Overrated QB's

[GNG]

Some of these posts are absolutely ridiculous. Elway and Favre are overrated? Are some of you too young to remember how good they were and didn't watch them play? Elway was always a great QB and was a lock for the HOF. Winning a SB was just the cherry on the sundae. And Favre... not only was he Pro Bowl for 11 seasons and a SB champ, he was arguably the best 2-minute drill QB in the history of the game. Favre owned the 2-minute drill the way Dennis Rodman owned rebounding in the NBA.

Favre and Elway were both great QB's.

 

[Shaggy]

Make me a MOD and I'll tell you.

 

[Scooby-Doo]

Kurt Warner was mediocre and had just as many shit seasons as good ones.

Warner put up above average career numbers and he put up some of the greatest playoff numbers of all time. The guy played his best football when it counted the most. Warner is underrated not overrated. You got it backwards.

 

[Rockinkuwait]

I think modern footballs push for efficiency that's come with the WCO is what skews the overrated vs. underrated argument a bit for some of those guys. Take Elway...

Made plays to win games all through his career even with lesser skilled teammates around him, but what happened when he joined Shanahan and got in a WCO?

Pre Shanny 77 QB rating, 55% comp rate 1:1 TD:INT ratio
Post Shanny 89 QB rating, 60% comp rate, 2:1 TD:INT ratio (nearly identical to Montana's career)

That style of play of the pre-WCO is long gone, where it was taking chances, throwing downfield more, not throwing high percentage passes etc. There were two QB's that really stand out to me as efficient in pre-WCO offenses... Aikman and Staubach. But today with the WCO, you can't win without playing at that efficiency with any consistency.

I wouldn't call Elway at the top as the best pure passer in the NFL either myself. But throwing in intangibles (leadership, control of the huddle, clutch play, hard counts, play action, mobility), he moves up if you ask me.

For me, yes efficiency is important, but more-so when talking WCO operators, and taken with a grain of salt with the pre-WCO guys.


As for Favre, he's easily top 5 all time for me. When I think of greatest football played, I think of Marino's first 4 years and Favre 95-97. That was insane football he was playing there.

Not sure who I'd call overrated myself. Namath I think is considered a showman, a real celebrity QB, and who had a couple great years and a guarantee. I don't put him in my top 20 but don't think anyone else does either.



I guess maybe Moon for me, but fine if someone disagrees with that one. Vick I think most agree is an insanely gifted athlete but really raw as a passer. Eli is not much above average but in the biggest moments showed up HUGE in those post-season runs (kinda like Phil Simms but without the injuries).

 

[handicappers]

Not even in the Soccer Forum? I'm the most knowledgeable soccer fan on your entire website.

 

[NinerSickness]

Elway: 148-82-1 / 51,475 passing yards & 300 TD's
Aikman: 94-71 / 32,942 passing yards & 165 TD's

Longevity does not equal greatness. Drew Bledsoe & Vinny Testaverde are not HOF-caliber QBs. It's better for a team to burn brighter & shorter than to burn longer & cooler.

Below the average in the NFL in efficiency numbers says a hell of a lot. If you strung the 16th-rated QB in the leagues each year together and formed a career, that guy was more efficient than Elway.

Postseason success got him into the HOF, but look at Aikman's postseason numbers; they're better. Much better. Overall, they there's not much difference between them except Aikman retired sooner due to concussions.

 

[NinerSickness]

Favre was in the top 5 greatest of all time. Your analysis stinks.

Top 1 actually (if you're talking about interceptions).

 

[NinerSickness]

I understand the difference.... But he quoted that Elway was the most OVER-RATED QB in NFL history...

He's not the most overrated in NFL history (Michael Vick is). But he's still overrated. You should at least be more efficient than the AVERAGE QB IN THE LEAGUE to be considered one of the all-time greats.

 

[Scooby-Doo]

Not even in the Soccer Forum? I'm the most knowledgeable soccer fan on your entire website.

There's a soccer forum?

 

[Rockinkuwait]

Top 1 actually (if you're talking about interceptions).

Due to longetivity, just like nobody got caught stealing more than Rickey Henderson or walked more batters than Nolan Ryan, or missed more shots than Kobe.

Brett threw interceptions sure. Had Warner played as much he'd be the all time INT leader. Same with Big Ben. Marino. Aikman. Elway. etc..

 

[NinerSickness]

Due to longetivity, just like nobody got caught stealing more than Rickey Henderson or walked more batters than Nolan Ryan, or missed more shots than Kobe.

Brett threw interceptions sure. Had Warner played as much he'd be the all time INT leader. Same with Big Ben. Marino. Aikman. Elway. etc..

If you want to play it that way...

Favre's interception PERCENTAGE (3.3%) is far, far higher than any of the all-time great QBs. It's not even close. He's tied with Josh Freeman & Ryan Fitzpatrick. And a lot of them came at the end of a playoff game to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (see 2009 w/ the Vikings, the pick-6 against Seattle and so on). Gamblers go on hot streaks, but in the long run, they end up blowing more big games when they're on the line than winning them.

And once again, this isn't to say he isn't a HOFer. But when you're talking about the all-time greats, something like this is enough to knock him down a peg & a half.

 

[Rockinkuwait]

Longevity does not equal greatness. Drew Bledsoe & Vinny Testaverde are not HOF-caliber QBs. It's better for a team to burn brighter & shorter than to burn longer & cooler.

Below the average in the NFL in efficiency numbers says a hell of a lot. If you strung the 16th-rated QB in the leagues each year together and formed a career, that guy was more efficient than Elway.

Postseason success got him into the HOF, but look at Aikman's postseason numbers; they're better. Much better. Overall, they there's not much difference between them except Aikman retired sooner due to concussions.

Actually Elway for his career averaged about 5% better than the league average in QB rating (14% better in the WCO, Pro football reference breaks those out for you). So if that "says a hell of a lot", there you go. He ranked above average for his career in YPA, TD%, INT%, sack rate, Comp% as well. (Aikman is 6% over average for his career, so basically the same of course Elway gave you 50% more production through his career). He was in the HOF long before his post-season success too.

Like I said today's WCO skews the numbers for efficiency which became a key in that system. Now that everybody runs that, we want to go back and pretend that the NFL was always using those metrics to determine how good a player was and revise history based on modern metrics.

Remember when Elway retired, his QB rating was pretty good. Figure you had the 3 WCO guys at the time (Young, Montana, Favre). Marino at 87 QB rating, Starr/Kelly/Staubach in the 84 range. Elway was at 80. He was as close to the non-WCO QB's of all time when he retired as Brady is today to Rodgers.





Take the NBA. Effective Field goal % is a big part of the new league we are watching. Do away with the mid-range shots, launch the 3pt field goals or at the basket and you score more efficiently. (Shooting 33% from downtown is better than shooting 45% on long range 2's).

Wasn't around anywhere close to this effect in Jordan's time. The push to evolve everyone you can into a 3pt shooter to up those efficiencies wasn't there, to coach players to work on that shot. So Jordan sits back at 169th all time in effective field goal%, behind guys like JR Smith. So Jordan only had his points because he shot a lot, he wasn't an efficient scorer though... Thus Jordan is the most overrated scorer of all time.

Of course anyone who saw MJ says that's crap.. You can't use modern changes in coaching that incentivize efficient play on players who were there before those were around right?





WR efficiencies are becoming more and more relevant today. Guys like DeSean Jackson, Malcolm Floyd, and TY Hilton got some massive deals based on that.

Sure Jerry Rice is only 206th in Yards per reception, really really poor efficiency right? I don't think that's an issue, and if in 10 years that becomes the leading stat that we judge wideouts on, I don't think that punches Jerry Rice down to the "average WR who just had longetivity".

 

[Rockinkuwait]

If you want to play it that way...

Favre's interception PERCENTAGE (3.3%) is far, far higher than any of the all-time great QBs. It's not even close. He's tied with Josh Freeman & Ryan Fitzpatrick. And a lot of them came at the end of a playoff game to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (see 2009 w/ the Vikings, the pick-6 against Seattle and so on). Gamblers go on hot streaks, but in the long run, they end up blowing more big games when they're on the line than winning them.

And once again, this isn't to say he isn't a HOFer. But when you're talking about the all-time greats, something like this is enough to knock him down a peg & a half.

And again, looking into all the guys playing since Favre aren't you? Fitz and Freeman combined in their 15 NFL years for two seasons they were better than average in INT%. Favre was that 12 times in his 18 years.

As passing efficiencies improve he will fall further. When he came into the league, there were 9 QB's EVER who had below a 3.3% int rate.

I agree he's had some HUGE interceptions in bad times... 100% there.

And I agree it's a weakness of his. He took a LOT of chances. He's the first to admit to that.

Young, Montana, Aikman, Marino, Elway. That's the list of HOFers with a lower INT% than Favre. Favre's rate was within .3% of all but Young/Montana. Within 3 interceptions every 1000 pass attempts than all but 2 HOFers.


I think that goes to show his greatness, where when you pick the worst part of his game, you come away with "above average" as your result.


You can do this with any past player. Oh no, Montana was only a game manager, his passing yards per game are there with Kitna, Brian Griese, and Jeff George, and he's nowhere near the top. Oh no, Steve Young is even worse, back behind Sanchez and Henne. Of course not, they played in different times and should be treated differently.


And it's interesting.. I wish I knew the source, but I remember a study a guy did years ago that Elway and Favre had by far the worst supporting casts of all the HOF QB's ever. Kind of odd that those are the two that tend to not have the greatest efficiency numbers, that almost seem like they try to do too much.

 

[Rockinkuwait]

And again, looking into all the guys playing since Favre aren't you? Fitz and Freeman combined in their 15 NFL years for two seasons they were better than average in INT%. Favre was that 12 times in his 18 years.

As passing efficiencies improve he will fall further. When he came into the league, there were 6 QB's EVER who had below a 3.3% int rate.

I agree he's had some HUGE interceptions in bad times... 100% there.

And I agree it's a weakness of his. He took a LOT of chances. He's the first to admit to that.

Young, Montana, Aikman, Marino, Elway. That's the list of HOFers with a lower INT% than Favre. Favre's rate was within .3% of all but Young/Montana. Within 3 interceptions every 1000 pass attempts than all but 2 HOFers.


I think that goes to show his greatness, where when you pick the worst part of his game, you come away with "above average" as your result.


You can do this with any past player. Oh no, Montana was only a game manager, his passing yards per game are there with Kitna, Brian Griese, and Jeff George, and he's nowhere near the top. Oh no, Steve Young is even worse, back behind Sanchez and Henne. Of course not, they played in different times and should be treated differently.


And it's interesting.. I wish I knew the source, but I remember a study a guy did years ago that Elway and Favre had by far the worst supporting casts of all the HOF QB's ever. Kind of odd that those are the two that tend to not have the greatest efficiency numbers, that almost seem like they try to do too much.

 

[Rockinkuwait]

Don't know why that quoted the entire thing, but oh well.

Here's how age and time affects the game. Favre 12 years in was 23rd all time in INT%... So a bit better than Romo/Big Ben 12 years in.... I don't think of them as major interception guys through the primes of their careers.

I think too often people that missed those great players primes only remember the bad endings. Favre's later years where he was throwing more picks (05, 08, 10) when nearly every other player has retired. It's like the slow and fat Shaq, or Emmitt in AZ..

By 2004 Favre was 35, had 3 MVP's, a SB win, top 3 in most every career stat, 7th all time in QB rating, 9th in Comp%. He was easily a top 5 QB ever.


I don't think that you can play yourself out of a top 5 career by sticking around and throwing it more than all but 2 other guys in the history of the game. Rice in Seattle and later Oakland years doesn't change him as the GOAT for me. He could have retired in 1996 as the GOAT. He retired in 2004 instead. 8 years of averaging 700 yards and 5 TD's. Oh well. Doesn't change who prime Rice was, and he was great for a longer period than anyone.

 

[Eco]

They were garbage WITH him most of the time. And a lot of teams are garbage if they lose their starting QB. That's always been a silly argument. You can't look at Vick's amazing stretches of brilliance without looking at his sucktastic runs when defenses figured him out (kind of like with Kaepernick). And overall, Vick was a mediocre QB. Middle of the pack. He was a turnover machine (fumbles mostly) and injury prone to boot. People were just star struck because of the highlight plays he made.

You're telling me that a terrible Falcons franchise, weren't successful under Vick? It was the most successful we've ever been until Matt Ryan.

2001 (Before Vick was Full-Time, 7-9)
2002 - 9-6-1 (Lost in Divisional Playoffs)
2003 - 5-11 (But Vick broke his leg preseason, missing most of the year)
2004 - 11-5 (Lost in NFC Championship)
2005 - 8-8 (Missed Playoffs)
2006 - 7-9 (Vick's last year)

So, to go 35-28-1 (Not counting anything from the year he broke his leg) isn't garbage when you consider the franchise had a 252 - 345 record beforehand.

Beside, he isn't HoF worthy anyways. He was the best we've ever had until Ryan/Roddy/JJ all got here and on the same page, but to say he was garbage just makes you look dumb.

 

[Eco]

Stop right there. Total numbers are the most meaningless stat in the NFL. They say nothing. Matt Stafford has some of the largest totals of anyone since he's been in the league. They all depend on total attempts, total possessions, how fast paced your offense is (Harbaugh's offense was the slowest-paced offense in the league). And I'm not defending Kaeptard; he sucks. But Cam hasn't accomplished more than he has.

Much better stats to look at: points per possession, yards per attempt, TD to INT ratio, passer rating and so on.

No, they actually the most meaningless. They aren't everything, but they are something. Colin was never considered near the top in the league, yet Cam is considered top 3, and if you're telling me that you'd coin flip between Colin and Cam, than please for the love of God become the GM of the Saints because with that thinking, they go right back to the toilet bowl they came from.

 

[flyerhawk]

Actually Elway for his career averaged about 5% better than the league average in QB rating (14% better in the WCO, Pro football reference breaks those out for you). So if that "says a hell of a lot", there you go. He ranked above average for his career in YPA, TD%, INT%, sack rate, Comp% as well. (Aikman is 6% over average for his career, so basically the same of course Elway gave you 50% more production through his career). He was in the HOF long before his post-season success too.

I wonder why no one is doing a QBR+(traditional) type rating that compares a QBs passer rating compared to his peers rather than to an all time standard? That would be a pretty useful stat.

 

[flyerhawk]

No, they actually the most meaningless. They aren't everything, but they are something. Colin was never considered near the top in the league, yet Cam is considered top 3, and if you're telling me that you'd coin flip between Colin and Cam, than please for the love of God become the GM of the Saints because with that thinking, they go right back to the toilet bowl they came from.

I don't know a lot of people that consider Cam top 3. And prior to last season there weren't a lot of people that considered him top 10. Last year his peripheral numbers were excellent as well as his cumulative.

 

[49ers Fan]

As a Vikes fan I wanna start by saying Fran Tarkenton was overrated. Look at his playoff and Super Bowl numbers.

Most overrated QB of all time is John Elway, I can't for the life of me understand why people have him in their top 10. His numbers aren't good at all until TD arrived and he sucked in the Super Bowl when he didn't have TD.

Joe Namath for obvious reasons is also way overrated...


I might start a WR overrated thread because Lynn Swann should be talked about too...

I agree about Fran's numbers in the playoffs and Super Bowls, however his career numbers are worthy of the Hall of Fame. I think the Hall of Fame takes into consideration his whole career even though there are some players who are in that don't belong in there.

Mike
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