I think a lot less of Elway and Brees than most I guess.
When I do this, I think QBs need to have a combination of three things:
Longevity (so, sorry Otto Graham)
Winning, both post season and regular season
An establish legacy of being one of the best in the league during their time.
1. Brady
2. Montana - I think the big thing separating he and Brady is longevity. I can hear the argument Montana was better than Brady on a per play basis. At this point Brady has 3000 more regular season pass attempts. I don't know how many post season but I'm sure that's at the very least several hundred.
3. Manning -- Look, if we're putting at Brady at 1, and he should be there, part of the question you need to ask is how much better would Manning have looked if Brady weren't his peer. Manning very likely wins at least one more superbowl, but I think you can argue the Colts are the favorite in 2003 2004 and 2007. His body of work and consistent excellence puts him at 3 easily for me. This doesn't take away from Brady.
I think there's a rather large drop off here for one reason or another.
4. Staubach -- I'm going to be a hypocrite and not hold his short career against him because of his service time. While he was in the Cowboys were among the best teams in the league, despite only starting 14 games before his 31st birthday.
5. Unitas -- I get why people put Unitas as high as they do. To play devils advocate, he was pretty cooked by the time he was 34.
6. Young -- He's higher if not for the injuries. Arguably the highest peak of any quarterback. Still, despite winning in 94 kind of has the Manning / Alex Rodriguez look of coming up short to inferior teams in the playoffs.
7. Favre -- yea I did it. Favre was inconsistent, but won, played forever, and had a lot more highs than lows. I think its like a reverse recency bias for people that knock him out of the top 10. He was an above average player for a loooong time, and great in the 90s (and that one Vikings year).
8. Tarkenton -- I don't know he doesn't appear on these aside from the Giants and Vikings were kind of ****ty for a while. Basically Steve Young before Steve Young.
9. Marino -- Ok, he needs to be top 10. But I don't have him as high as others because I think his work after the mid 80s is grossly overrated. Marino was legitimately great until 86 or 87 or so. But was just pretty good in a really lousy conference for the rest of his career. His playoff stats are pretty embarassing really. While I could hear the argument for his 1984 season being the best ever, I think after that Marino is just very good.
10. Starr -- His only real knock is that he was on a loaded team and played a short career.
I personally would not have Elway or Brees above any of these guys, and would probably put another 5 or so guys before I considered Elway. Elway's rating adjusted for era is 61st all time for guys with 100 games. He's below, among others, Terry Bradshaw, Matt Schaub, Mark Brunell, and Bernie Kosar. This isn't the end all stat but Elway was in a weak conference, won 0 all pros, and really has nothing else that solidifies him as elite historical aside from the narrative.
I would put Aaron Rodgers on here pretty soon.
Brees just loses too much for me. He's basically this generations Fouts. He rarely makes the playoffs and has some incredible losses upon getting there. He has inflated stats from the worst division in sports, and playing in a dome. Brees is good. Really good. Brees is not in the company of these others guys.
