First of all, for the first 10 years of his career, not only was John Elway not elite, he was just average at best.
John Elway's 1st 10 seasons:
54.7% CMP / 7.0 YPA / 158 TD / 157 INT / 73.8 RATING
Even for his era, those numbers were garbage.
There are 15 QBs from 1983-1992 (John Elway’s first 10 years) that started at least 80 games. Elway ranks 14 out of 15 in passer rating, beating out only journeyman QB Jay Schroeder. And the thing is, this ten year window includes old QBs like 10th round pick Steve DeBerg from age 29 to 38, who still beat Elway.
Game Game Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Rk Player Tm G GS TD Int Rate ANY/A Y/G 1 Joe Montana* SFO 111 106 192 91 95.3 6.87 243.7 2 Dan Marino* MIA 151 149 290 165 87.8 6.76 261.6 3 Jim Kelly* BUF 102 102 161 108 86.9 6.15 225.8 4 Neil Lomax CRD 85 85 127 74 85.6 5.60 233.3 5 Dave Krieg TOT 134 130 201 153 82.1 5.34 208.2 6 Boomer Esiason CIN 127 118 174 129 81.8 5.97 202.1 7 Bernie Kosar CLE 101 99 111 78 81.8 5.64 208.9 8 Phil Simms NYG 113 109 145 106 81.1 5.60 215.3 9 Warren Moon* OTI 126 125 175 145 81.0 5.80 239.7 10 Ken OBrien NYJ 124 106 124 95 81.0 5.27 196.7 11 Randall Cunningham PHI 97 85 126 82 79.9 4.78 187.6 12 Jim Everett RAM 97 96 134 111 79.7 5.86 227.9 13 Steve DeBerg TOT 128 93 136 116 78.6 5.45 177.7 14 John Elway* DEN 144 142 158 157 73.8 5.10 209.8 15 Jay Schroeder TOT 100 88 105 99 72.1 5.37 177.2
The funniest thing to me was that undrafted nobody Dave Krieg was better than John Elway for ten years. I’m dead serious.
Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Rush Rush Rush Player From To Cmp Att Yds TD Int Att Yds TD John Elway* 1983 1992 16.5 30.1 209.8 1.1 1.1 3.4 15.8 0.2 Dave Krieg 1983 1992 16.5 28.3 208.2 1.5 1.1 2.3 8.3 0.1
“But Elway was so good in the playoffs when it really mattered!!” Or was he? No, he wasn’t. He went 7-6 in playoff games during that span, and not due to his amazing performances. He threw more INTs than TDs ffs. And a cmp% of 52%. Just downright horrible.
Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Player Cmp% YPG TD Int Rate Y/A AY/A John Elway* 52.08 232 16 17 73.7 7.86 6.70
Let’s compare that to Kerry Collins’ playoff resume. Collins is perhaps the most notorious choker and fraud of his era.
Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Player G Cmp% YPG TD Int Rate Y/A AY/A Kerry Collins 7 60.44 222 12 11 75.3 6.82 5.83
Why do I keep emphasizing how bad John Elway was for 10 years? Because his career was 16 seasons long. And his last season wasn’t even that good. Why should 5 elite seasons make him one of the best QBs of all time? Because he won 2 Super Bowls? So is Eli also one of the best to ever do it?
I’m not done, though. Even Elway’s magnum opus last 5 years are overrated.
This is his claim to fame, his final five six seasons, but IN THE SAME TIME SPAN (1993-1998) he was putting up similar numbers per game as guys like... Chris Chandler... and washed up Dan Marino? No to mention that he’s clearly a tier below Favre and Young.
Game Game Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Rk Player G GS Cmp% TD Int TD% Rate Y/A AY/A Y/G 2 Steve Young* 85 85 66.98 153 61 6 101.8 8.13 8.25 244.7 3 Brett Favre* 96 96 61.44 195 103 5.9 90.0 7.19 6.96 245.6 4 Chris Chandler 69 61 59.17 88 44 5.4 89.5 7.53 7.39 177.2 5 John Elway* 90 89 60.05 142 69 4.9 88.9 7.30 7.21 236.2 6 Troy Aikman* 86 86 62.79 87 55 3.5 86.8 7.18 6.88 207.2 7 Mark Brunell 58 53 60.38 72 43 4.2 86.3 7.28 6.99 215.7 8 Dan Marino* 80 80 60.44 118 70 4.4 86.1 7.18 6.88 242.6 9 Vinny Testaverde 80 73 58.78 127 78 5.2 85.3 7.24 6.85 220.7
No doubt, he was an iron man (like Eli), and that led him to put up big totals stats, but on a per game basis, I’m not really impressed.
So, let’s recap.
The first 10 regular season years of Elway’s career were not elite
Elway’s playoffs during that span were not elite
Elway’s last 6 years were borderline elite, but as close as he was to Young and Favre, his per game stats were just as close to Chris Chandler and washed up Dan Marino
So, why is Elway a legend? Why have people worked backwards from their conclusion to justify him as an elite, legendary, all-time great QB?
Oh, it’s his two rings.
Just like Eli.
Everyone laughs when people try to justify Eli as an all time great because of 2 post-seasons. With Elway, it was 7 games. Hell, some people deny that Eli is even a Hall of Fame quarterback. And r/nfl would think the exact same way about John Elway if he played in our era.
Edit
Everyone excusing John Elway’s early years because “Dan Reeves would let him pass”! John Elway had the second most pass attempts in the league during his first ten years (after only Dan Marino). You could say “oh, that’s just because he was an iron man, and i won’t disagree. Elway has enormous totals stats as a result.
Yet Denver’s offense was simply never the myth that Elway defenders claim it was.
Credit to u/VariousLawyerings for this.
Denver's ranking in pass attempts and rushing attempts, respectively, in the Elway/Reeves era:
1983: 15/20
1984: 24/10
1985: 2/12
1986: 8/20
1987: 2/7
1988: 4/19
1989: 22/3
1990: 9/12
1991: 24/4
1992: 17/21
So...that assertion is true in a few isolated years but otherwise not at all.
For reference, the Saints were the #12 passing yards offense last season, but no one would claim that Sean Payton was strangling Drew Brees.
Edit 2
One more thing. John Elway had 3 TD 8 INTs in his 5 super bowl appearances. He won his two rings largely because he had fucking Terrell Davis averaging 120 rushing yards per game from 1997-1998, which completely freed him up or bailed him out.
A hilarious example is in Super Bowl 32, Terrell Davis had more rushing yards (157) than John Elway had passing yards (123).
Edit : stats didn’t copy and paste as well as I’d hoped but I love this article pointing out what we already knew.
[Reply]
