Throughout the years, the NFL has seen quite a few top notch quarterbacks. As each one has gone through his career, at some point or another he was called “one of the best in the game” or “one of the best to have ever played the game”. My question is what parts of which QB’s would you take to assemble the greatest QB to ever play?
There are many factors that make a great QB. For this discussion I narrowed it down to five. These traits are throwing accuracy, throwing power, feet, heart, staying power, and leadership. Because I believe staying power is important; for a QB to be thought about in this he must either be in the Hall of Fame or a guaranteed lock to make it when he is eligible.
Throwing Accuracy:
After narrowing this down to five, I came to the options of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Jim Kelly, Joe Montana, and Kurt Warner. While some might say that Kurt Warner isn’t a sure-fire Hall of Famer, I believe he is. Final choice: Kurt Warner. He wasn’t at his best every Sunday, but that man could hit any target. His 65.5% accuracy is also best of the bunch.
Throwing Power:
This category is a little harder to gauge. There aren’t many stats that actually keep track of this. I was able to quickly narrow this down however due the fact that there is only one man’s arm I wanted from the beginning. Brett Favre’s arm takes the prize.
Feet:
Looking through the QB’s I deemed best ever, this list came to Steve Young and Warren Moon. While I would be happy with either set of feet, I could not pass up Steve Young’s ability to “slip away” from a pass rusher.
Heart:
The heart of a QB shows on the field every Sunday. Will he sacrifice his body to make that one throw? Will he run for that last inch? John Elway, Joe Namath, Johnny Unitas, Jim Kelly, and Dan Fouts did. While Elway wasn’t known as the best man in the locker room, his helicopter twirl into the end zone to win his second Super Bowl earns him this spot.
Staying Power:
This one is easy; don’t miss a lot of games and play for a good number of years at a high level. A lot of the older players showed true grit in the game, and for that they make this list; Sammy Baugh, George Blanda, Len Dawson, Fran Tarkenton, and Bret Favre. While Bret Favre holds the record for consecutive games started, and he is a man’s man on the field, George Blanda played for 26 years in a time when the QB wasn’t nearly as protected as he is now.
Leadership:
A QB is supposed to be the leader on the field, after all, this is the only position that touches the football every down (except for the center, but there isn’t much decision-making there). Time after time, the team looks to the QB to make the right decisions so they can walk away victorious. To me, this spot must go to the best QB in NFL history: Joe Montana. There is no other QB who remained as calm and collected (“Cool Joe”), and time and again led his team to victory despite the odds.
If you feel that there are better QB’s for our “Franken-QB”, please let me know who, as well as why. The list of QB’s that I felt was worth choosing from is Troy Aikman, Sammy Baugh, George Blanda, Terry Bradshaw, Tom Brady, Len Dawson, John Elway, Bret Favre, Dan Fouts, Otto Graham, Bob Griese, Paul Hornung, Sonny Jurgensen, Jim Kelly, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Warren Moon, Joe Namath, Bart Starr, Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, Y.A Tittle, Johnny Unitas, Kurt Warner, and Steve Young.
Great article, with some contentious points, mind you. One disagreement is placing Farve as your sole leader of power. Elway was one of the very few, if not the only one who could throw across his body, 50 yards down the field. Also, placing Jim Kelley as one of the most accurate is kind of misleading. Yes, he had the percentages, but that was from a stellar offensive line and some great receivers, namely one in Andre Reed. Not taking away from Kelly, just is accuracy stat was a tad inflated in comparison to many of the others you listed.
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