I can’t speak for anybody else but, to me, Brett Favre was too much of a “gunslinger” (i.e. he took too many chances) for me to put him above those other two. Manning? Well, technically speaking and from a “he ALWAYS did his homework” standpoint he’s at or very near the top of the profession. But I never liked him and if you’re talking “championships won” then I think it’s pretty easy to see why I prefer “Joe Cool” and Tom Brady to him.
Agree, Favre a gunslinger. But he was great, and he was tough. Very tough.
The NFL-100 just announced the top 10 QBs of the 100 year history of the NFL. There’s a Game Room thread on that.
ETA – here it is.
From the OP, https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=887603
{in no particular order}:
Tom Brady
Otto Graham
Dan Marino
Peyton Manning
John Elway
Joe Montana
Brett Favre
John Unitas
“Slingin”’ Sammy Baugh
Roger Staubach
These are the 10 greatest QBs in NFL history, as chosen by (whoever chose them).
ETA-2: so anyway, the ‘Favre a gunslinger’ discussion might get some traction there, but that thread petered out a few days ago.
It was fate that the Chiefs lost that game. It had to be fate - how else does a guy (PK Jan Stenerud) who is both in the P.F.H.o.F. and who was recently named to the NFL All-Time 100 team miss a relative chip shot field goal attempt near the end of that game (a miss that I believe haunts Jan Stenerud to this day) that would’ve (likely) given the Chiefs the win? (a field goal attempt that the Chiefs were forced into only because Dolphins PK Garo Yepremian - Garo Yepremian, for Pete’s sake! - managed to push the Chiefs’ kick returner [who might’ve been the aforementioned Ed Podolak, though I’m not sure about that] out-of-bounds on a kick return right before that) Not to mention the fact that, thanks to the N.F.L.‘s totally screwy playoff system back then, the two division winners with the best records in the A.F.C. that year met in the first round of the playoffs (the N.F.L. didn’t start seeding teams and assigning home games in the playoffs based on teams’ records until, I believe, 1975)! I’ve read that Coach Hank Stram actually believed that his 1971 team was even better than his Super Bowl-winning team from 2 years earlier. It’s a shame that the Chiefs didn’t beat the Dolphins that year. After all, the Dolphins got whupped by Dallas in the S.B. that season but they also enjoyed a great deal of success the next few years (and might’ve very well enjoyed even more [if you look at the record book you’ll see that the ONE team Pittsburgh wasn’t able to beat from 1971 to 1974 was the Miami Dolphins] if those guys [I think: Csonka, Warfield, and Kiick, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong] hadn’t left for the W.F.L.) while the Chiefs went downhill with a vengeance, not making it back to the playoffs for 15 years after that. (and how cool would it have been had it been the Chiefs - who, as the “Texans,” had left Dallas about a decade earlier - against the Cowboys for the whole shebang that year?)
I completely missed this earlier, racepug.
That Bills team was so incredibly talented, and that pistol hurry-up offense was near impossible to stop. Jim Kelly had fun playing in that offense! And if you’ve seen the 30-for-30 about him, when coming out of college Buffalo was one of the places that he did NOT want to go to.
And the 30-for-30 about those four years was special, about how the city of Buffalo circled around Scott Norwood.
On a funny note, I have to admit, though, that the Norwood Wide Right Jersey is pretty funny >> https://www.google.com/search?q=norwood+wide+right+jersey&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS832US832&sxsrf=ACYBGNQpy513x7r2ihlBccDhKUcXMEHmUg:1578095913900&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvgPqy0ejmAhVDtZ4KHf0aCisQ_AUoAnoECAsQBA&biw=1188&bih=998#imgrc=gKaRIAoA9qHsJM
My absolute favorite, too! You raise many good points and I should be so quick to give Brady the GOAT title. Joe Montana was fantastic, and I’m grateful to have lived and loved the 49ers during those years.
Your point about Montana the starter and Brady grabbing some pine, meat! – yeah, I can agree with that!
And let’s be clear, while Seifert did a great job, that Super Bowl XXIV team was still a Bill Walsh team. But, man oh man, 55-10 over the Elway-led Broncos!! Woo-hoo!!!
I think that’s what he meant, too.
Sooooo… yeah, kenobi 65, I can’t argue with your point. Brady was 3-3 in Super Bowls without Vinatieri, and he was 3-0 with him.
Not exactly stellar, is it? But yes, granted, they went to 6 more Super Bowls after Vinatieri left. Yes that is impressive.
One of those leads me to one of my very favorite video snippets, from a Super Bowl that the Patriots won because the Seahawks made that stupid goal line call and did NOT hand off to Beast Mode. And Pete Carroll screams, “Oh no!!!”
**I love it!**They absolutely THRASHED the Raiders in the A.F.C. championship game that year. I was in the navy at the time and when I saw how badly the Raiders had lost I couldn’t believe it (since my dad and I were Raiders fans before the Seahawks even existed and I wasn’t used to the Raiders losing like that, especially not in the playoffs, let alone a conference title game).
I’ve seen that show!
I meant to add to my earlier post on this topic (I tried editing it too late) that I was a Giants fan back in those days, as well. So, in one sense I “couldn’t lose” no matter WHICH team won S.B. XXV. I never got to see the game since the ship I was on was at sea when that game took place but I was disappointed to find out how Buffalo had lost. I found it difficult to believe that a team that had won its conference title game so handily just a couple of weeks before could then lose the ultimate game (and to a team it had already defeated that season!). Kudos to the Giants for their game plan but that’s the S.B. - of the four consecutive that the Bills went to - that I’ve always felt they should have won. 
I’ve come to admire Tom Brady, and believe me, I was no fan of his when this whole Patriots thing got started! But he’d still be the backup to you-know-whom if I were putting a league All-Time Greats team together.
I cannot even adequately put into words how happy I was when that game ended. The only thing I was disappointed by was that that team based in Colorado scored a touchdown (late. Looooooonnnngg after the final outcome was secure). Yes, I begrudge them even that ONE consolation TD, such is my intense dislike of that team.
I’d forgotten about that.
It should’ve been 55-3!
And, why did (do?j you hate Elway and the Broncos so much?
Oh yeah. Raiders. Yep, that’d do it.
Oh, so that other ESPN show From Elway to Marino was interesting, wasn’t it? I can see Elway taking over the Mad Bomber title from Daryle Lamonica. Al Davis would’ve loved him. But the NFL, with help from Da Bears, screwed the Oakland Raiders. Again. Marvin Demoff‘s notes were great, good thing he saved them!
And Bill Walsh trading away Montana? Oy…
Anybody but Buffalo and they just lost in OT. 
They are the worst fan base in America and sadly many of them have left Buffalo and now live all around the US.
Yep, just like I told y’all. Not at all surprised this happened. Tom Brady and the Pats offense isn’t what it used to be and the Titans are physical.
& if it is, it couldn’t have ended better, on a Pick-6. 
Given they’ve been caught cheating so many times I wonder how many times they weren’t caught & by extension how many of their wins came from cheating?
I know this is a ‘thing’ but seriously, Brady was a great QB for several years. Arguably still is though without a lot of support around him. And everybody, including their opponents, agrees Belichick knows what he’s doing as a coach.
Teams lose sometimes. Or have “down” seasons (but seriously, a lot of fanbases would be ecstatic with what is currently considered a ‘disappointing’ season in Foxborough). Teams sometimes don’t have a lot of pieces supporting their HOF QB. I don’t exactly root for the Patriots (actually I actively cheer for them to lose pretty much against everybody except the Cowboys) but by the same token, I’m not going to go full on conspiracy theory on them.
Spygate was not good but also not as huge a deal as it was made out to be and is now more than a decade in the past (other teams really were doing this, including my own probably). Inflategate was ridiculous and wouldn’t have given them a competitive advantage even if it turned out to be true (seriously, the PSI was in a reasonable range given the conditions). And this latest thing doesn’t make sense as a cheating strategy unless you either think Belichick has been hit in the head repeatedly or is needlessly playing 35th dimensional chess.
I’m rooting for my favorite team: the Patriots’ opponent.
Well it’s a brave new world. Someone besides the Patriots will be in the Super Bowl.
Yeah!
It’s still barely within the realm of possible that Brady has one more Super Bowl run left in him. Yesterday’s loss wasn’t really about how poorly Brady played. It’s true that he’s not who he was at age 35, but when you look at his some of post-season performances the last few years against tougher, stingier defenses, he’s arguably been in a gradual decline the last 2 or 3 years. The difference is he had a better selection of offensive play-makers to bail him out and he didn’t have that this time around.
If the Pats can commit to going out and getting one or two more offensive studs - one in the backfield who can hammer the ball like Lagarett Blunt and another who can make big time catches like Randy Moss or Rob Gronkowski, then Brady might have one more shot, provided the defense remains competitive. But Brady can no longer be counted on to carry his team and turn no-name receivers into overnight stars. He needs some big time help.
I’ll add that a loss to the lowly Titans in the first round isn’t as embarrassing or shocking as it might seem. The Titans are peaking and they are a quality team. They were 5 and 3 down the stretch, with 2 of those losses being close games against playoff teams.
I compare them to Lance Armstrong, the ‘greatest cyclist of all time’. Sure, you’re not even just an above average cyclist to sniff the podium at a TdF. Sure he was lucky to never crash out but the best in the world are all pretty close. Give one an unfair advantage (doping/cheating) & that extra 1 or 2% puts him over the top. Could Armstrong won a or a few TdFs clean? I think so but he was stripped of them all because of the cheating.
Now apply that to the Cheatriots who’ve been caught cheating 2½ times. If it’s responsible for even one win a season, that means a first-round bye one year, or a home vs. road playoff game another year (& look at their home record). Were they a good team? Absolutely. A three Super Bowl team? Possibly, maybe even probably. A six Super Bowl win team without cheating? Not in my mind.
Did Deflategate matter in that game? No, they trounced the Colts. But what if that wasn’t the first time they did it? What if it resulted in just one key pass being caught. Not even a big one but a 3[sup]rd[/sup] & 4 that extended a drive, that resulted in a touchdown, that now changed the momentum of the game because instead of the other team being down 3 or 7 with 10 mins to go they’re now down two scores with four mins to go. <– It’s that extra win that got them to skate to skip a wild card & have home field advantage that allowed them to even make it to the Super Bowl.
Someone who has repeatedly been proven to not play by the rules can’t be the GOAT, just a goat!
This is a ridiculous analogy. EPO isn’t an “extra 1 or 2%,” it’s an extra 20 or 30%. The widespread use of EPO changed bicycle racing from a contest of who has the greatest aerobic endurance to a contest of who has the physiology that gains the most from EPO. You can’t even use the “everyone was doing it and so Lance was still the best” argument, because EPO disproportionately benefits athletes who are not the greatest in terms of VO2 max and such. Though we can’t know for sure, without cheating (by him or his rivals), Lance Armstrong would probably have finished with a pedestrian career with a few Grand Tour stage wins and some respectable finishes in one-day classics racing, having spent most of his time riding in support of other guys on his teams. Absent EPO, he didn’t have the physique to come within sniffing distance of a Grand Tour podium, let alone win any.
This is completely unlike the plausible level of impact footballs with a bit less air in them, or scouting tape taken from a different angle.
Completely aree, Gorsnak. A ridiculous analogy.
This is especially ridiculous. Armstrong would never have won it without EPO. At best he was moderately good, but nowhere near good enough to win even once.
Truth!
And now back to our regular programming…
In today’s games, the Saints are favored by 7.5 over the Vikings, and the Eagles by 1 over the Seachickens.
Next week, already the Ravens open up as 10 (yes, that’s TEN!) point favorites over the Titans, and the Chiefs open up as 8.5 favorites over the Texans.
I hope Brady just quits now. He has little to gain - he’s already won 6 Super Bowls, earned countless millions, set all sorts of records - and a whole lot to lose. One injury could leave him paralyzed for life.
The only thing he could gain is getting New England to a record 7th Super Bowl title, but is it worth the payoff? It’s a long shot.
I’m a Ravens fan, so I’m hoping that they can win. Apart from that, my other main post-season wish has already been granted, because he Patriots lost last night.
I watched the start of the game in the gate area at O’Hare Airport, and most of the rest on a flight from Chicago to Hartford. We arrived at the gate right at the two-minute warning, and when I got off the plane there were big crowds in the terminal gathered around all of the televisions to see the final two minutes. Being Connecticut, the vast majority of the people watching were cheering for the Patriots, and the massive groan of disappointment when Brady threw the game-ending pick-6 was incredibly satisfying. It was all I could do not to stand on a counter and shout “Go Titans!”
If the Ravens can’t win it this year, I don’t really mind which of the other teams gets the trophy. I lean towards teams who haven’t won it in the last couple of decades, so I guess I’d prefer the Vikings, Chiefs, Titans, Texans, or 49ers, although I find it hard to root for the Niners since they left San Francisco for Silicon Valley.
I’m definitely hoping that the Vikings can beat New Orleans today (the missed FG to end the half was nice), and that the Eagles can beat the Seahawks.