why? i'm able to put things into perspective and look at them objectively. what about john elway made him that much better of a qb than kurt warner? i realize that most think so, and i respect your opinion, but why?
I think Elway is better because he put up incredible numbers while never really having an elite WR. His best WR was Rod Smith. Warner had some great WRs: Holt, Bruce, Fitzgerald, and Boldin. Warner also had a great catching RB in Faulk too.
he didn't though. they were pedestrian to bad. look at his career averages...i'm guessing you'll be surprised. his career totals are good because he was given 16 seasons worth of opportunity. people's general perception of john elway far exceeds his reality. he benefited from playing in an era when he was considered one of the few "superstar" qbs in the game.
But Elway didn't really put up incredible passing numbers. He had a career QB rating of 79.9. (for comparison, Vince Young was at 82 this year) Elway had a 57% career completion % and threw for 4000 yards once. That's not to say he wasn't a great QB - he knew how to win games at the end, he managed to stay good for a long time, managed without any great WRs as you pointed out, etc. But sparkling numbers were never his thing.
Elway is the only player to throw for over 3,000 yards and rush for over 200 yards in seven straight seasons (1985–1991). Elway's 148 wins place him second (to Brett Favre) for career wins among quarterbacks. Elway's 300 career touchdown passes places him fifth behind Favre, Dan Marino, Fran Tarkenton and Peyton Manning. Elway is one of only three quarterbacks to pass for at least 3,000 yards in 12 seasons; Favre and Marino are the others. Doesn't seem pedestrian to me.
the first stat is pretty irrelevant, the 2nd and 3rd are career TOTALS. the last one is significant though.
Somewhat agree. Another factor is that a lot of us have short memories when it comes to teams we're not fans of, and Elway arguably (at least by QB rating) had his best season in his last, and capped it with a second Super Bowl title. Yes, I know Terrell Davis was a huge factor, but the results were strong nonetheless. When you finish like he did, a lot of people overlook the entirety of data. As an aside, I think that's why last weekend's loss may haunt Favre for a while. He had the identical Elway setup - stud running back (Adrian Peterson / Terrell Davis) and his best QB rating ever in potentially his last. If Favre had won it all this year and gone out on top, so much of his history of forcing the issue would have been overlooked, as it has been with Elway. Instead, given the way the Vikes lost, Favre most likely enhanced the "mistake-prone" legacy. Interesting parallel.
Few superstar qb's?? Montana Marino Young Favre Moon Cunningham Sims Esiason Kelly Aikman Everett? Kosar? Flutie?
Sad to see Kurt retire. Been a fan since the day he took the reins in STL and love #13 always. My second fav. man crush. He'll always be top 5 in my book.
meant his first 7 or so years in the league....was pretty much just him, marino, and montana. although if that's the entirety of "superstar" qbs you can come up with over his 16 years in the league, i guess it applies to his entire career.
How good do you think Elway would have been with Holt, Bruce, Faulk, Fitz and Boldin? But to answer, Elway could kill you with his legs and is arguably the best closing QB ever.
Elway was nearly unstoppable on the bootleg, one of the best scrambling QBs ever, and certainly he was unmistakably the most clutch QB in NFL history. If you want to talk about overrated look at Joe Namath. Dan Fouts was 10 times the QB Joe Namath was. Elway's career totals are pedestrian when you compare them to stalwarts like Marino, Manning, etc... but he also got teams into the Super Bowl that had no business being there with a supporting cast I'm sure not many people in this thread could even name 1 or 2 players on. Later in his career he put up better numbers because he had a very recognizable offense. Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith, Shannon Sharpe, Terrell Davis, as well as a great O-line that ran the ZBS to perfection.
Hopefully as good as Warner - but that just gets him to be similar. Consider that in his first 10 years, Elway broke a QB rating of 80 just once - and that was 83. In his tenth year, he had a QB rating of 65. For this career, he's in the low 70's. Warner had a career QB rating of 93 and had only one half-year (played 6 games) with a QB rating under 85. Certainly, Elway would have been better with great receivers - but, at best, he'd have been the same as Warner - that would be a 20pt increase in QB rating. Aaron Rodgers had 316 yards rushing this year. Elway never had that many in any year of his career. He certainly could move, but he wasn't some kind of electric running QB like Vick that you actually fear running wild on you. Rodgers extends plays and helps improve himself with his legs, but he doesn't kill you with them. If anything, the real benefit shows up in your passing stats because it buys you more time, etc. But Elway's passing stats were average at best WITH the benefit of his legs. He was outstanding at ends of games though - and that's what made him great. But his stats were not particularly impressive at all.
Completely agree. I realized this about a month ago when I was seeing where Drew Brees and Peyton Manning's seasons measured up against some of the greats. It was very surprising. I started paying attention to football in the late 90's just as those Denver teams were winning their back to back Super Bowls, naturally I figured if Elway was doing that at the end of his career he must have been really something during the 80's/early 90's. He wasn't.
Whoops - to correct that, for his career, he was in the very high 70's (79). It would have been an increase of 15 to his career QB rating to match Warner.
Keep saying it right or wrong, seems too easy to rack up passing numbers in the NFL these days. Older QBs like Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, Johnny Unitas, Otto Graham, George Blanda, Terry Bradshaw, etc...TD/INT ratios and completion % are very BAD compared to today's precision passing game QB numbers... The top career QB Ratings of All Time including active players? http://www.pro-football-reference.com/leaders/pass_rating_career.htm Code: [COLOR=DarkGreen][B]1. Aaron Rodgers (26) 97.2 2005-2009 gnb[/B][/COLOR] 2. Steve Young+ 96.8 1985-1999 2TM [B]3. Philip Rivers (28) 95.8 2004-2009 sdg 4. Tony Romo (29) 95.6 2004-2009 dal[/B] 5. Peyton Manning (33) 95.2 1998-2009 clt 6. Kurt Warner (38) 93.7 1998-2009 3TM 7. Tom Brady (32) 93.3 2000-2009 nwe 8. Joe Montana+ 92.3 1979-1994 2TM 9. Drew Brees (30) 91.9 2001-2009 2TM 10. Ben Roethlisberger (27) 91.7 2004-2009 pit 11. Matt Schaub (28) 91.3 2004-2009 2TM 12. Chad Pennington (33) 90.1 2000-2009 2TM 13. Carson Palmer (30) 87.9 2004-2009 cin 14. Daunte Culpepper (32) 87.8 1999-2009 4TM 15. Jeff Garcia (39) 87.5 1999-2009 5TM 16. Brett Favre (40) 86.6 1991-2009 4TM Aaron Rodgers? Tony Romo?
QB rating does not mean anything when comparing to past generations. It doesn't translate well across eras.
