Quote:
Originally Posted by Runscott
Bill, I completely disagree with you. I can watch a quarterback playing football and tell if he's 'great', and compare him across eras to other quarterbacks, regardless of how the game has changed, and other people can as well - I know, because I've discussed it with other people in "real life". Some people get so hung up on things like stats, that they miss other parts of the picture - I meet such people all the time, both on the internet and in "real life". Perhaps it's right brain vs left brain usage.
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Scott, I understand that this should be a pretty easy answer, and I promise you I don't go out of my way to complicate things. But it's just not an easy question to me.
If you're removing statistical analysis from the picture, how, then, are you going to consider any quarterbacks that played the game before you were alive? You're asking an all-encompassing question here. "Who is the greatest quarterback
ever." Not the greatest quarterback from the last twenty years, or your lifetime. Who, in the history of the NFL, is the best to ever play the position.
I'm sorry, but the answer just isn't something I can just blurt out based on personal experience. I am far more analytical than that. I realize that there were far too many greats that I never got to see play, so I have to utilize the tools available to include them in my consideration, and even that is an imperfect way of doing it. You don't have to think like that. But you also don't have to dis me the way that you did because you don't place as much thought into it as I do.
Joe Montana was a great, great quarterback. But it's not just enough for me to say he's the best to ever play the game, because I simply can't say that. Was he the best ever? Or, was he just a really, really good quarterback that was put into a perfect situation? The Niners don't get past the Cowboys without "The Catch", and as great a throw as Montana made on the roll out, it's just another incompletion unless Dwight Clark goes up and makes a sensational catch in the endzone. How many other outstanding quarterbacks will not make your consideration because they didn't have the supporting cast around them that Montana did? Brett Favre is one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game. I think most people will agree with that. But if he hadn't been rescued off the scrap heap in Atlanta, he may have never been a starter. If Don Majkowski doesn't get hurt, maybe he's in this discussion now instead of him. After all, in 1989, he was the NFL MVP runner up. Majkowski had one guy on his entire offense worth a darn in Sterling Sharpe. He lost out to Montana. But was Montana better than Majkowski? Or did he simply have a better line, and better receivers who could catch better, and gain better separation from the men covering them?
We have guys completing 70% of their passes now. 70%! But, is it that Drew Brees is better than Bart Starr was in Green Bay? Starr retired the all-time leader in NFL history for completion percentage, and he was under 58%. How can you look at two men playing the same position from different eras, and just say one was better than the other? Well, again, why? Was Montana just smarter? Was he more careful with the football? Was he on a more talented team? How would Montana have done playing back in the 60s, when the rules were even tougher?
You want my simple, don't over-think it answer then? Ok, fine. Aaron Rodgers is the best quarterback I have ever seen. He doesn't have the rings Montana did, but he is a better passer. He combines the arm strength of Elway, and Marino, and Favre with the accuracy of Steve Young, with the cool under pressure of Joe Montana. He makes impossible throws look routine, and if he played twenty years ago, or fifty years ago, he'd still be the best. Regardless of what else he accomplishes, he is the best I have ever seen play the game.
There's your simple answer.