In your opinion, which QB who has never won the big game was the best? ( I fear I am not versed enough in the history of the game to cast a vote.)
Dan Marino.
As much as I loved Jim Kelly, I think it has to be Dan Marino.
It’s Marino in a walk, with Fran Tarkenton a fairly distant second.
Another vote for Marino.
I’ll go with Marino. But I have very distinct memories of the talent of Francis Asbury Tarkenton.
Honorable mention: Warren Moon.
mmm
Marino was the only one I could think of, but I figured as soon as I said him, someone would come by to remind me of another different one that I would agree with.
Y. A. Tittle, John Hadl, Dan Fouts, Darryle Lamonica, John Brodie, Roman Gabriel, Sid Luckman, Sammy Baugh . . . .
Dan Marino, but this chart from pro football reference implies that the distance between him and Fran Tarkenton may not be that far.
I am waiting for someone like the Outsiders to come up with a good stat, a la WARP3, OPS+, or ERA+, that would be helpful in comparing NFL players from drastically different eras. Perhaps all we need is for DYAR/DVOA to go back far enough in time? It’s hard to otherwise equate 4500 yds/season passing for Marino to 2750 yds/season passing for Tarkenton.
I agree that it has to be Marino, but there are a number of others that are worth at least mentioning.
For comparison, I wonder if the timing of when a QB actually won the Superbowl would have a factor on a list of best to win one. Favre played for forever, now holds (I think) all of Marino’s records, but his one win was 15 years ago and now I have a hard time thinking of him as anything but a waffler and team-killer for the last half-decade. Elway won two Superbowls back-to-back (beating Favre and the defending-champion Packers in the first win) and then retired. How many people would first think of all the Broncos’ Superbowl losses in the 1980s instead of the way he finished his career?
Marino, Tarkenton and Kelly. But Marino was the best of those three.
So is Warren Moon the best one to never even appear in a Superbowl/championship game?
Probably, ignoring, of course, those who didn’t play in the Super Bowl era.
I nominate Archie Manning. Thought he was a great QB, but he played for some incredibly bad teams. Had to spend much of his career running for his life behind a line that offered little or no protection. I often wonder what he could have done if he’d played for Pittsburgh, or Dallas, or even a halfway decent team in his prime…
Fouts never got to a SB, (he did lose the AFC title game in BRUTAL cold)
Since you referred to “championship game”, he did win several CFL championships before moving to the NFL. I know the thread is about the NFL, but thought that it should be pointed out.
True. I was thinking “NFL Championship Game” (to cover people like Tittle, who did lose a couple).
And Fouts was the other name that sprang to mind.
Danny White 
Dan Marino.
Does he count? Like Bernie Kosar, he has a ring, but he didn’t ‘win the big game’.