Top 10 Greatest Quarterbacks of All Time
Hello guys, it is me, Justin back again with another article! In my last article I talked about the “IT” factors for quarterbacks. When we came to the end of the article, I had finished discussing that the “IT” factors for being an All-Time Great Quarterback were being a true franchise quarterback, having big time games on your resume, and having the stats to back up your play. In this article, I have dwindled the competition down to my top ten quarterbacks. All of these quarterbacks have at least one of these “IT” factors in their resume. While it is hard for some to have all of these characteristics, the ones that did displayed these the best made it on my list.
10.Terry Bradshaw
Last time I talked quite a bit about Bradshaw actually. He won the big games, which helped his resume even though he wasn’t the best statistical quarterback. He won four Super Bowls during his 14 year career. In addition, he definitely demonstrates the characteristics of a franchise quarterback along with being able to win the big games. If you ask most Steelers fans who was the Steelers’ best quarterback, most would probably say Bradshaw. He was consistently THE guy under the center during his time as a Steeler. In fact, 10 of those 14 years he threw more than 200 passes. Which shows his reliability as their starter. His last six NFL seasons he also produced a passer rating over 70.
While being a great franchise quarterback and winning the big games, his statistics were what really prevented him from getting higher on the list and almost made me think twice about giving him a spot on the list. In five of first six years, he only had a passer rating over 65 once. Another negative about Bradshaw is that he probably wasn’t even one of the best player on the Steelers during the time period he played. Defensive stars like Jack Ham and Jack Lambert helped get him the ball to give the offense more chances and allowed the Steelers to win games even when Bradshaw failed to put up big numbers. Plus his receiving corps was to his advantage with Lynn Swann and John Stallworth. Yet even with the negatives, and one of the greatest groups of players ever surrounding him, you still have to give him credit. He was the offensive orchestrator, the yin to the defense’s yang and, finally, he helped his receivers play at their true potential with his nice passes to them and solid chemistry with them.
9.Brett Favre
I think there are two different opinions when it comes to Favre. The first half thinks he is too low on this list because he played 19 seasons, won a Super Bowl and threw for more than 3,000 yards in all but two of those 19 seasons. And then there is the other half thinking that Favre isn’t even the greatest quarterback the Packers have had. Some of you probably think Bart Starr and Aaron Rodgers deserve to be higher than him on this list. Well, Favre, in my eyes, is a better quarterback than Starr and Rodgers, at least for now. Spoiler Alert: that means he is the only Packers quarterback on my list.
Some would argue Rodgers rather than Starr being better than Favre. But Rodgers has not been consistent enough, and has had tons of injuries. Favre also has two Super Bowl appearances including one of those which he won. Rodgers only has one ring too, but he has only made it there once too. Plus, Favre didn’t get to learn behind a future Hall of Famer when he started his career. Rodgers may have an arm and be the Hail Mary king, but Favre had a heck of an arm himself during his career. It was such a strong arm, he lasted 19 years in the NFL with it and often threw the ball so hard that some of his receivers would even drop passes. These are just some of the reasons why I believe Favre is a better football player all-time than Rodgers.
8.John Elway
Elway had a stellar career, but before I start raving about why he is a Top 10 quarterback of all time, let’s realize that we wouldn’t even be having this discussion right now if he ended his career after losing all three of his Super Bowl appearances.Which makes me also think about Jim Kelly, who notched four Super Bowl losses in a row. Yikes! I know Elway was going down that path, but he clutched up and won two Super Bowls in his last two years as a pro. Then, he retired on top. One of these Super Bowl wins was against the guy at №9, Favre. If Favre and the Packers would have won that game then there is a good chance he would end up at this spot. But Elway won that game and secured his legacy as being one of the greatest quarterbacks the game has ever seen.
Besides this though, Elway struggled and threw a lot of interceptions. He threw double digits interceptions in all 16 of his seasons. In 1985, he threw a career high 23 interceptions! He got better with age, as his interceptions declined and the three times he finished a season with more interceptions than touchdown passes all happened within his first six seasons as a pro. Some other pros about Elway are that he completed more than 280 passes in five out of his last six seasons. He also threw for more than 3,000 passing yards in all but four of his seasons as a pro. His quarterback rating also surpassed 85 in all of his last six seasons. Talk about getting better with age! The cons may be there for Elway, but the pros are enough for me to give him the number eight spot on my list.
7.Roger Staubach
Roger “The Dodger” Staubach was what he was called. He truly was the first great quarterback for America’s Team, and for most the best quarterback for America’s Team to ever play. This is the same case for me! Out of his 11 seasons, he managed to lead the Cowboys to the playoffs 10 times. Plus, he won two Super Bowls. Favre (№9) and Elway (№8) both played in 35 combined seasons and they only won three Super Bowls combined. That rounds to 8.6 percent of their playing careers combined where one of them won a Super Bowl.Staubach won a Super Bowl a little over 18 percent of his seasons in the NFL. That is a game-time performer right there! He also made it to the Super Bowl four times, which is insane for such a short career! Staubach also made the Pro Bowl six times — that is a little bit more than half of his career where he made the Pro Bowl.
His average completion rate throughout his career was 57 percent. At this point, you have to be wondering why at this point is he only ranking №7 on my list. Well there are multiple reasons. His first four seasons he struggled to see much playing time and had some injuries. In fact, in those four seasons combined he only managed to throw about 350 passes. So, really, we aren’t looking at a ton of seasons to study him, which obviously it isn’t as appealing as a long and consistent career. He also produced a season passer rating of 85 or above twice when he threw for 300 or more passes in a season. And, in all of the seasons where he threw at least 300 passes he managed to throw at least nine interceptions. It isn’t too bad though considering he threw 300-plus times those seasons, but it still isn’t what you look for. Overall with all my observations, I think Staubach still sits solid at my №7 spot, and I feel many people underestimate how good his career actually was.
6.Dan Marino
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! You go from Staubach, who won a Super Bowl in about 18 percent of his seasons to Marino who won zero Super Bowls!? I am not a mind reader, but I feel this is probably the elephant in the room right now. Any time someones makes a case for Marino being up there with the rest of greats at the position there is always that aspect of his game that brings him down — he never won a Super Bowl. I am sure I am not the only one who thinks Marino is an All-Time great quarterback. Here is why you can’t completely blame him for not winning a Super Bowl — his team only made the playoffs 10 times in his 17 year career. He had more seasons with more than 3,000 passing yards (13) than playoff appearances (10). The only time he threw for more than 5,000 yards, which at the time was unheard of at the time and an NFL record that stood until 2011, was the only time his team made the Super Bowl. The season he threw for 4,746 yards, the second highest in his career, he couldn’t lead the Dolphins to the playoffs. His defense was so bad, that they couldn’t even put up stats to at least help them make the playoffs. The one time he did make the Super Bowl in 1984, their defense gave up 38 points that game! Five of the 10 times they got out in the playoffs their defense gave up more than 35 points. One of those times they gave up 62 points to the Jaguars.
Now the reason I have him this high on the list is because he put up better statistics than almost any quarterback in NFL history. The year he put up the 5,048 yards, he also threw for a record at the time 48 touchdowns! He also had a 108.9 quarterback rating for the season. He put up more than 4,000 yards five times in his career! That is insane because for this time period the stats for quarterbacks weren’t nearly as good. Putting up 4,000 yards during that time would be like putting up 5,000 yards today. Marino has a passer rating of 80 or higher, 15 out of the 17 years he played in the NFL. His career passer rating was 86.4! You guys get the point right? Marino was such a great statistical performer that you have to consider him one of the All-Time greats! Period.
5. Peyton Manning
Manning, without a doubt, deserves to be in the conversation for the best quarterback of all time. He isn’t the best quarterback of all time, but you have to give him some respect. The guy had the best season by a quarterback ever! His 5,477 passing yards and 55 passing touchdowns were both single-season records. He completely crushed the previous passing touchdown record which was 50 passing touchdowns. His career passer rating was 96.5 and his career passing yard total of 71,940 ranks up there with the best. There are some downfalls though.
Even though Manning has two Super Bowl rings, he was not anywhere close to a clutch player in my opinion. He only won 14 out of his 27 playoff games. The two Super Bowls he lost were partly on him. Especially the one against the Seahawks where the Broncos lost 43–8 and his passer rating was below 80. When Manning faced the Saints in the Super Bowl, he only threw one touchdown pass and helped the Colts put up 17 points. Manning also played significantly worse than Tom Brady, his archival, during his time as a pro. Brady won 11 out of those 17 match ups. However, Manning didn’t choke completely, he still won two Super Bowls and 50 percent of the Super Bowls he played in. Manning still has those big game wins under his belt. He led two teams to Super Bowl victories as well which deserves some props. So many props that he is the number five quarterback of All-Time in my eyes.
4. Johnny Unitas
Johnny U! He was the master of the two minute drill, and definitely one of the first to master this skill. Along with being what most people would call the “creator” of the two minute drill, Unitas was selected to the Pro Bowl 10 times and was an All-Pro five times in his 18 year career. In his nine playoff games, which is a solid amount since playoffs were different during this time period, he led his team to two national championships and won one. His overall playoff record was a staggering 6–3. Unitas put up more than 40,000 passing yards in his career, which is impressive considering he only threw more than 400 passes three times in a run-first time period. It is hard to compare Unitas to modern day quarterbacks, but when you compare him to his contemporaries, he was the “Joe Montana” or the “Tom Brady” of his time. One negative about Unitas is that when they went on to the National Championship versus the Jets he got benched and didn’t start a game that 1968 season. Another negative is he also got shut out twice in the playoffs. But it is hard for me to be too negative of a once in a generation quarterback like Unitas. He certainly deserves to be a top four quarterback of All Time.
3. Otto Graham
Graham has an NFL record, one that will most likely never get broken. He holds the record for most consecutive championship appearances with a whopping 10! He only played for 10 years too! It is insane to think that someone can be that dominant to the point where they can lead their team to a championship every season they have played in. But, this was Graham during the pre-Super Bowl era in which he played. The Browns could use him for right now with the way he contributed for them over 60 years ago! During these championships, Graham lost only three of them! I think most people don’t put him in the consideration for the best quarterback ever because they never heard of him, never saw him play and aren’t aware of his stats.
It wasn’t just his post-season dominance that gives him this high of a spot on my list, it is his overall play. He finished his career with an overall passer rating of 86.6. Graham also threw for more than 2,000 yard in seven of his seasons! This is bonkers considering he only threw more than 300 passes in a season once in his career! He also led the league in passing seven times in his career. Graham probably could have been the №1 quarterback on my list, however it is so hard to relate to a guy from this time period to the point where football was played so differently to give him the №1 spot.
Okay, so by now you probably figured out who are my top two quarterbacks of all time are — Joe Montana and Tom Brady. I happen to think that one is better than the other. Even though they were both incredible quarterbacks, only one can be the greatest quarterback of all time! Here is my Montana versus Brady comparison.
Brady is flat out the best quarterback of all time. He has enough rings to cover up a whole hand! Montana might have been clutch, and won four out of four Super Bowls for the 49ers, but he had Jerry Rice to throw the ball to. You can’t say that both Rice and Montana are the best of all time at their positions. They are without a doubt the best duo of all time, but their overall talent for each of them is hard to measure because they obviously made each other better.
Brady had Randy Moss towards the end of his career, but other than that, none of his receivers have compared to Rice. Last year, he had Julian Edelman, Chris Hogan, Malcolm Mitchell and Danny Amendola as receivers. If you asked me a couple of years ago who any of these guys were, I’d wouldn’t have known. Edelman was a quarterback in college! Hogan played lacrosse in college and only had about 1,000 yards in career prior to joining the Patriots! Deion Branch used to be his go-to guy, but they traded him. Once they traded him, he stunk. The only reason these receivers are good are because of Brady. Any other quarterback in the league wouldn’t do nearly as good with his receivers. Not a knock against Patriot receivers, but Brady helps their gameplay improve tremendously.
Rice is the №1 player of all time according to NFL.com. He made Montana and Young great. I still think they would have been good without him, but not as good. When Young started his career with the Buccaneers, he wasn’t that good. But once he played with Rice, all of a sudden things started to click. I can’t imagine he didn’t make Montana better too. Montana would still be one of the Top 3 quarterbacks of all time, but he possibly wouldn’t have four rings.
Another reason Brady is better is because he found a way to go to eight Super Bowls! Of course he wasn’t going to win all eight Super Bowls. The three that he lost though, he almost won. Eli Manning and David Tyree did some incredible things towards the end of those games. And in February, Nick Foles put on a show.
Montana was in half the amount of Super Bowls. The real Super Bowl during Montana’s era was arguably the NFC playoff clashes between the 49ers and the Cowboys. That was Montana versus Troy Aikman. That was an even match up and Montana definitely lost his fair share. Brady versus Peyton Manning was a huge rivalry, and Brady steamrolled over Manning most of the time. Joe Cool might have been known for waving to a celebrity before throwing the winning touchdown to beat the Bengals in the Super Bowl, but Brady is now known for scoring 31 consecutive points to beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl two years ago. Nobody believed they could pull it off, but going down the field a drive to throw a winning touchdown, that was clearly possible.
I understand you might dislike Brady and blame him for the deflategate. However, I think he should be respected. Even I, a Jets fan, believe that he is the best quarterback ever. The 49ers are my second favorite team because of their history and players. Montana might be my favorite quarterback, but I think Brady is better. You can’t deny talent, and even though Bill Belichick’s coaching is very good, Brady is the one who has to execute the plays. So, I think Brady wins the battle.
2. Joe Montana
1. Tom Brady
Well there you have it folks! My Top 10 quarterbacks of all time! Do you agree or disagree? Comment below on what your opinion is and tune in next time as I talk about the top ten wide receivers of all time! Lastly, thanks for reading and I will see you guys next time!