Now that Favre is officially done, where does he rank all time?

How many super bowls did Elway go to, four?

So by that logic, players like Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer are better than Dan Marino????
ps- in case you didn't notice, football is a team game. Look at the stats, Favre blows him away.

This has nothing to do with Favre, but I thought it would just be something to chew on regarding Elway, when compared to another player who shared a similar prime career era.

John Elway, career:

Yards/Attempt: 7.08
Comp% 56.9
TD%: 4.1
Int %: 3.1

Mystery Player, career:

Yards/Attempt: 6.92
Comp%: 59.6
TD%: 4.0%
Int%: 2.3%

Here's the peak year performance for Elway, and mystery player:

John Elway, 93, 97, 98:

Comp%: 60.2%
Yards/Attempt: 7.23

Mystery Player, 96, 97, 99:

Comp%: 61.1%
Yards/Attempt: 7.47

So this mystery player from the 90's was far less likely to hurt his team with a turnover, and gave similar offensive production with far less fanfare. So who is the mystery player? Steve Young? Troy Aikman? Dan Marino?

The mystery player in this case, is Mark Allen Brunell.

Outstanding post. I usually catch the stats and recognize the player right away, but this one surprised me. Great way to use stats to prove your point.

Under your criteria, you could have a fantastic year or two, play for a long time, and rank highly? A Randall Cunningham in Minnesota '00 if you will?

I respectfully disagree. From my perspective the greats have to have capacity to play exceptionally and do it often for an extended period of time. In addition to this, intangibles mean something. Great leaders make players around them better and make teams better than they would otherwise be, and that has to count in my book.

I could see how stats and "longevity" could overlap, but that is the nature of performance based metrics, invariably performing well in one area will bleed over to other areas.That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying stats and longevity, for example, can not be compared because they do not share the same genus (i.e. components of QBing greatness).

Longevity and peak performance DO share the same genus, and therefore, can be compared under the same critieria, because (speaking philosopically), when you are talking about longevity, you are saying nothing about peak performance, and vice versa.

Anyway, I'm being real nitpicky there, but only because I thought your methodoligy was very sound, so I felt I could throw my two cents in and maybe thin some stuff out.

The bolded statement is totally unsubstanciated. I mean, it sounds good when said in a Disney movie, and some very smart football people certainly believe it to be true, but it's not a proven factor in quarterbacking. We can not prove that some quarterbacks automatically make players on their team try harder than other QBs. We know we can make them look better by playing better than other QBs, but that's all we know. It's my opinion that QB leadership is an important off field component of locker room chemistry, but changes nothing regarding on-field performance. Some QBs are more mentally prepared than others, but that can be measured statistically, and is hardly an intangible.

Again, I liked your initial post, because most people don't try to define "greatness" before coming up with a list. That's a pretty important step.

I've mentioned him before but when I think of top 10 QBs-and for my purposes here I'll only consider a.) retired players and b. players I've actually had the chance to see play, so this eliminates guys like Tom Brady and Sammy Baugh-one name I always come back to that is always overlooked is Neil Lomax.

I can't rank them, but 10 best (retired) QBs that I've seen:

-Troy Aikman
-John Elway
-Brett Favre
-Jim Kelly
-Neil Lomax
-Dan Marino
-Joe Montana
-Warren Moon
-Phil Simms
-Steve Young

I don't remember Fouts and Bradshaw well enough

And, not to be a homer, but I think Theismann was/is underrated

One last point. EVERYTHING that happens between the white lines is measured in some way. The score, the yards gained, the downs, every carry, every reception, every pass attempt, every field goal kick...all these things are measured by statistics.

So obviously, we can draw the conclusion that everything that determines the outcome of a football game can and is measured. That's pretty obvious when you think about it.

The only thing that is left for human interpretation is how the specific outcomes are achieved by the individual players. Because we know the team output is a sum of the total output of the individuals. Stats won't come out and tell you why thing's just happened, but they will tell you exactly what happened.

Therefore, we can say that anything that is intangible had no effect on the game. If it effected the outcome, it was measured in some way. Which is not to say that these things aren't important...maybe they just aren't intangible after all?

1. Steve Young
2. Dan Marino
3. Otto Graham
4. Joe Montana
5. Roger Staubach
6. Bart Starr
7. Sammy Baugh
8. Brett Favre
9. Jim Kelly
10. Johnny Unitas

A list I put together using my criteria, but it's still off the top of my head, and rough around the edges. List excludes Peyton Manning for not being retired.

Heres my list:

-Troy Aikman
-Joe Montana
-John Elway
-Brett Favre
-Steve Young
-Jim Kelly
-Dan Marino
-Warren Moon
-Phil Simms

I forgot to add #10. I'm going with Bernie Kosar.

Elway and Marino never had great defences
Umm what? Elway had a top ten D 8 times:

1998- 8th
1997- 6th
1996- 7th
1991- 3rd
1989- 1st
1987- 7th
1984- 2nd
1983- 9th

Actually, everyone knows about the offense and during Elway's tenure the average rank of the offense was 9.5. The average rank of the defense was 11.56. Not a whole lot different.

You have more of a point with Marino who had a top ten denfense only 4 times:
1998- 1st
1990- 4th
1984- 7th
1983- 1st

ps- Favre only had a top 10 D 7 times during his career.

and usually played with no running game

That is fairly true, but it's not like Brett had a hall of fame running game either. Marino's sucked for the most part, but Elway won his super bowls when he had a couple AMAZING running game seasons. All his super bowls he had a good running game.

1998- Terrell Davis, 2008 yards, 21 tds, 5.1 ypc (all lead the league)
1997- Terrell Davis, 1750 yards, 15 tds, 4.7 ypc (2nd in yards, 1st in tds, and 6th in ypc)
1989- Bobby Humphry, 1151 yards, 7 tds, all in only 12 starts. (8th in yards, and 7th in tds)
In 87 and 86, Winder was admittedly not impressive, however, the Broncos ranked in the top 10 in rushing td's both years. 87- 3rd, 86- 9th.

So as you can see, the misconception that Elway didn't have a defense or a running game is false.

I forgot to add #10. I'm going with Bernie Kosar.

I love, LOVE Bernie Kosar (I was a big Browns fan back in the day) and I actually used to (kind of still do) throw a football side arm. It's weird, I know

Still, I don't know if he's top 10 for me. It'd be very, very close