He's in the all-time top 5 and its not even a debate. He almost averaged going to the Super Bowl every 3 years of his career. The only person I'd put ahead of him pre-Brady and Manning is Joe Montana.
[Reply]

And what is this "loaded" team nonsense. Oy veh. It all starts with the QB, you can have a "loaded" team and still not win because the of the QB because the QB touches the ball 99.99 percent of all offensive football plays. If a QB is weak, the defense can press up. If they know the QB is good, they have to play back. Who the QB is matters as much as anything. That's why 20 percent of the salary cap for each team on average goes to the QBs. 20 percent tied up in one position for 2-3 guys.
[Reply]

Only Broncos fans put Elway Top 5 all time.
[Reply]

Brady, Montana, Graham, Marino, Brees, Unitas, Manning are all above Elway...top 10 probably, but no way is he top 5. One could argue Favre and Rogers above him as well.
[Reply]

Just when i thought this thread couldn't suck more, y'all started talking about John Elway.
[Reply]

We like things that suck
[Reply]

Obviously we're all biased to an extent, but you realize that all you guys do is highlight the positives and ignore any negatives related to Elway, right? Not to mention creating fake narratives like "Reeves didn't pass."

Elway gets the credit for winning with one of the most loaded rosters ever, with a dominant running game and a defense that held playoff opponents to 10.7 ppg. Elway ALSO gets a pass for losing Super Bowls by 50,000 points, including one that he was favored in.
[Reply]

And for every SB appearance, he had a season with more picks than TDs (or equal). He also missed the playoffs entirely about 40% of the time. Facts like these are always conveniently left out.

Graham went to the championship game every single season of his career and won 70% of them. If he's not considered top 5, why would Elway be a slam-dunk for the top 5?

So if Mahomes continues his current pace, you'll acknowledge that he's a far better QB than Elway? In less than a third of the seasons, he's matched Elway's SB total and is two short of his appearances. While playing in a much tougher AFC.
[Reply]

This is why I like these debates... there's just so much out there for discussion. I obviously never saw Graham play, but the league had 8 teams when he started, 12 when he finished. I'm also pretty sure it was predominantly white.

But, that's the era he played in and he was fantastic.

It's just impossible to accurately compare these guys on the same foundation. When you're talking the greats, you just have to look at the bodies of work and what they accomplished.

Whether one guy is top 3, top 5, top 10... doesn't matter really. Were they considered to be among the greatest of their time and did they leave a legacy?

Regarding the playoff comment... Elway went to the playoffs 10 times in 16 seasons. (there was an 11 win season where they did not advance, but that's neither here nor there).

Marino advanced 10 times as well in 17 seasons.
Montana advanced 11 times in 15 seasons.

So his playoff appearances were better than Marino and one off from Montana. Think we're splitting hairs there really.

This is an interesting stat line... and Mahomes is on the brink of tearing his way into 2nd place. Just needs 3 more to tie Elway, Bradshaw and Young... another 6 to jump over Montana for #2 and then 25 to supplant Brady at #1. https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/most-qb-playoff-wins
[Reply]

No way in hell Elway is in the top 5 all time. He's top 10, but not top 5. The only people that put him in the top 5 are delusional Cheating Donx fans like yourself.

Just google it. You'll easily find more lists with him ranking from 6 -10 than you will top 5. EASILY. That's not even up for debate.
[Reply]

In my opinion, Elway has received a lot more credit than he deserves because of 2 things:

1.)Counting stats (Look I have more wins/passing yds/Passing TDs, etc when I played substantially more games)

2.) His "story" in college as well as being part of that 83 draft

Of the 15 Qbs who started at least 80 games in Elway's first 10 years (1983-1992) he ranks 14th of 15 in passer rating, only beating out journeyman Jay Schroeder, and losing out to legends like Jim Everett, Steve Deberg, and Dave Krieg!!! (Not to mention how the truly, uncontested elite are 1-3 in Big Joe, Marino, and Kelly.) Half of your career can't be garbage and you're somehow waived of it. That's not how it works. The good comes with the bad.

The Reeves argument makes absolutely no sense other than a couple of outlier seasons because no dataset anyone has ever been able to find (except for cherry picking the prementioned 2 or 3 outlier seasons of his whole career) and he didn't win a ring out of a very weak AFC until he basically piggybacked on a Vaseline'd greasy ass OLine and Terrell Davis.

In order to be one of the greatest of all time, you need to be one of the top of your era. Elway was never inarguably that guy. Looking back, some will act like he was, but at no point was he inarguably Top 2 or even 3 of his era, rendering him unable to even compete to be in the Top 5 of all time. Not even going to compare him outside of his era.

Also, for those of you who think he was this huge thorn in our side, he was 17-12 against us in those years (8-4 in the 80s, 9-8 when we actually had competent leadership in the 90s). Not ideal sure, but too many people act like he just rocked us constantly when it's nothing like that. He got roughly 3 to every 2 we got, but it was more like 50/50 when we were a competent team and not in the dumpster fire for us that was the 80s.

Also, its great to see some Otto Graham love on this thread. That is a guy that ALWAYS deserves more discussion. Somebody that several don't even know the name, but was simply wrecking his era.
[Reply]

This all checks out. Elways was a lucky fraud
[Reply]

Everything kcgreene says is true.

elway is the most overrated player ever, and that's even including the fact that knowledgeable fans say he was mediocre at best.
[Reply]

Yeah…hard to rank players like Graham, especially when none of us have seen more than a few highlights. And like you said, fewer teams, a lot of white players, etc. But that also means a lot less parity, and he dominated his era like no other.

I’m not sure about Marino’s situation, but the Montana comparison isn’t fair. He reached the playoffs every time he played a majority of the season, even when he was past his prime. Elway missed four games in one of his non-playoff years, but also missed several games in some of his playoff years.
[Reply]

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...te-of-all-time

Pretty much sums it up with stats....
[Reply]