Look, I’m not trying to keep bashing your boy, and what I had to say WRT Steve Young vs. Favre, basically, I’ve already said. My point is that Favre is nowhere near good enough to even be considered for this list. When you have to resort to statements like
and
that says to me that Favre doesn’t have that much of a case.
Or, people talk about Favre’s comebacks because he has a habit of getting them in holes early by throwing the ball away.
Darned sure, hmm. Well if you’re darned sure, I guess this argument’s over. I mean, you must have talked to them all, right?
As far as consulting someone in the Pro Football business, um, how shall I put this… no. I’m perfectly capable of looking at the numbers, and I’ve watched them both play. Favre loses as many as he wins- I didn’t bring up the Eagles game, but since you did- who the hell wheels and throws the ball blindly downfield in an OT game in the freakin’ playoffs? What great quarterback throws a 50-50 ball with unlimited time left, without even looking? But like I said, I’m not talking specifically about any game. Last year he threw two picks against the Falcons at home, in a game they should’ve never lost. Year before that, it was six against the Rams. His postseason TD-Int ratio is barely 1. That’s not top-25 athlete material.
Is this just a North American athlete list? Because if Lance is Number 1, shouldn’t Miguel Indurain be right up there? He won the same number of Tours de France, although Lance isn’t done yet. But Indurain had much tougher competition, plus he won the Tours of Italy and Spain multiple times.
Well, you make good points, and I’ve never been one to make a good argument. I just get emotional about Brett and the Pack. Anyways, here’s a good comparison of Favre and Young’s post season records. You’ll see they put Young one ahead of Favre, so it’s certainly not overwhelming there. Also, I’ve watched plenty of Favre and plenty of Young and have come up with the idea that Brett is better, so anyone can watch and have a different opinion. I suggested asking a professional because they are in a good place to judge, but I’m not going through the effort to email, I’m just recalling all of the times I’ve heard commentators say, “If I could have any QB for one game, I’d pick Favre.” Again, that’s not the best way to form an argument, I understand. I’m not trying to convince anyone here. I just wanted to give my humble opinion.
I’d have to see specific evidence and analysis to buy it. Just rejecting yardage while accepting TDs - and it’s kind of silly to be criticizing DAN MARINO on touchdown passes, when Marino hold the single season and career records for that - strikes me as being a case of selective statistical support.
But… isn’t every stat Marino has “over” Favre also important? Why are you cherry-picking stats that favour Favre?
You’re inadvertently illustrating my point here, in that you have to justify and exclude things to place Favre over Marino; “well, yeah, Marino led the league in passing more often, but that’s because Desmond Howard blah blah blah.” I sincerely doubt a good returner costs a quarterback 40 yards a year; can you prove me wrong? If Favre was truly as dominant as, say, Wayne Gretzky or Babe Ruth, you wouldn’t have to go that far. I don’t need much justification for saying Wayne Gretzky was #1.
As to Favre not playing as long, Favre has now played 193 games, Marino 243. I don’t know when Favre is planning to retire, but he only has to play another three seasons to have essentially the same length of career Marino had.
Unless you’ve been in the locker room with Brett Favre, you don’t really know what kind of a man he is or how great a leader he is. I cannot stress this enough; you simply do not know. Your impression of Favre is made through information that’s been heavily filtered by the press, which has a well-earned reputation for framing athletes based almost entirely on how nice the athlete is to reporters. A player who gives good interviews will invariably be portrayed as a “leader,” with positive adjectives used to describe him; a player who does not give good interviews will be described by the press as “Surly” and “temperamental” and will be whispered about as a divisive influence, even if his teammates all say he’s a saint.
Frankly, I don’t know how you could ever say with any certainty whether Brett Favre is a better leader than Dan Marino; you have virtually no reliable information to go by to split that tiny difference. Maybe if Marino was well known as being a total ass, but during his career he was certainly regarded as an excellent leader. It’s not as if Favre wins the Super Bowl every year. And that, again, illustrates that it’s simply not all that obvious that Favre was truly greater than Marino. I don’t have to trot out the “intangibles” to tell you Michael Jordan was a greater player than Karl Malone, or that Jerry Rice was a greater player than Cris Collinsworth.
Montana actually had awesome stats. Playing almost exactly the same number of games as Brett Favre has, he passed for fewer TDs and yards, but also was picked off FAR less - 33% fewer picks - and had a higher completion percentage. Favre was more prolific, Montana more efficient. You could flip a coin.
As to Young, he has a stronger argument than you might think. His career is much, much shorter; he played only 169 games and didn’t start a lot of them. But his numbers are astounding; he beats ALL the QBs we’ve been talking about in TD/interception ratio (the best ratio in the history of the NFL), yards per attempt, and completion percentage, and he was on a totally different planet in terms of his rushing ability; he had more rushing yards than Favre, Montana, and Marino COMBINED. His short career counts against him, but during his run he was, IMHO, far greater than the peaks of any of the other QBs in the discussion. I mean, the guy was a machine. It was certainly my subjective impression of him that he was an absolutely unstoppable force when he was healthy.
When did he last win a major? In 2003 he was only in the top ten once. The field is catching up, methinks. He’ll likely end up as the greatest, but let’s make sure he does before we crown him.
I’d take Young over Favre anyday. I think Favre’s “risk/reward assessment ability” has always been questionable, and THAT, more than anything, I believe is maybe the most important quality in a QB.
Earnhardt should not be on the list. And, I’m a big NASCAR fan. I just don’t go around arguing that its a sport or that the drivers are atheletes.
SHAQ. Hey, size is huge part of being a great athlete. If you just want to run agility drills to determine it, then so be it. But, SHAQ’s inability to make free throws in a game at the same percentage he does in teh gym indicates certain mentality issues.
Armstrong. He could be on there. I’m not a big cycling fan, but I don’t think he was better than Indurain was, but he’s up there. Still, the physiology of these guys is amazing. Indurain’s at-rest heartrate was 27 beats per minute – no cite.
For simply rising above the rest of their sport, you gotta throw in Bonds, Gretzky and MJ, and probably Rice (Jerry, not Jim).
Sugar Ray Leonard. HERE’S THE BIGGEST PROBLEM. If you’re going to take a boxer, it has to be Roy Jones Jr. RJJ is basically 50-0 (he’s 49-1 but that was a DQ in a fight he was winning) with 38 KOs. He was robbed of the gold medal in the olympics in one of the most outrageous decisions ever, and then basically won belts in middleweight, supermiddle, light-heavyeight, cruiserweight, and heavyweight (maybe not cruiserweight). He has been unfortunate in that he hasn’t had too many greats to go against, but he beat Bernard Hopkins (who is going to go down as one of the top middleweights ever). He beat John Ruiz (a chump, but not a total chump and a real heavyweight), James Toney, and has simply demolished everyone they could throw at him.
Well, maybe, maybe not. What is indicates, really, is that he sucks at shooting free throws.
I’ll grant Shaq can’t hit free throws - in my household, the verb “shaq” means “to fail to make a shot” - but how does that impact his overall game? Answer; not enough to change the fact that he’s one of the greatest scoring machines of all time. O’Neal is a career .542 free throw shooter where the average is like .740 or so, which costs him, by my count, two points a game. Thing is, the only reason it costs him 2 points a game is because he TAKES more foul shots per game than almost any contemporary player, because he draws so many fouls; about two shots a game more than Jordan, four more than Hakeem, one more than Karl Malone or David Robinson, five more than Vince “Mama’s Boy” Carter.
To use Carter as an extreme example, it’s absurd to suggest free throw shooting is a weakness for Shaq, but not for Carter, even though Carter shoots better than 80% from the line. Carter doesn’t DRAW fouls; he’s reluctant to come inside, preferring to take jump shots instead of challenging the defense. O’Neal takes those fouls. He may have a terrible percentage, but he’s actually scoring about 6 points a game on foul shots to Carter’s 4, solely because he takes fouls Carter will not. His ability to draw fouls gives him extra chances Carter doesn’t - it’s not like he’s using up opportunities to shoot other players aren’t getting, he’s making those opportunities happen. It’s not as extreme a difference compared to Jordan, but there’s still a difference.
Now, O’Neal still scores fewer points per game than Jordan, but no matter how you slice it, he does it using fewer shot attempts, three fewer attempts per game (it’s four fewer in straight field goal attempts, but since Shaq takes two more foul shots per game I penalize him one attempt there) plus he’s soaking up 12 assists per game as opposed to Jordan’s five and change. That’s about 9.5 possessions a game in favour of O’Neal, a colossal number. I’ll grant Jordan may have other advantages, but in terms of offensive contribution there’s no doubt in my mind O’Neal is every bit as good at putting points on the board and in fact he might be just a hair better.
Sure, O’Neal LOOKS horrible shooting free throws, and it seems strange a guy who might be the best player ever would have such a fundamental weakness. But hey - Babe Ruth was an reckless baserunner who once ended a World Series by being caught stealing. Wayne Gretzky was by NHL standards a slow and clumsy skater. You can make up for a weakness if you’re awesome at everything else.
You can’t really compare a guard and a center’s shooting percentage. One gets shots 2 feet from the basket and the other is stuck with jump shots a large portion of the time. Plus, you are only looking at Jordan and Shaq from an offensive standpoint. Jordan was also a many-time first team all NBA defender. I don’t think Shaq has ever been on that list. Further, the very REASON that Shaq gets more shots from the line is BECAUSE everyone knows he is a poor shooter from there and they are more than willing to take their chances on two free throws vs. an easy dunk. This gets into a very cyclical argument. You say its good that its OK he shoot poorly from the line because he gets more shoots, but the reason he gets more shots is because he shoots poorly from the line.
I would argue SHaq is not even the best athlete on his current team. That honor belongs to Kobe, who again is not only a great scorer but like Jordan is one of the best defenders in the league. ANd again, I have no love for the Lakers and I never will even come close to LIKING the Lakers, so I think I am pretty objective on this. I can respect Kobe's talent. I could respect Magic and Kareem and James Worthy. They had skills. Shaq.....he uses his size to his advantage and is a dominating force because of it. Thats all I can say about him.
Someone mentioned Manute Bol and other taller players than SHaq, but thats not just what it is about with him. Manute Bol was a beanpole. Shaq is just HUGE, which makes it tough for anyone to stand up to him in the middle.
As for Armstrong, my main point about him was that its ONE race each year for three weeks that he excels at. The rest of the year, do you ever hear about any races he wins? Maybe he does win others, I don't know, but I tend to doubt it. Otherwise we'd hear about it. He gets named the GREATEST athlete of the last 25 years for winning ONE race a year for...I forget now, five or six years. Tiger won FOUR majors in a row and he is left off? Makes no sense.
The top three are TIger Woods, Jordan and Gretzky. Take your pick on who is at the top, it would be hard to argue with any of them. After that, there are probably 100 atheletes that could compete fairly closely for the remaining 22 spots. I know Bird, Magic, Montana, Rice and Bonds should all be on their somehwere. It would be difficult to narrow it done beyond them. Many legitimate candidates and it depends on your taste in sports.
Mark Eaton was just as big as Shaq. It’s more than size with the big man. he does have pretty good footwork.
One thing I kind of glossed over in my post was that I think a big part of being an athlete is being able to do what you’re able to do (sink a 5 footer, hit a free throw, etc.) when it matters. That’s the mental part of being an athlete that Shaq lacks a little bit. As my evidence, he says he shoots like 70% from the line in the gym, but shoots like 55% in games.
Guys like Tiger, Jordan, Montana, Isaiah Thomas seem to have the opposite. They’re BETTER when it matters.