I assumed he was talking about Cooper…
Ha! Yes, I meant Peyton.
In a thread asking for the greatest QB to win one game, meaning one QB, let me put my top three:
- Joe Montana
- Johnny Unitas
- Otto Graham
I’m too young to have watched Unitas and Graham, but I have watched QBs going back to – and this is from memory: Namath, Dawson, Staubach, Griese, Morrall, Tarkenton, Bradshaw (and Gilliam), Hanratty, Gabriel, Jaws, Haden, James Harris, Doug Williams (who has been a black QB all his life :smack:), Bert Jones, Joe Ferguson, Blanda, Pastorini, Manning the Elder (Archie), Plunkett, Moon, Grogan, Stabler, McMahon, Lamonica, Sipe, Ken Anderson, Esiason, Dickey, Hadl, Majkowski, Kramer, Theismann, Schroeder, Rypien, Strock, Fouts, Eason, Fuller, Mirer, Zorn, Krieg, … (okay there are others but I’ll stop there)…
… and of course the recent greatests like Peyton Manning, Elway, Brady, Marino, Jim Kelly, Aikman (hard to admit, being a 49er fan), and Steve Young.
Wow, that was a nice trip down memory lane.
But, Montana. Joe Montana. Definitely.
So the cutoff between way back and recent is 1982 (McMahon to Elway). I’m glad you didn’t include Favre.
Seriously? Don’t be silly.
And, better check your years. They both were playing in 1985.
Sorry, that was vague. I was going by draft years for the era comment.
And I guess it’s not well known that I consider Favre to be merely “good” and not “great” overall. Great iron man… good QB.
No worries, and I agree, great iron man, good QB. The penultimate gunslinger.
Who is the ultimate gunslinger?
Dan Marino. What separates him from the other greats is that he never really had support from a running game, nor was he likely to be bailed out by his defense if he had a bad game. There is no other “great” on the list who worked under more disadvantages his entire career than Marino, yet still excelled.
If I need one win, I trust Marino over anyone else to get me that win.
Peyton still looks good. All-time season highs in passing yards and TD’s, with only ten (TEN!) interceptions, with a screwed-up ankle no less. It is simply incredible. Though when push came to shove, the Seahawks forced him to not matter so much. I still think that under all that pressure, Peyton remained the brightest spot on that team. Maybe if he’d had more mobility…
So, Brady has a little more mobility, maybe he’d have a better chance. Well, Montana had still better mobility. Geez! There’s no answer to this. Manning and Brady have comparable stats, Montana has more x-factor, but there’s a good case for Rodgers and other greats too. Marino- I give up.
Yada yada. Let’s take that as a vote for Peyton to win that One Big Game, mind-boggling though THAT is. You’re fascinated by whatever numbers you can find, to the exclusion of all else, including the fact that football is a team game. The result of that fascination can only be to conclude that Peyton just had the best Super Bowl of any QB ever. But this thread is about winning.
Let’s take that as a vote for “winning is just a matter of luck”, equally mind-boggling.
Now: Where’s all the love for Sid Luckman? Sammy Baugh? Dutch Clark? Did history start with the TV age?