Recently, I got to experience something disturbing. It was mentally unstable, openly hostile, and if it was in person, I think it would have tried to eat children.
Surprisingly, it wasn't a Raider fan, but just the opposite.
I was on the other end, of a Denver Bronco fan's tirade, about who was the most overrated QB in NFL history?
To me, putting Elway at the top of this list, was like telling someone that Jesus Christ wasn't the Son of God. Two guys, in particular, were openly livid, actively sending snide comments, instead of actually defending their QB. One's opinion, was that my opinion didn't matter, because, "I'm a Stupid Raider fan".
Funny, last time I heard, I'm not even mentioned on John Elway's stats page, either.
Here's the major problems, I have with Elway's greatness:
First of all, for most of his career, he was a great thrower, but couldn't deliver in the big games. 3 Super Bowl losses, after great seasons, was illustrating the problem in Denver.
Secondly, over time, you had to surround him with a cast, that could help him do it....but, like a great super bowl team, then, it's more about the team concept, than a single player. With Denver, the first major piece arrived in 1990, in Shannon Sharpe. Then, Along came Terrell Davis, 5 years later. And the last, was Rod Smith, who helped give the Denver a legit 3 pronged attack.
Now, a lot of their arguments, on this case, was still, only Elway could have led this team to the Super Bowl. Not really. I'd bet, that if Dan Marino had these weapons, he could have won it all. Or, say, Steve McNair. Thing is, you look at how much of the team took the heat off of the QB, the QB then becomes redundant.
Another point, to look at, is where do you draw the line, on the passing being more of the QB's specialty, than the WR/TE's job of getting that ball, and running like a bat out of hell? Shannon Sharpe already proved, he had the tools. Rod Smith, I still don't know how he went undrafted, had a great set of hands. And in the last season, Elway wasn't anywhere near his glory years....22 TDs, and 10 picks....meanwhile, TD, had over 2000 yards.
Does this mean, Shanahan was worried that Elway would blunder somewhere along the line? Or does it mean, that Elway, simply had to make sure he didn't do something totally foolish, like a bad pass, that would come back to haunt them?
In a way, I think a lot of questions, can be brought out, not just because of the two super bowl years, but as well, the previous season, in 1996.
Elway, had a decent year, but not overpowering. 26 TDs, 14 picks, over 3000 yards. This translated into a 13-3 season, but it also had a bad ending, when their march in the playoffs ended when the Jags upset them in Denver.
Shannon Sharpe got 10 TDs, TD got 13 on the ground, but to an effect, it looks a lot like Elway was still trying to use will, over teamwork, to get through the playoffs.
The following year, it seems something finally got through to Elway. again, high 20s for TDs, 11 picks, but TD went wild, with 1750 yards, 15 TDs, and both Sharpe and Smith broke the 1000 yard mark.
Result? They finally won their first Super Bowl.
Now, what was the major difference, between this season, and say, 1986?
A lot of it, I think went into the chemistry of the team. If you have a great QB, but fail to give him targets that can catch the ball, or a Running Back to take some of the load off, you're wasting his skills.
Same thing goes the other way. You can have great WRs, but if your quarterbacks are spending more time on the turf, than in the pocket, it's going to be hard, to find your man open in the midfield.
I'll stick by the argument, that Elway was on two teams, that won the Super Bowl. But he didn't win them, by himself.
If it wasn't for Terrell Davis, and a good supporting cast, Elway's legacy, would probably rank up there with Jim Kelly and Fran Tarkenton.
And if you think Elway's the greatest ever?
Now I know you're dreaming.
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5 months ago
Pretty good point about Elway's supporting cast.... give Brady or Manning Rod Smith, Shannon Sharpe, and Terrel Davis and you'd have yourself a yearly 35+ TD producer on your hands, not to mention sure-handed Ed McCaffrey, he was like Wes Welker except he did it for 15 years.
But he was extremely clutch during his time in Denver and he often times took inferior teams to the big game all by himself, it's not his fault that the team around him was mediocre, I call it the Dan Marino corollary, even if it is a QB, one man can only do so much. If Elway were given Manning's weapons early on in his career or even the '01 Patriots defense behind him, I think he'd have at least one more ring if not more. Watching him embaress the Browns year in and year out really proved his clutch, but not even Montana could've won with the pre Rod Smith/Terrel Davis/Shannon Sharpe/Ed McCaffrey Broncos.
Than again, there's only a few instances I can think of where a QB picked up the slack for an inferior offense, first there's the pre Randy Moss patriots... our number 1 wideouts for those years were as follows: Deion Branch (injury prone), David Patten, Reche Caldwell, and of course Jabar Gaffney. Then there was Elway before they gave him weapons, but he wasn't able to win the big one, but getting there was damn impressive given the stiffs he was throwing to and his at the time subpar running game. (I belive the starter was Sammy Winder, who, despite his 2 1000 yard seasons, never recorded a ypc of above 3.9 or more than 8 TDs)
Elway was also sacked 520 (NFL record) so something must have been fundamentally wrong with that offensive line.
One more thing, Marino had great weapons, Mark Clayton and Mark Duper were elite receivers and even Irving Fryar was a pretty good 3rd option when he stopped getting high, you're right about TD though, his only 1k yard rusher was Karim Abdul Jabbar (1116 yards in 1992 I think)
He's not the greatest ever of course but he was certainly better then Jim Kelly (even with rings factored out Elway had better stats and those Buffalo teams weren't bad)
Good arguments though,
Peace,
Max
from 5 months ago
Thanks Max.
Two things to mention, first of all, do you actually think that beating the Browns, year in and year out would be a good gauge? After all, some QBs know their opponents. Just ask the Colts about Tom Brady.
Of course, the biggest problem the Browns had, it seemed, was the playoffs themselves. how many times, in the 80s, did they qualify, and then go nowhere? I know the Raiders stopped them in 1980. Elway took them out twice, maybe more.
Secondly, the Marino comment, true, he might hava had good recievers, but that's the same problem Elway had too. He had the three amigos, for a number of seasons, but Marino had no ground game, to help balance out the offense. If the passing game fails to develop, you discover really fast, that you have a lot of problems.
Thanks for the read.
RCA
5 months ago
The common theme here is that pretty much every great QB has weapons around him when he wins, yes there is the occasional Trent Dilfer or Eli Manning (he's still average until he does it for a full season no matter how bitter that may sound) that wins the big one on the back of a great defense, but the really great ones always won with something around them, which is why the Ken Andersons and Dan Foutses (great offense, swiis cheese defense... Don Strock threw for 402 on those stiffs) of the world are often overlooked, the rest of their team costs them their shot at greatness.
Elway did what those before him did, won with weapons and came close without 'em, he's in the same boat with Marino and Bradshaw in my mind (yes Bradshaw won more rings but he rode Franco Harris and the Steel Curtain even more so then Elway rode his weapons).
The better team usually wins these games irrespective of the quality of the QBs playing and since history is written by whoever wins, the QBs with better teams, like Elway, are often more highly touted then guys like Anderson, Fouts, Tarkenton, or Kelly, it may be unfair but the same theme can be seen in almost every instance (Johnny Unitas and 2001 Tom Brady excluded)
The way i see it, an article similar to this could be written about pretty much any HOF calibur quarterback who has won a super bowl other then perhaps Montana or Unitas. So while you do make good points here, Elway shouldn't be singled out here because no QB other then Unitas and Montana can carry a mediocre team to greatness.
We even see this in other sports with guys like Lebron James or Michael Jordan (pre Scottie), Lebron led a squad of D-leaguers to the NBA finals but he won't get over the hump until the Cavs finally give him another stud to play with. Nobody can win it all by himself and it's unfair to fault Elway only for it, especially in a sport like Football where 1 guy can only do so much.
Sorry for the long ass comments and Peace,
Max
3 months ago
Huh? I don't see an argument here.
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