Now that Brett Favre is done teasing the football world with his endless drama of whether or not he is coming out of retirement - again, the focus shifts to one of his placement among the ranks of the most covetted position in the National Football League. Very few people will doubt that he will enter the Hall of Fame, most likely on the first ballot. However, many people are debating whether or not he deserves consideration as one of the five best or even 10 best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.
Unfortunately, comparing Favre to historical players prior to 1980 is a rather daunting task, considering that many players came out from the AFL merger, so our concentration will be only on quarterbacks that played since 1980.
We began to look at the categories to rank them, and rather than looking at yards, touchdowns, interceptions, etc., we decided to combine all of those stats into just the Quarterback Rating. The rating is a complicated formula, by which very few people understand, and nobody can really explain why a perfect rating is 158.3. Nonetheless, this is the primary barometer by which quarterbacks are measured against, and even the best have a lifetime rating under 100.
The second component in our equation was Superbowl wins. A great quarterback should be able to engineer his team to the ultimate prize, and the best of the best should do so multiple times.
The third factor deals with accolades, including Most Valueable Player Awards, All-Pro selections, and Pro-Bowl Selections. The difference between All-Pro and Pro-Bowl is that the All-Pro selection (for quarterbacks at least) selects only one player per year, while Pro-Bowls select three or four quarterbacks from each league.
Thus, let the comparison begin. We created a list of possible candidates to place on the list, and reached upon the following players: Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Tim Brady, Steve Young, Dan Marino, Troy Aikman, Jim Kelly, Warren Moon, Terry Bradshaw, Jon Elway, Donovan McNabb, Kurt Warner, and Ben Roethlisberger.
First, we must set out benchmark; Brett Favre. Favre has a QB rating of 85.4, with one Superbowl win, three MVP awards, six All-Bowl selections, and ten Pro-Bowl selections.
Player..........QB Rating...............SB Wins....MVP....All-Pro....Pro-Bowl
Montana......92.3.........................4..................2.........6..............8
Manning......94.7.........................1..................3.........7..............9
Brady...........92.9.........................3..................1.........2..............4
Young..........96.8.........................1*.................2.........6..............7
Marino.........86.0.........................0..................1.........8..............9
Aikman........81.6.........................3..................0.........1..............6
Favre...........85.4.........................1..................3.........6..............10
Kelly............84.4.........................0..................0.........3..............4
Moon...........80.9.........................0..................0.........3..............9
Bradshaw..70.9.........................4..................1.........2..............3
Elway..........79.9.........................2..................1.........5..............9
McNabb......86.2.........................0..................0.........0..............5
Warner........93.8.........................1..................1.........2..............4
Roth'brger..89.4.........................2..................0.........0..............1
*Two of Steve Young's three Superbowl wins came when he was Montana's understudy, thus, we are not giving him full credit for "earning" those wins since they already being alloted to Montana.
As you can see, of these 14 quarterbacks, Favre's QB rating is in the middle of the group, his lone SuperBowl win trails only six other players, his MVP awards match for the highest, his six All-Pro selections trail only Manning and Marino, and his 10 Pro-Bowl selections in 16 season are the highest.
We then took each category, and statistically weighted them, thus creating a top 10 list of quarterbacks. The weighting scheme is as:
QB Rating: 20%
SuperBowl Wins: 30%
MVP Awards: 25%
All-Pro Awards: 15%
Pro-Bowl Awards: 10%
1. Montana
2. Manning
3. Young
4. Favre
5. Brady
6. Warner
7. Elway
8. Marino
9. Bradshaw
10. Aikman
I know, I was surprised to Warner at thr #6 spot, let alone in the top ten. But keep in mind that these figures are through the 2008 season, which certainly helped his cause.
What would your top 10 list look like?