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July 3, 1999 (NHS) -- The 1998 NFL season ended in love. John Elway once again held the Super Bowl trophy high, thanked all his fans, and walked off into the proverbial sunset, leaving most fans basking in the warm afterglow of his latest accomplishment and grip on greatness. Most everyone was happy with the way things turned out for Elway, and even if they didn't care personally for the guy, everyone acknowledged it was time to give him his due. So we thought.
There's a segment of the media that refuses to be sucked into such a love affair with the enamel-challenged quarterback. The backlash started with a couple righteous fellows bent on tackling what they considered a very serious crime being perpetrated right under our oblivious noses. This crime is so serious that it's now been featured in more than one nationally syndicated platform, complete with biting criticism. The crime, it seems, is people having the gall to be under the outrageous opinion that John Elway is perhaps the best quarterback of all-time.
And the ugliest connotation of such an insane opinion? This means Elway -- gasp! -- is better than Joe Montana.
Thankfully, two lofty members of our great media have appointed themselves sheriffs to shoot down such craziness: Dave Kindred at The Sporting News and ESPNet's Rob Neyer. According to Neyer at <http://espn.go.com/nfl/columns/neyer/00987245.html>, Joe Montana currently "reigns" as the "Greatest Quarterback Ever", "at least among football aficionados born after 1960." (Therefore, if you were born since 1960 and don't think Montana is the greatest ever, you're not an aficionado.)
The fact that Elway is now being regarded by some as the best has Neyer in a whining tizzy. "How did we let this happen? How did we let John Elway, a quarterback of roughly the same career quality as Fran Tarkenton, rise above Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana (and Dan Marino and Steve Young and Sammy Baugh ) in our hearts and minds?" (Don't ask why Steve Young belongs in this list, just go with it.)
After all, "Has (Elway) ever, even once, led the NFL in passer rating?" Keep in mind that Neyer is ESPNet's main baseball statistical analyst, and as such relies on stats almost exclusively to form his opinion of an athlete's talent and value. Of course, the fact that football stats don't have near the individual accuracy that baseball stats do means nothing to him.
To sum up Neyers' point, "Elway doesn't have the stats, Elway doesn't have the championships, and Elway doesn't have any claim to 'Greatest Quarterback Ever.'"
Now let's turn to Kindred's masterpiece at <http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/dave_kindred/19990104.html>: "Most folks who saw Montana knew they'd never seen another quarterback that good, and those folks hoped to live long enough to see one better. The one better than Montana has yet to take a snap ... He did it with an efficiency and grace under pressure so astonishing that linebacker Wayne Walker once said, 'Joe's cooler than the other side of the pillow.'" (Yes, LINEBACKER Wayne Walker, not 49ER ANNOUNCER Wayne Walker, because that would imply Walker could possibly be biased, and why would Kindred want that in his objective story?)
"In 16 NFL seasons, Elway has built a Hall of Fame career that puts him in the same sentence with Montana and Marino, Young and Bradshaw." (Gee, funny to see Steve Young's name show up again.) "The best was -- and is -- Montana. To believe anything else is to prove you suffer the famous American affliction of a short memory built on a short attention span." (If you're not insulted by this, then you've got problems.)
Finally, the end all, be all argument for Kindred: "Check the numbers first. The top-rated passer of all time is Steve Young with a 97.6 rating. Next is Montana at 92.3. Others: Brett Favre 89.0, Dan Marino 87.3, Jim Kelly 84.4, Roger Staubach 83.4, Neil Lomax 82.7, Sonny Jurgensen 82.6, Len Dawson 82.6 . . . and so on, past another dozen or so quarterbacks, before we come to Elway at 79.9."
Okay, before we get to the larger picture, let's rip these idiots a new one because, well, they're begging for it. First, the "doesn't have the stats" argument: What they mean, naturally, is Elway doesn't have the career passer rating stat to be considered among the best. After all, if it came down to silly, immaterial statistics like total yardage and touchdowns, Elway would have their favorite Joe beat senseless.
Is there a more abused statistic than the NFL Passer Rating? We've already detailed the idiocy of this stat. The rating is simply a whore for completion percentage. It panders to completion percentage so much that a QB who goes 3-3 for 9 yards has a better passer rating than a QB who goes 1-3 for 48 yards! That's right -- even though the former leads to a 4th-and-1 and probable punt, and the latter has moved over five times as far and probably moved into scoring position -- the former is better simply because 3-3 means 100% complete! Yippee!
Assuming we're not going to get these blockheads to admit the fallacy of their favorite stat, maybe we can get them to take another perspective on the fact that Steve Young and Joe Montana number one and two on the list, respectfully. Now, what's a more logical explanation for this? (a) they are the best and second-best quarterbacks, respectfully, in the history of football, and it's just cosmic coincidence they happened to play successively for the same team in the same era; or (b) the 49er passing system of 2-yard slants gives them many extra, meaningless completions, inflates their career passer rating numbers, they are overrated, and passer rating is a flawed measure of greatness?
To see the effect of such an offense on a great QB, since coach Mike Shanahan brought a similar offense to Denver, Elway has enjoyed the best stretch of his career, passer ratings-wise. So is the man or the system responsible for high passer ratings? And if the system has a role, how can we fault past greats like Unitas or Bradshaw when they never had the chance to show what sort of rating they could compile throwing a plethora of two-yard slants?
The fact that Neil Lomax and Dave Krieg are in the Top 20 QBs of all-time according to passer rating tells you all you need to know about the passer rating argument. Also checking in on the Top 20 Passer Rating List: Neil O'Donnell, Danny White, and Jeff Hostetler, immortals all.
Next, the "he doesn't have the championships" argument: We want to remind you that one player doesn't win a Super Bowl; teams do. But if you want to base Montana's greatness on four rings, then why isn't Bradshaw the Best Ever? He won four Super Bowls too, right? Of course, Steve "One Title" Young is mentioned in both these "expert's" lists of greats, so what's the story? If you're Steve Young, one title is enough, but for Elway, having more than one isn't enough for greatness?
If someone's jewelry is a huge qualification for being named the Best Ever, obviously Charles Haley must be the Best Defensive End ever, right? After all, he has five Super Bowl rings to his credit, more than any individual player in history. Actually, wouldn't that make him the Best Football Player in history? (Uh-oh. Now that Haley's a 49er again, watch out for articles proclaiming this "title".)
Finally, if we're talking championships, what about Bart Starr, who won a total of five? Oh, the fancy name "Super Bowl" was only for two of them, so guess those don't count as much.
The point of reviewing these two articles is not to argue Elway or anybody else is the best. Nor is it to simply belittle the idiots in the media; that's always too easy. The point is to get at the larger issue: why do these "journalists" find it necessary to beat down a successful, beloved quarterback like Elway? Why do the editors of national publications find it necessary to print and distribute these articles to the masses? Fact is Elway does have the yardage, touchdowns, championships and intangibles, such as being the greatest comeback-artist in history; therefore, it's simply not outlandish for someone to be of the opinion that Elway is the best, and they certainly have a reasonable basis for their opinion.
Therefore, it's obvious that what is really bothering these media moguls has nothing to do with John Elway and everything to do with Joe Montana. While Elway was supposedly the reason for these columns, when you sift through all the arguments and wonder why tearing down Elway should be such a priority as to merit feature in national sports columns, it all comes down to one fundamental notion that these guys just can't stand: nobody is saying Joe Montana is The Best Ever anymore. And therein lies their real hatred and frustration.
As current and future players continue to erase the accomplishments of 49ers like Montana and soon Jerry Rice, more and more of these columns will appear as the media tries in vain to defend their favorite, lovable heroes. And all the while, they won't even see their own hypocrisy or that they are operating under a double-standard. Ten years ago, the roles were reversed. When Montana was being anointed, you can be sure that the Neyers and Kindreds out there were furiously writing articles about how Montana is the greatest, oblivious to the censored protests of the thousands of fans that disagreed. We can't recall one article like these back then to voice the opinion against Montana, and because the Internet wasn't around yet, sources like NHS were not available on a grand scale to debunk the Best Ever furor. Now, just because Montana is on the short end of the stick, it's time to grow some journalistic backbone, time to jump on the protest bandwagon and oppose any new player given that title? Now, it's suddenly okay to bash Elway because he's getting praise from seemingly everyone? Now, the other side to an issue deserves to be voiced? Hey, that's great. So when does a 49er-Hater get their turn in the mainstream press to debunk the last 20 years of 49er propaganda?
What we have in Montana is a quarterback that is NOT the best in terms of yardage, touchdowns, or passer rating and has NOT won the most titles, yet somehow according to these folks, overall, he magically rates out as The Best Ever. Sound familiar? Yes, that's right - this is the exact category of ignorance applied to the 49ers as a franchise; they don't have the highest winning percentage, they haven't been to the playoffs the most and they haven't won the most championships, yet people insist that they are the Best Team Ever. Who's really suffering from short-attention span syndrome?
"Short memory" applies to 49er fans that don't remember that football existed before 1981, and to other football fans that consider the age before the Super Bowl as not worthy of consideration. The intelligent football fans haven't forgotten Montana, but we haven't forgotten greats like Unitas, Bradshaw, Baugh, Starr and others either. Montana was a good quarterback who ended up in a system perfect for him, one that took full advantage of the pass-friendly rules revolution in the early 80's. How would Joe have done spending his entire career on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, or with the Colts of the 1950's, for that matter, when receivers had a much more difficult time running their routes while being thrashed upon by DBs all over the field? How would Joe have done with the 1970's Steelers, calling his own plays to win four Super Bowls like Bradshaw did, instead of always being Bill Walsh's bitch?
Obviously, we'll never know, and as such, it is impossible to anoint anyone as the Best Ever. Again, we're not advocating Elway as the best; we're simply saying it's impossible to make that determination. Sure, it makes for a good cocktail-talk, but when these fools write in national publications that Montana is the best in history, and pass their opinion off as fact, it not only does a complete disservice to the many other great quarterbacks throughout the ages, but it also ingrains the notion of yet another 49er being the Greatest In History to the average fan who doesn't take the time to study the subject. Then droves of these misinformed fans hop the 49er Bandwagon, boorishly regurgitating the "Best Ever" tripe to the world, whether we want to hear it or not. Legitimate football fans deserve better than to have their enjoyment of football constantly interrupted by the 49er Problem (i.e., arrogance, ignorance, hypocrisy and double-standards).
The media needs to stop their nonsense, stop their charade of supposedly basing their asinine opinion on "argument". They need to admit the reasons they have anointed Montana as "the Best Ever" and will fight to the death the rise of any person who doesn't wear a 49er uniform are their personal love of him and the 49ers, not fact, stats, or logic. As with all of the other media pandering towards the 49ers, we know that we won't see an end to this anytime soon, so once again, the onus lands squarely on the shoulders of NHS members everywhere to spread the truth.
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created: July 3, 1999
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