It's OK to think Tark was better than Bradshaw. We just don't remember him that way.
this is fine to say...but just to clarify:
I was not just using stats to make my decision. any good analysis should be a mix of objective (stats) and subjective (what are the #'s not capturing?). of course, I don't have any subjective evidence, so I used the subjective evidence of others. NFL Players and Coaches used to be the sole decision makers with regard to who made the Pro Bowl. they simply voted on who they thought were the best QB's of the year. and NINE times they thought Tark was one of the best, vs THREE for Bradshaw. overwhelmingly, NFL players and coaches of the day said that Tarkentons sustained excellence was higher than Bradshaws.
as I said above, Pro Bowl voting isn't perfect, and sometimes mistakes are made. but when it's 9 to 3, it's highly, highly unlikely that the Pro Bowl voters were that incorrect, consistently. and sorry,but I trust this piece of evidence MUCH stronger than the casual fans
combine that with the overwhelming objective advantage has (better per year stats, longer career, etc) and I don't think it's close between those 2.
but then I saw that Andy was taking even further, and saying that Bradshaw was better than Marino and Favre. now, objective evidence, other peoples subjective evidence, and my own eyes say this is just dumb. most everyone agrees with me, so I didn't even go there.
but just a final note, and I mentioned this above: football is a really complicated game. we don't see all of it on TV. we don't always know what routes a WR is supposed to run where. in short, we can't always trust our eyes. what somebody else really smart said:
For a typical (even rabid) fan, however, there are excellent reasons that we focus on stats more than scouting.
We're biased. Not just in favor of teams and/or players we like, but also in favor of our previously held beliefs (as someone on this message board once said, confirmation bias is wicked strong). Even if you could neutralize bias, you have small sample size and, for most players, woefully incomplete information. How many games do you really see from the players about whom you have strong opinions? Maybe you saw a few Bradshaw games in which he leads his team to a 4th quarter comeback, but you miss the games in which he throws three first half interceptions and his team loses by 20. in addition, whatever memories you have are 30 years old by now.
And even for players on your local team, which you presumably see every single week, the way the game is displayed on TV means that you miss the large majority of what's happening on every single play. With the camera on the side of the field, scouting the O-lines' run blocking abilities is simply impossible, so you can never be sure how much credit to give the RB for success or failure. You only see about 5-10 yards past the line of scrimmage so you have no idea what the receivers and the secondary are doing. For example, were the Atlanta WRs horrible all these years, or was Michael Vick failing to find the open man? You can't tell; Vick throws an incomplete pass to a WR who was well covered and you say that no one was open and it was the receivers' fault, but maybe the intended receiver did get open and Vick was late with the ball, or maybe the receiver on the other side of the field had a few steps on the safety deep (not that Vick would be able to hit him, anyway).
And even among the stuff that is on the screen during the games we are actually watching, most of it is a total mystery to us. Unless you rewind the play and go through it in slo-mo a dozen times to figure out what everyone's assignment is, you can very rarely properly assign credit and blame. It might look like the RB followed a nice block from the FB to pick up 12 yards, but maybe the WLB covered the wrong gap which allowed the G to kick out to the next level and block the MLB who would otherwise make the tackle, in which case the offense just got lucky. Or maybe everyone on the offense was in perfect position relative to the defensive scheme, in which case the coaching staff should get the credit (for calling the right play), not any particular player.
In short, we trust the numbers because we can't trust our eyes. We don't see enough games, and the games we do see are broadcast with the purpose of giving us something fun to watch, not inundating us with a lot of good information. A good stat-head is a stat-head because he's humble -- he doesn't presume to be able to watch a handful of Falcons games and know for a fact that the exciting running Quarterback with accuracy problems is actually one of the best QBs in the league. or that Bradshaw is better than Marino b/c of 2 great games in his career than Bradshaw played.
