Wednesday, April 26, 2006

All Hail Brett Favre


So, I'm watching SportsCenter during which ESPN breaks the news that Brett Favre will return to Green Bay for another year of football and that the earth may resume spinning on its axis. They then turn it over to Sean Salisbury who gushes over Favre (a member of the media fondling Favre? No way!) and then pronounces Favre to be one of the five greatest QBs of all time! This comment goes down as idiotic statement # 1,235,472 that Salisbury has made in his tenure as an ESPN "expert."

I realize that there's a tendency to hype up any player when they are at the tail end of their career. You need only look back to the Jerome Bettis lovefest during last year's playoffs to see that. Even still, to call Favre one of the top 5 of all time is downright ludicrous. Going just off the top of my head, my top 15 would look like:

1. Joe Montana
2. John Elway
3. Johnny Unitas
4. Dan Marino
5. Tom Brady
6. Roger Staubach
7. Bart Starr
8. Fran Tarkenton
9. Dan Fouts
10(t). Troy Aikman/Steve Young
12. Brett Favre
13. Peyton Manning
14. Sonny Jurgensen
15. Terry Bradshaw

If you'd like to argue with my ordering, go right ahead; but I don't see anyway at all that Favre cracks that top 5.

8 Comments:

At Wed Apr 26, 07:10:00 AM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Since any listing of Top-whatever demands a bunch of idiots stand around and debate its accuracy, allow me to be the first idiot and say - Shouldn't Joe Namath be somewhere on that list? This will really impact his social life:

Joe: "I want to kiss you"
Gal: "Eww...you're not even one of the Top 15"
Joe: "That list was just off the top of Insomniac's head. He doesn't sleep much and... I wanna kiss you."
Gal: "Why is Dean Martin's corpse hitting on me? Go away."

 
At Wed Apr 26, 08:31:00 AM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was probably just annoyed that Namath set a precedent that made Kobe Bryant and Lebron James think it was ok for athletes to wear panty hose.

But Namath probably should be in there...so take Jurgenson out, bump Bradshaw up one and put Namath at 15.

Now go get your mack on, Joe!

 
At Wed Apr 26, 11:22:00 AM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry. But I can't help myself from offering my own little list. This is what happens when you post a list, though--everyone else has one.

I try and avoid ranking and rating players I never saw play, but even just ranking those I have watched, Favre doesn't crack the top 5.

1. Elway
2. Montana
3. Young (Would have won more superbowls in SF if they got rid of Montana sooner; would have had better stats if he didn't waste years in USFL and Tampa)
4. Aikman
5. Marino (probably should be higher, but I'll never forgive him for the fake spike.)
5. Brady
6. Jim Kelly (just a made kick by norwood and who knows...plus he also lost a lot of stats to USFL)

 
At Wed Apr 26, 11:34:00 AM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Favre is the toughest QB to place in the rankings. Because for the good he brings to a team, he belongs in the top 5. But it's the bad that he brings to a team that drops him out of the top 5.

So when I think of Favre at his best, it's hard for me to think of any QB that is better. But he's more mistake-prone than anybody on the list (comparatively--players in the 50s, 60s, and 70s are going to have more interceptions because the game had different rules). So do you think of Favre for all the TDs and game-winning drives...or do you also remember all the interceptions and game-losing plays?

By the way, your list leaves off the real old-timers like Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman, and Otto Graham, who in my opinion would be at least #5, 6, and 7 and bump everybody else down.

 
At Wed Apr 26, 12:04:00 PM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

My list is definitely biased towards guys I've seen play. I was going to include Sammy Baugh and Otto Graham, but their TD/Int ratios scared me off. I had completely forgotten that the PI rules were different back then. A very good point, Viking.

 
At Wed Apr 26, 02:28:00 PM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

how does staubach come in at 6 and aikman at 10? aikman had more superbowl wins and better stats.

 
At Wed Apr 26, 03:27:00 PM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aikman is my favorite player of all-time. I probably was overly sensitive to my own favoritism, so I knocked him down a bit.

Staubach was no slouch tho. Before John Elway and Joe Montana, "Captain Comeback" was the master of the two minute drive. I can't confirm this, but I think Staubach still holds the record for comeback wins in the last two minutes of a game. When he had to carry his team to victory, more often than not, he came through. He had a 3:2 TD/Int Ratio. He averaged 7.7 yards/attempt and had over 2000 rushing yards and 20 rushing TDs (all of which are better than Aikman's). If Jackie Smith could catch a ball, he'd have the same number of rings on his finger as Aikman.

 
At Fri Apr 28, 06:35:00 AM PDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think Staubach and Tarkenton were probably the best QBs at improvising that the league has ever seen. And Staubach put up his numbers in a fairly conservative system, until his last two years when he played with the new interference rules and his numbers got outlandish.

 

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