I am a big Colts fan and live in Indianapolis, but although Manning seems like a great QB (and has almost record breaking stats) he is nothing like what I remember Montana being. With Montana every receiver on the field could be covered and he would still often make things happen. It seemed like no matter how tough the defense he usually found a way to break them. Are these accurate recollections or did I play too much Techmo bowl as a teenager?
Well, Montana has definitely been deified because he was good but mainly because he also won 4 Superbowls. That’s a big part of it. He’s remembered for being very good when it counted.
Statistically, he’s probably a little less impressive than Marino and (maybe) Manning. On a game to game basis, I don’t know that he impresses as much. He had great completeion percentages. Some of that was due to the fact that he didn’t throw deep quite as much as the Marino or Manning. But, he still had great stats, good yardage, good TD-INT ratios.
Your memory has probably built him up a bit, too.
No real comment; just wanted to say…ahhhh, Tecmo Bowl! Where Montana can connect with a 50-yard pass to Rice every other play, and when you’re not throwing to Rice, you run Tom Rathman just to watch defenders bounce off of him like Superballs. Sometimes, I’d run Rathman up the middle, and instead of going through the hole, I’d just tap the hell out of B and drive straight through the line. Three defenders would go flying, and all of a sudden I’ve got an extra blocker on either side. Oh, and speaking of defense in TB: Ronnie Lott is God. Ah, memories.
/is still mourning loss of his beloved NES, 1989-2002 
Bingo. One of the reasons I prefer a Tom Brady type over a Peyton Manning type is that Brady, like Montana, has gotten the job done on the biggest of stages. Manning is having an unbelievable year though, and could take his team all the way.
Speaking of Rice, how did you like the one handed touchdown catch yesterday? Unfreakingbelievable, and at his age!
As time passes, we tend to smooth over memories and as we imagine the good and great plays, we lose a sense of what really happened. Waxing nostalgic will do that to you.
In fact, you really need to watch some old video to see how Montana squeaked out some games, and won some games were he was bland or average.
In all fairness to Manning, as his defense proves its worth and as he forces less things, he’ll reap the rewards.
Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, etc…all have histories enhanced greatly by the fact that they had great teams on DeF, Spec. teams and Offense.
…Trent Dilfer…Mark Rypien…Phil Simms…Jim Mcmahon…Doug Williams…Jeff Hoestettler…
All can dream about their Superbowl victory thanks to great defenses. None can sniff Manning.
Manning has quite a few years left to play and I think that he is indeed a great quaterback. He would be a lot better if they had some defense in Indy. They never seem to make the next level because they score 35 but give up 40. Montana and Bradshaw were on overall great teams both offensively and defensively.
Peyton Manning is also a really cool guy. He’s a good role model, and you can’t say that about too many sports guys in Indy. 
One factor is the strength of his receivers. I don’t remember a lot of disappointments watching Montana play, but I remember lots of occasions when Marino would throw a pass, not to a completely wide-open person, but, in a true test of QB’ing, to a receiver who was inches ahead of his opponent, and the ball would come down just slightly away from the opponents fingertips, to nestle gently in the the hands of the Dolphin’s receiver jumping slowly in the air…who would then promptly drop the ball for an incomplete :mad:
Another thing about Montana is that he was friggen everywhere. Turn on the TV, and there he was, pimping everything from bubblegum to bullets. He was good looking and could enunciate. Whereas Payton has a bit of a oafish dumb jock quality to him. On the field, Payton this year is nearly as good as any of Joe’s years, and if he finishes off with a ring he’ll be equal in my mind. Heck, Joe even had a little bit of an advantage over Payton considering the enactment of the salary cap in 1993, one of Joe’s last years, which evened out the competetive field.
That’s true – that one highlight of Montana’s throw to Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone is a good example. Shitty throw, amazing catch.
Montana had “it”, the extra bit of determination to win that the others, although they’re excellent players too, didn’t have. There was a quote from Montana , which I can’t cite to know but which was quoted in a column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer at the time, during the Super Bowl week when the 49ers were playing Cincinnati at the Silverdome in Pontiac Michigan that showed his mindset. (Keep in mind that this was before San Francisco had won anything other than the NFC championship.) A reporter asked Montana if the 49ers could become a dynasty. Montana replied that there are no guarantees that they’d ever be in a position to win the Super Bowl again so that they’d better be sure to win the upcoming game.
OK, I have every Montana playoff game, including the Super Bowls on tape (I also loved the victory parades in downtown SF after each win!). What Montana had was incredible field awareness – he knew where everyone was at anytime. He also was able to react really quickly to the situation in front of him. That’s why he seldom threw a stupid interception and also why he was able to find that open receiver (could be the 5th guy he looked at) almost every time. That does not mean he was great in every game. There were some games in which he was pummelled, such as the playoff loss to the Giants. But the mantle of greatness cannot be earned without big wins, and Montana had many of those. Being surrounded by some superb teammates (Lott, Craig, Rice, Taylor, Cross, etc.) made his job easier, but he was an essential ingredient. So you gotta win, and Manning hasn’t won the big one yet and Marino will never do it. Note that Elway was a great quarterback, but didn’t gain true deity status until he won those last few Super Bowls.
He was also just plain fun to watch.
Except, you know, when he made the Broncos defense his bitch in that one Superbowl I pretend never really happened. It was all a very bad nightmare, produced by consuming too much chili during the pre-show.
There was one game when he played for the Chiefs that I remember in particular. It was a “anything you can do I can do better” shoot-out between Elway and Montana. I don’t even remember who won that game–I’m going to say the Broncos because well, I’m biased–but it was just the kind of exceptional excitement that makes the NFL great.
You’re killing me bagging on the only two Superbowl-winning Giant QBs. For the most part, I’m forced to agree. I will point out Simms’ Superbowl-record (that still stands, and may never be broken) completion percentage, completing 22 of 25 passes. Granted, not all of them were completed to the intended receiver, but still, that helped the cause.
Hostetler, however, was an integral part of his win. Without his safety, which would normally have ended up a touchdown for the defense, Big Blue likely wouldn’t have been able to hang with the Billies.
That game is in my Top Five Favorite Games Of All Time list, along with the game that took place the following week. But that one in particular is burned into my memory. I clearly recall, after being hit by Leonard Marshall, Joe Montana being shown sitting on the bench looking like death warmed over, and the sideline reporter said something to the effect of “Joe says he ‘hurts all over’.” Is that accurate? Would you mind pulling the tape and looking for the exact quote? It’s one of my fondest NFL memories ever, don’tcha know… (It’s not possible to get a copy of it from you, right?)
Essential? You don’t think Steve Young could have handled it?
And he couldn’t win without a running game, but that doesn’t detract from his greatness in my mind.
For the same reason that Joe Montana is considered to be a greater QB than Dan Marino, Tom Brady is (or should be) considered a greater QB than Manning. However, both Marino and Manning can legitimately argued to be better passers than their contemporaries.
The difference between a QB and a passer is key in defining greatness at the position. That is, I think, why Brett Favre receives such adulation. I often wonder how different Favre’s and Bledsoe’s respective legacies would be if the Patriots had beaten the Packers in that Superbowl. How different, really, are their careers if you remove that single game?
Apart from the fact that if you invented a fictional QB you would call him Joe Montana, my recollections are that his greatness was achieved by being the QB you would pick to control a last minute drive if your life actually depended on it.
Those last-minute heroics of Montana’s were things of beauty, even though (as a Cincinnati Bengals fan) I was never rooting for him.
There have always been quarterbacks I’ve enjoyed watching for their ability to scratch, claw, and pull magic out of their pocket, even those who never won the Big One. The ones I remember most fondly are Ken Stabler, Brian Sipe, Ken Anderson, Boomer Esiason, and John Elway.
Nothing against Manning, but he even hasn’t won an AFC Champioship game.
Montana played for great teams. But he was a genuinly GREAT QB. Stats and leadership. A winner! He’s in in the class with Elway, Uniitis, Marino, and Favre.
To compare him with Simms, Dilfer, and the others you mentioned is a laugh.
I don’t want to insult Tom Brady, or ANYBODY who’s won Super Bowls. But it’s worth noting that Tom Brady has NOT been uniformly stellar in “clutch” games.
Not to belabor the point, but everybody knows Brady fumbled away the ball in the biggest game of his life (the playoff game against the Raiders). BRADY knew it better than anybody (he never tried to argue the official’s call, because he knew he’d fumbled!). Now, a questionable rule/ruling gave him another chance, and he made the most of it, but make no mistake: Brady made the costliest possible error at the worst possible time.
Come to think of it… in the AFC finals against the Colts, with a chance to give the Patriots an insurmountable lead, what did BRady do? The one thing he couldn’t afford to do: he threw a dumb interception into the end zone, giving the Colts a chance to get back into the game.
And in the Super Bowl against the Panthers, he did the exact same thing! With a chance to deliver a knockout blow to the Panthers, Brady threw a dumb interception right into the end zone.!
Now, in both cases, the Patriots held on and won, so Brady wasn’t the goat.
But I point these things out just to show you how fine a line there can be between hero and goat. Tom Brady is a superb quarterback who deserves most of the credit he receives- but face it, if the refs made a different call in that playoff game against Oakland, and if Peyton Manning had managed to take advantage of Brady’s goof, many of the same people hailing Tom Brady as “Mr. Clutch” would be cursing him as a perennial choker who always screws up in big games.
Agreed. Tonight’s game was certainly not an example of a “clutch” game, but four picks in a game would be unusual for Montana I would think. Also, you are dead on about his playoff picks. I heard a stat somewhere about Montana never having thrown an interception, either in Superbowls or playoffs games, but I can’t remember which. Either way, that’s quite impressive.
But before we get too carried away, remember the systems both QBs had. The Patriots employ a vertical passing game, whereas the 49ers used the West Coast System, which artificially inflates passer ratings. It does this by emphasizing short passes, screens, and dumpoffs to the running backs, which greatly increase completion percentage and also greatly reduce interceptions. The vertical game requires a much more talented QB to pull off.
Not the Montana wasn’t uber-talented; he was. But his system was easier to run. Put him in a vertical system, and his numbers (and possibly accomplishments) wouldn’t be nearly so impressive. Brady throws the occasional duck, (or four), but his system is far, far tougher than, say, Chad Pennington’s is to run. (Chad is the poster boy for how the West Coast System inflates passer rating.)
This, incidentally, was the biggest dig against Donovan McNabb until this season. In a system designed to produce completion percentages in the high sixties, he never got above the fifties. I’m very curious to see if his growth this year was real, or if it was dependent on TO. We’ll soon find out.
One of the picks he threw tonight was absolutely stupid, and it cost his team the game. And the consequences could be big. I don’t know if Montana ever did anything comparable, but ultimately I don’t think too many people will remember Brady’s screwups tonight.
Skill-wise, Manning is about as good as anyone, and I don’t think he lacks the ability to win big games. You do need a good defense; I’m not sure how much he can do to win these games single-handedly beyond what he’s done before.