Elway and it's not close. Watch tapes of Broncos games in '86 and '87; no D, no running game and average receivers. Brady and Rodgers are partly products of modern rules; put them in the 80's and they wouldn't do near as well. Montana and Young were good but they had talent everywhere and couldn't lose if they fried.
Joe Montana
It is not always fair to compare athletes in different era's especially with rule changes. To say Joe Montana and Steve Young had great players around them diminishes their accomplishments is also not totally fair. Rings as a measure of greatness is also not the only measure of a quarterback.
Being realistic on Elway....he is quite frankly one of the most overrated QB's in history. I am waiting for the Elway fan to tell me about all of his 4th quarter comebacks. I would say a great QB takes the lead in the first quarter and doesn't look back and doesn't have to make comebacks.
In regards to the talent around him. I will use Brady as an example. In general Tom Brady has had below average receivers that he has made better by hitting them between the numbers. His low number of interceptions is also very impressive.... made even more impressive at his age.
Elway career numbers: 56.9% completion percentage 300 TD's and 226 Interceptions 7.1 Y/A and 12.5 Y/C
Brady career numbers: 63.8% completion percentage 456 TD's and 152 Interceptions 7.5 Y/A and 11.7 Y/C
How could anyone in their right mind say Elway is better. Or are the numbers lying?
Another note he only won his superbowls when he wasn't needed (Terrel Davis running the ball and the second one with a strong defense. In the playoffs that year he completed 52% of passes and threw 3 TD's).
Second grade may be the longest 10 years of some peoples lives
Another quarterback that I am not sure about his greatness is Manning. He has some of the characteristics of Elway in that he won his superbowls when the team didn't really need him. Manning seemed to put up huge numbers in the regular season. In the regular season a team might face 10 average to bad teams and face 6 good to very good teams. He had some huge passing years....but was it because he put them up against the weak teams. Then he would get into the playoffs and be one and done. I would think that if he was truly great that would not happen.
Just randomly looking at his stats for example the teams he played on had the following 3 best records in the regular season which were 14-2, 13-3 and 14-2. In the playoffs he went 0-1, 0-1 and 2-1 respectively.
Other than me betting on him in the playoffs and I can see no other logical reason why he was only 14-13 in the post season. It makes me question where he ranks in terms of all time great QB's. I would definitely pick others I have seen play ahead of Manning.
Just randomly looking at his stats for example the teams he played on had the following 3 best records in the regular season which were 14-2, 13-3 and 14-2. In the playoffs he went 0-1, 0-1 and 2-1 respectively.
Other than me betting on him in the playoffs and I can see no other logical reason why he was only 14-13 in the post season. It makes me question where he ranks in terms of all time great QB's. I would definitely pick others I have seen play ahead of Manning.
