight Hicks (an all-pro), and Carlton Williamson (two-time Pro Bowler). If a better secondary has ever stepped foot on the field, please tell me ‘cause I’d really like to know who it could be. I sure as hell know it wasn’t the garbage Miami was putting out there (Judson, Lankford, and the Blackwood Brothers). And against the greatest secondary of all-time, Marino tore it up in the early going. The Dolphins scored on their two first-quarter possessions and led 10-7 as the second quarter started.
Miami’s offensive production slowed down after that. You know why? Because Bill Walsh wasn’t an idiot. The guy saw what Marino was doing. So “The Genius” made a change, he went with six defensive backs. And it worked. Marino struggled after that, especially as San Francisco managed to keep the heat on him rushing only four men. Miami’s O-line couldn’t stop them. So under all that pressure, and against that flood of defensive backs, Marino understandably started having some problems. Now there would seem to be one obvious strategy for dealing with those problems: RUN THE BALL! Make those undersized d-backs come up and have to make some plays. Don’t let the Niners D sit on the pass. But Miami didn’t run. Ok, they ran it a whole 8 times. Sure, when your team’s leading rusher that year is Woody Bennett and sure, when your team’s averaging less than three yards a carry putting the ball in the hands of your running game might not seem like the best strategy as you fall further and further behind, but great coaches adjust. Don Shula just yelled at his team to play harder. Bill Walsh changed things up and team took control of the game.
Miami could only add 6 more points in the second quarter. Still, both then and now 16 first-half points is a very good total. Up to that time only five Super Bowl teams had bettered it. And of all 84 Super Bowl teams to date, only 15 teams have topped that first-half number. So Marino and the Miami offense posted a well-above average scoring effort for the first half, and they were getting killed 28-16! How was that Marino’s fault!?!?!
Contrast Marino’s predicament with Joe Montana’s situation. Miami’s defenders could barely lay a hand on him (which would have been tough even if Miami had had any kind of pass rush, which they most certainly didn’t. Joe’s O-line featured 4 All-Pro’s: Ayers, Quillan, Fanhorst, and Randy Cross). Unlike San Francisco’s D, Miami couldn’t sit back and play the pass because the Niners had a great running game. Not just Roger Craig, but Wendell (Tippecanoe and) Tyler too. Tyler was injury prone but when healthy the guy was a fantastic player, a 1000-yard rusher who averaged 5.1 yards a carry that year. Pure speed. Both backs were tremendous pass catchers as well. Not to take anything away from Montana who played brilliantly, maybe the greatest quarterbacking performance in Super Bowl history, but there was an obviouse talent disparity between the two teams. The only advantage the Dolphins may have had was with the Marks Brothers at receiver, but that edge wasn’t huge. The Niners countered with Dwight Clark, an all-pro, Russ Francis, an excellent tight end, and Tyler and Craig, who each caught 70-plus yards worth of balls each that night. Montana had no shortage of weapons and no shortage of time in which to repeatedly find them wide open. Of course, passing was a choice for San Francisco. His team also ran for 211 yards and controlled the clock for over 37 minutes. Marino on the other hand had to pass on practically every play, setting a then-Super Bowl record for attempts with 50. Near the end of the third quarter Marino tossed his first interception of the game. The score at the time? 38-16. Forced to take chances in a hopeless cause, Marino threw another pick on the 4th quarter. The score was still 38-16. Final score: 38-16. Those two picks ruined Marino’s stats but they obviously played no role in the outcome. The game had already been decided when the Niners opened up a three-score lead in the third quarter. Marino kept fighting till the end anyway.
Hearing people slam Marino for losing that game makes me sick. The defense gives up four straight TD drives in the first half, the offensive line can’t give Marino any time to throw, Miami’s all-pro punter kicks nothing but short easily-returned line drives, and the coach has no answers. Marino got no help. One guy can’t win a game! And just why does Marino come in for criticism for the loss while Don Shula goes completely unscathed?
People point out that Shula won championships without Marino yet he couldn’t win with him. Ergo Dan couldn’t have been that great. Right. I’ve written about Shula’s big-game failures before. He coached in seven title games and lost five times. Marino quarterbacked one of those five losses. So what happened in the other four? Were those Marino’s fault too? Of course not. Miami's offense just did in Super Bowl XIX what all of Shula’s team did in championship games: not score in the second half. Just 14 total points in the second half of the seven combined title games. Pathetic. That includes games quarterbacked by Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Bob Griese. Did they suck too? Even in Shula’s two Super Bowl wins note how many total first-half points Miami put up: 7 in Super Bowl VII and 17 in Super Bowl VIII. Pretty comparable to Marino's 16 in Super Bowl XIX no? So what was the difference? Well, Miami shut out their opponents in the first half of their 1972-1973 Super Bowl wins while Marino’s defense gave up 28 freaking points in the first half, that’s the difference! Miami’s 314 yards on the day topped the 1972-1973 efforts of 253 and 238 yards.
Shula’s two highest scoring teams in Super Bowl play were the 1973 Dolphins and the 1982 Dolphins. Both put up 17 in the first half. The former added a TD in the second and won handily. The second added nothing and lost. Marino’s 1984 team put up 16 points but truly that was a much better offensive effort than the 1982 team as the latter team scored on a kickoff return, a flukey 76-yard TD bomb, and a FG set up by another long kick return. In Super Bowl XVII, Miami didn’t have one sustained drive the whole game and wound up with only 176 yards of offense, just a pathetic 80 in the air. So really, only one of Shula’s many Super Bowl squads ever surpassed the offensive performance of Dan Marino’s offense in Super Bowl XIX. And that one team, the 1973 Dolphins, featured a dominating defense and running game. Such things were missing from the 1984 Dolphins and thus Dan Marino went down to defeat. And clearly that has to be considered more Don Shula’s fault than Dan Marino’s. Marino didn't have the horses.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
Friday, March 21, 2008
Not the Greatest Quarterback of All-Time, Part Three: John Elway
John Elway threw for a ton of yards and touchdowns in his career. Yet he and many of his fans complained that he could have thrown for a lot more if the coach for most of his career, Dan Reeves, hadn’t run such a conservative offense. Do they have a point? How do the hell do I know? How could anybody know? And who the cares? Let me instead point out something fascinating, something you don’t really hear about much. Including himself, Elway’s era encompassed the bulk of the careers of seven different Hall of Fame quarterbacks! That truly was a special era for quarterbacks and I don't know if enough football fans appreciated what they had back then. To me, if we want to measure how good Elway was we ought to just go ahead and compare him to those guys. Here’s their numbers:
Elway looks pretty damn good on that list. Second only to Marino in yards and TD’s. And while we know Marino made it to only one Super Bowl (and lost), Elway played in five and won two of them. Montana and Aikman won more Super Bowls but their production falls well short of Elway’s. So don’t Elway’s Super Bowls and his numbers make a strong case for him as the greatest of all time? Well, there’s numbers and there’s numbers. And here are some numbers I cleverly left off the first table:
Yes, the above represent efficiency rather than cumulative effort. Quality over quantity let’s say. The first thing that jumps out, since I put it first, is quarterback rating. Elway’s the lowest rated quarterback of the whole group. And the reason is obvious (because I put it second): he’s got the worst completion percentage of the whole group. Of those seven Hall of Famers, Elway was the least accurate passer. Now there’s nothing I hate more than the use of anecdotal evidence to prove a complicated point, but I do distinctly remember much discussion of how hard Elway threw back in the day and he never seemed to have the “touch” on his passes that Marino or Montana did. His completion percentage would seem to back up those impressions.
Some have criticized the quarterback rating system for placing such strong emphasis on completion percentage. And I happen to agree with much of that criticism. The system rewards QB’s who throw lots of safe short (i.e. boring) passes and penalizes gunslingers looking for the home run. It might not be a coincidence that the two most accurate passers listed above, Montana and Young, are the two guys who played in a West Coast Offense based on slants and screens rather than downfield passing. But Marino and Kelly didn’t play in any West Coast Offenses. They had big arms and liked to throw deep. And clearly they connected far more often than Elway.
Still, interception percentage (INT’s per attempt) and Yards Per Attempt are probably more important stats than QB rating or completion percentage. When it comes to INT’s, Elway threw his share but he’s comfortably in the middle of the pack here. Only Montana and Young are substantially better and only Kelly is substantially worse. But in Yards Per Attempt, Elway is the second-lowest rated passer on the list though only Steve Young really separates himself from the group. However, your standard yards per attempt stat just divides passing yards by the number of passing attempts. What about those times a QB drops back to pass but gets sacked before he gets a throw off? Those are negative plays that the great ones should be avoiding more than most right? Luckily, Net Yards Per Attempt comes to our rescue. That stat adds sacks to attempts and subtracts yards lost on sacks from the passing numbers (and the sack percentage stat on the far right shows just who was the master at avoiding sacks and who wasn’t). Including this data brings Young down to earth and lifts Marino into a tie with him while Elway sinks to the very bottom. So not only was Elway the least accurate passer of this group, his average gain every time he dropped to back to pass was also lower than everybody else's. Clearly the least efficient passer of these seven Hall of Famers was John Elway.
Let nobody accuse Past Interference of being biased. We’re well aware here of Mr. Elway’s rushing ability and of his Hall of Fame contemporaries only Steve Young was his better. See:
Funny though how the two best running quarterbacks here were also the two guys most likely to get sacked. Is it possible Elway (and Young) lacked pocket presence and tried to run too often, trying to make a play with their legs when passing or just throwing the ball away would have been the better percentage play? Elway deserves credit for his rushing numbers but I don’t think those numbers are anywhere close to enough to put him near the top of our Hall of Fame passer list.
Alright, he’s nowhere near the top based on his passing but what about what “really” matters? The wins, the five Super Bowls, the two rings? Ok, let’s check out Elway’s combined Super Bowl stats:
Not very impressive. Elway didn’t exactly elevate his play in the big game. Now I know there’s an argument that goes Elway dragged a mediocre team to the Super Bowl three times in the 1980’s and just getting there was the big accomplishment as those overmatched 80’s Broncos had no shot at winning those games. I don’t completely buy it. Oh sure I’ll stipulate that nobody was beating the 1989 49’ers, but the 1986 and 1987 Broncos weren’t beaten before they’d begun. They actually led in both games. Elway pled well in the first half of Super Bowl XXI before crapping out. Worse, Denver led Washington 10-0 in Super Bowl XXII. Since nobody has ever come back to win after being down by more than 10 points in a Super Bowl, just one more TD might well have given Denver an insurmountable lead. Elway missed on a couple of chances to get that TD before Washington turned it on and blew the game open. And even if Elway’s teams were far less talented, is that really an excuse for such poor play? Quarterbacks have been known to play well in defeat, even against great defenses. Elway never did.
When Elway finally did win that first Super Bowl he still didn’t play that great. Favre played much better and Terrell Davis was the guy who carried the Broncos to victory. Denver jumped out to an early 10-point lead, but when Davis left the game with a migraine Elway couldn’t move his team and the Pack stormed back to tie the game. Elway’s big play was not even a pass but his famous third-down run where the dude got helicoptered. That play kept Denver’s go-ahead touchdown drive alive. You know what cracks me up about that play? That NFL Films show about the game where they feature Broncos’ players saying how they knew they were going to win that game after Elway‘s ballsy run. Really? Did you still feel that way when Green Bay promptly fumbled the ensuing kickoff, giving Denver a chance to practically ice the game with a short 22-yard TD drive but Elway instead threw an INT on the very next play? Yeah, I’m thinking those guys weren’t inspired at that point and they were probably slightly less confident when Favre then drove the Pack 85 yards for the tying touchdown. Elway couldn’t get anything else done in the 4th quarter but Davis dragged the team to the winning TD, carrying the ball on four of the drive’s five plays. (I always wonder what Terrell Davis thought when the Broncos owner held the Vince Lombardi trophy in his hands and proclaimed: “This one’s for John”. Say what?) To be fair Elway did toss a 23-yard pass on the drive though his pass actually measured 3 yards and Howard Griffith added 20 more yards on his own. So thanks to a great running game and some timely defense, Elway won his first Super Bowl.
Finally, in his fifth and final Super Bowl appearance Elway performed very well and his team rolled to an easy win against the Falcons. All in all though, Elway played well-below average in Super Bowls and consequently, given his inaccuracy relative to his great contemporaries and his tendency to get sacked, I can’t see how he can be considered the greatest quarterback of all time.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
| QB | Games | Comp | Att | Yards | TD | Int |
| Marino | 242 | 4967 | 8358 | 61361 | 420 | 252 |
| Elway | 234 | 4123 | 7250 | 51475 | 300 | 226 |
| Moon | 208 | 3988 | 6823 | 49325 | 291 | 233 |
| Montana | 192 | 3409 | 5391 | 40551 | 273 | 139 |
| Kelly | 160 | 2874 | 4779 | 35467 | 237 | 175 |
| Young | 169 | 2667 | 4149 | 33124 | 232 | 107 |
| Aikman | 165 | 2898 | 4715 | 32942 | 165 | 141 |
Elway looks pretty damn good on that list. Second only to Marino in yards and TD’s. And while we know Marino made it to only one Super Bowl (and lost), Elway played in five and won two of them. Montana and Aikman won more Super Bowls but their production falls well short of Elway’s. So don’t Elway’s Super Bowls and his numbers make a strong case for him as the greatest of all time? Well, there’s numbers and there’s numbers. And here are some numbers I cleverly left off the first table:
| QB | Rating | Comp % | Int % | Y/A | Net Y/A | Sack % |
| Marino | 86.4 | 59.4 | 3.0 | 7.3 | 6.9 | 3.1 |
| Elway | 79.9 | 56.9 | 3.1 | 7.1 | 6.1 | 6.6 |
| Moon | 80.9 | 58.4 | 3.4 | 7.2 | 6.3 | 6.3 |
| Montana | 92.3 | 63.2 | 2.6 | 7.5 | 6.7 | 5.5 |
| Kelly | 84.4 | 60.1 | 3.7 | 7.4 | 6.5 | 6.3 |
| Young | 96.8 | 64.3 | 2.6 | 8.0 | 6.9 | 7.9 |
| Aikman | 81.6 | 61.5 | 3.0 | 7.0 | 6.3 | 5.2 |
Yes, the above represent efficiency rather than cumulative effort. Quality over quantity let’s say. The first thing that jumps out, since I put it first, is quarterback rating. Elway’s the lowest rated quarterback of the whole group. And the reason is obvious (because I put it second): he’s got the worst completion percentage of the whole group. Of those seven Hall of Famers, Elway was the least accurate passer. Now there’s nothing I hate more than the use of anecdotal evidence to prove a complicated point, but I do distinctly remember much discussion of how hard Elway threw back in the day and he never seemed to have the “touch” on his passes that Marino or Montana did. His completion percentage would seem to back up those impressions.
Some have criticized the quarterback rating system for placing such strong emphasis on completion percentage. And I happen to agree with much of that criticism. The system rewards QB’s who throw lots of safe short (i.e. boring) passes and penalizes gunslingers looking for the home run. It might not be a coincidence that the two most accurate passers listed above, Montana and Young, are the two guys who played in a West Coast Offense based on slants and screens rather than downfield passing. But Marino and Kelly didn’t play in any West Coast Offenses. They had big arms and liked to throw deep. And clearly they connected far more often than Elway.
Still, interception percentage (INT’s per attempt) and Yards Per Attempt are probably more important stats than QB rating or completion percentage. When it comes to INT’s, Elway threw his share but he’s comfortably in the middle of the pack here. Only Montana and Young are substantially better and only Kelly is substantially worse. But in Yards Per Attempt, Elway is the second-lowest rated passer on the list though only Steve Young really separates himself from the group. However, your standard yards per attempt stat just divides passing yards by the number of passing attempts. What about those times a QB drops back to pass but gets sacked before he gets a throw off? Those are negative plays that the great ones should be avoiding more than most right? Luckily, Net Yards Per Attempt comes to our rescue. That stat adds sacks to attempts and subtracts yards lost on sacks from the passing numbers (and the sack percentage stat on the far right shows just who was the master at avoiding sacks and who wasn’t). Including this data brings Young down to earth and lifts Marino into a tie with him while Elway sinks to the very bottom. So not only was Elway the least accurate passer of this group, his average gain every time he dropped to back to pass was also lower than everybody else's. Clearly the least efficient passer of these seven Hall of Famers was John Elway.
Let nobody accuse Past Interference of being biased. We’re well aware here of Mr. Elway’s rushing ability and of his Hall of Fame contemporaries only Steve Young was his better. See:
| QB | Rushes | Yards | YPC | TD’s |
| Marino | 301 | 87 | 0.3 | 9 |
| Elway | 774 | 3407 | 4.4 | 33 |
| Moon | 543 | 1736 | 3.2 | 22 |
| Montana | 457 | 1676 | 3.7 | 20 |
| Kelly | 304 | 1049 | 3.5 | 7 |
| Young | 722 | 4239 | 5.9 | 43 |
| Aikman | 327 | 1016 | 3.1 | 25 |
Funny though how the two best running quarterbacks here were also the two guys most likely to get sacked. Is it possible Elway (and Young) lacked pocket presence and tried to run too often, trying to make a play with their legs when passing or just throwing the ball away would have been the better percentage play? Elway deserves credit for his rushing numbers but I don’t think those numbers are anywhere close to enough to put him near the top of our Hall of Fame passer list.
Alright, he’s nowhere near the top based on his passing but what about what “really” matters? The wins, the five Super Bowls, the two rings? Ok, let’s check out Elway’s combined Super Bowl stats:
| Comp | Att | Comp % | Yards | TD | Int | Rating |
| 76 | 152 | 50.0 | 1128 | 3 | 8 | 59.3 |
Not very impressive. Elway didn’t exactly elevate his play in the big game. Now I know there’s an argument that goes Elway dragged a mediocre team to the Super Bowl three times in the 1980’s and just getting there was the big accomplishment as those overmatched 80’s Broncos had no shot at winning those games. I don’t completely buy it. Oh sure I’ll stipulate that nobody was beating the 1989 49’ers, but the 1986 and 1987 Broncos weren’t beaten before they’d begun. They actually led in both games. Elway pled well in the first half of Super Bowl XXI before crapping out. Worse, Denver led Washington 10-0 in Super Bowl XXII. Since nobody has ever come back to win after being down by more than 10 points in a Super Bowl, just one more TD might well have given Denver an insurmountable lead. Elway missed on a couple of chances to get that TD before Washington turned it on and blew the game open. And even if Elway’s teams were far less talented, is that really an excuse for such poor play? Quarterbacks have been known to play well in defeat, even against great defenses. Elway never did.
When Elway finally did win that first Super Bowl he still didn’t play that great. Favre played much better and Terrell Davis was the guy who carried the Broncos to victory. Denver jumped out to an early 10-point lead, but when Davis left the game with a migraine Elway couldn’t move his team and the Pack stormed back to tie the game. Elway’s big play was not even a pass but his famous third-down run where the dude got helicoptered. That play kept Denver’s go-ahead touchdown drive alive. You know what cracks me up about that play? That NFL Films show about the game where they feature Broncos’ players saying how they knew they were going to win that game after Elway‘s ballsy run. Really? Did you still feel that way when Green Bay promptly fumbled the ensuing kickoff, giving Denver a chance to practically ice the game with a short 22-yard TD drive but Elway instead threw an INT on the very next play? Yeah, I’m thinking those guys weren’t inspired at that point and they were probably slightly less confident when Favre then drove the Pack 85 yards for the tying touchdown. Elway couldn’t get anything else done in the 4th quarter but Davis dragged the team to the winning TD, carrying the ball on four of the drive’s five plays. (I always wonder what Terrell Davis thought when the Broncos owner held the Vince Lombardi trophy in his hands and proclaimed: “This one’s for John”. Say what?) To be fair Elway did toss a 23-yard pass on the drive though his pass actually measured 3 yards and Howard Griffith added 20 more yards on his own. So thanks to a great running game and some timely defense, Elway won his first Super Bowl.
Finally, in his fifth and final Super Bowl appearance Elway performed very well and his team rolled to an easy win against the Falcons. All in all though, Elway played well-below average in Super Bowls and consequently, given his inaccuracy relative to his great contemporaries and his tendency to get sacked, I can’t see how he can be considered the greatest quarterback of all time.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All Time, Part Two: Brett Favre
So what was your reaction when the (literally) ultimate pass of Brett Favre’s career turned out to be a deadly interception that cost his team a trip to the Super Bowl? My own immediate thought was, “Typical Favre”. And a search of several message board threads about the NFC Championship Game reveals I was far from alone. Now I submit to you that when your QB throws a horrible pick in a critical moment to blow a playoff game and, rather than experiencing shock, disbelief, or incredulity, you’re instead completely unsurprised, then your QB is not the greatest QB of all-time.
Certainly Favre’s amassed quite the resume for consideration as the greatest:
1) Owns every major career passing mark;
2) Three MVP awards;
3) A Super Bowl championship
4) 253 consecutive starts at quarterback.
There’s a lot more. But how do you get past all those playoff INT’s? 28 in 22 games. Who can forget that overtime lollipop he put up for grabs against the Eagles in 2004? Brian Dawkins picked that one off and after the game he said: "They were telling me he was going to give me a chance to make a play…When you look at the film, that's what he does." Does that sound like somebody describing the greatest QB of all time? That game twinned with the 2007 NFC Championship Game made Favre the only passer to toss an overtime INT in multiple playoff games. Oh, and what about that legendary six-interception against the Rams to finish off the Packers’ 2001 season? Ok, to be fair those games came after Favre was past his prime and he still threw more TD’s than INT’s in the postseason and he won more than he lost. How about we just look at Favre’s postseason prime, specifically 1995-1997, when Favre won three straight MVP awards and was considered the best player in the game.
Nobody could find fault with Favre’s 1996 season: an MVP award, the league’s best record, and a dominating playoff run ending with a convincing win in Super Bowl XXXI. But what about 1995 and 1997? Why didn’t that great Packers team win more than a single title? Well Favre bears some of the blame for that. Midway through the 4th quarter of the 1995 NFC Championship Game, Green Bay trailed Dallas 31-27. Favre drove the Pack to the Cowboys' 46-yard line. Then on first down Favre faked a run and rolled right on a bootleg. Tight end Mark Chmura was wide open in the right flat just ahead of him. For whatever reason (Just trying to have fun out there?), Favre instead chose to throw deep down the sideline to Mark Ingram. Unfortunately, Ingram had broken off his route when he saw Favre scrambling so the throw was behind Ingram and picked off by Larry Brown who returned it 28 yards. Emmitt Smith scored a few plays later to put the Pack away.
Two years later, the Green Bay Packers entered Super Bowl XXXII as an overwhelming favorite. But thanks to two turnovers by Favre, the Packers actually found themselves down 17-7 in the early 2d quarter. Favre stopped turning the ball over, brought his team back, and the teams were tied at 24 early in the 4th quarter. But despite getting the ball three more times in the final quarter, Favre ran out of gas, couldn’t lead his team to anymore points, and they lost 31-24. And you can’t pin those scoreless drives on great defense. Green Bay outgained Denver that game and the Pack actually had more yards in Super Bowl XXXII than in their Super Bowl win the year before. Green Bay had a real chance to win two or three Super Bowls in the years Favre won his MVP hardware. The talent and opportunity were there but Favre’s costly turnovers and failure to make big plays when needed helped deny the Pack a shot at being a dynasty. And a QB that doesn’t grab a championship when it’s there for the taking isn’t the greatest quarterback of all-time.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
Certainly Favre’s amassed quite the resume for consideration as the greatest:
1) Owns every major career passing mark;
2) Three MVP awards;
3) A Super Bowl championship
4) 253 consecutive starts at quarterback.
There’s a lot more. But how do you get past all those playoff INT’s? 28 in 22 games. Who can forget that overtime lollipop he put up for grabs against the Eagles in 2004? Brian Dawkins picked that one off and after the game he said: "They were telling me he was going to give me a chance to make a play…When you look at the film, that's what he does." Does that sound like somebody describing the greatest QB of all time? That game twinned with the 2007 NFC Championship Game made Favre the only passer to toss an overtime INT in multiple playoff games. Oh, and what about that legendary six-interception against the Rams to finish off the Packers’ 2001 season? Ok, to be fair those games came after Favre was past his prime and he still threw more TD’s than INT’s in the postseason and he won more than he lost. How about we just look at Favre’s postseason prime, specifically 1995-1997, when Favre won three straight MVP awards and was considered the best player in the game.
Nobody could find fault with Favre’s 1996 season: an MVP award, the league’s best record, and a dominating playoff run ending with a convincing win in Super Bowl XXXI. But what about 1995 and 1997? Why didn’t that great Packers team win more than a single title? Well Favre bears some of the blame for that. Midway through the 4th quarter of the 1995 NFC Championship Game, Green Bay trailed Dallas 31-27. Favre drove the Pack to the Cowboys' 46-yard line. Then on first down Favre faked a run and rolled right on a bootleg. Tight end Mark Chmura was wide open in the right flat just ahead of him. For whatever reason (Just trying to have fun out there?), Favre instead chose to throw deep down the sideline to Mark Ingram. Unfortunately, Ingram had broken off his route when he saw Favre scrambling so the throw was behind Ingram and picked off by Larry Brown who returned it 28 yards. Emmitt Smith scored a few plays later to put the Pack away.
Two years later, the Green Bay Packers entered Super Bowl XXXII as an overwhelming favorite. But thanks to two turnovers by Favre, the Packers actually found themselves down 17-7 in the early 2d quarter. Favre stopped turning the ball over, brought his team back, and the teams were tied at 24 early in the 4th quarter. But despite getting the ball three more times in the final quarter, Favre ran out of gas, couldn’t lead his team to anymore points, and they lost 31-24. And you can’t pin those scoreless drives on great defense. Green Bay outgained Denver that game and the Pack actually had more yards in Super Bowl XXXII than in their Super Bowl win the year before. Green Bay had a real chance to win two or three Super Bowls in the years Favre won his MVP hardware. The talent and opportunity were there but Favre’s costly turnovers and failure to make big plays when needed helped deny the Pack a shot at being a dynasty. And a QB that doesn’t grab a championship when it’s there for the taking isn’t the greatest quarterback of all-time.
Not The Greatest Quarterback Of All-Time: The Series
Tom Brady
Brett Favre
John Elway
Dan Marino
Johnny Unitas
Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham
Joe Montana
Bart Starr
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