rogers park bryan wrote:
The cult of Elway is amazing. He just wasnt as good as people wanted him to be. He was a good QB in his era.
His first 10 years in the NFL he threw 158 TDs and 157 Interceptions. There is no spinning that. (For reference Randall Cunningham was 147-100 in his first 10)
He was great his last 5 years.
Similar completion% between them. Elway also lead his teams to 3 SB's to Randalls 0. I'd argue that Randall had much better defenses on his teams to help him out during his Eagles run.. that said, Randall pre-injury (and even a little after his injury) was also a damn good QB.
During Elways era it was rare for more than 5-6 players to crack 60% completion ratios per season and typically around 63% was excellent and would be tops in the league back then. Getting into the 90's you saw this increase a little bit with guys like Steve Young but not to the hilarity that you see it today. These numbers today would be considered poor. The rule changes without question have skewered this conversation. Even Brees hovered around 60-65% in his SD days before the rule changes really started to effect thing. Theres no way in hell we'd be talking about Brady and Brees in the same light we do now if the rules never changed to not only help protect them (lengthening their careers) but also protect WR's too.
For some perspective (because I think its clear some people here either have none, or have long lost it..) Elways era QB's 'accuracy'..
Marino's lifetime completion% was 59%
Jim Kellys was 60%
Montana (considered by many at the time to be the GOAT) has a 63% career completion pct
And for the hell of it.. Cunninghams is 56% (slightly lower than Elways which is around 57-58).
Elway was also in the top-5 league wise in pass attempts almost every year which increased his odds of making mistakes and getting beat up by defenses.. but it also shows he carried his teams quite often.
His (Elways) record as a starting QB is 142-82-1 regular season, 14-8 post season with 5 SB appearances (2 wins)
Marino was 147-93-0 regular season, 8-10 post season with 1 SB appearance (zero rings).
And I don't really think you can argue that Elway had more around him than Marino did.. and I'd argue Marino had the better HC without question.
Now before anyone here thinks my point is to claim Elway>Marino.. I'm not saying that. But holding their careers up next to one another and comparing their actual accomplishments and some of their stats they're close to one another and Elway even exceeds Marino in some categories.
Montana, Elway, Marino, Moon and Kelly were all the top QB's of their era with guys like Aikman and Young showing up a little after and bleeding into their era. Young, imo belongs in the top-5 based off the fact he put up insane numbers in a much tougher era and also had rings to back it up as well.