Can you go wrong with any of them?
Part IV – The Only Three Even Sniffing Number One
At this time last year, there were probably only two candidates for this position as one was still just a spread-option QB who didn’t understand how to execute an NFL offense. Now, there are three. Here’s the case for each one. In Part V, we’ll compare them against each other – round-robin style.
Click Here for the cases to be made for each of the Top Three
Is it subtle that I had a certain guy holding a trophy?
Part III – The Young But Yet to Be Elite and The Elite But No Longer Young
In this section, we’ll list the QBs first but without a number in the countdown and then build the cases for each. There are two reasons for doing this: one, putting any of these players over another could be argued endlessly; two, I wanted to keep using these not-so-catchy category titles but needed to break the players out of them to arrive at my final order. I won’t cop out completely. They’ll be ranked at the bottom.
Placed Here on Pedigree
Josh Freeman (age: 24 / years: 3)
Matt Stafford (24/3)
Sam Bradford (24/2)
Opening a “Present” and Forgetting Your Future
Tom Brady (age: 35 / years: 12)
Philip Rivers (30/8)
Drew Brees (33/11)
Ben Roethlisberger (30/8)
Breaking those choices down into rank based on my criteria HERE, this is how they go:
Let the Arguments Begin
The All-Denny Green Team
26. Joe Flacco (age: 27 / years: 4)
25. Matt Ryan (27/4)
24. Mark Sanchez (25/3)
They are who we think they are. The alternate title to this section was “The Faux Franchise QBs” because these guys are the ones I referred to in the original “rules” for this post HERE when I said the label of “Franchise QB” is thrown around far too casually. These guys aren’t winning Super Bowls as the key cog / main reason their team won. For the record, I believe Ryan is better than Sanchez, but I’ll take the two extra years of Sanchez in case he finds the proverbial “lightning in a bottle.”
Another quick take on this section: the distance between 26 and 25 is NOT the same as that between 25 and 24. I could be talked into taking any of the 24 or 25 year-olds in the 33-27 range over Flacco. He’s the antithesis of the “Joe Cool” nickname. Just like the term “Franchise QB” is thrown around too much, calling anyone with this first name “Joe Cool” is too easy and just lazy. It doesn’t come close to fitting Flacco.
This is the position in which I expect to see Flacco in the postseason.
FnB Note: Yes, I know he just beat my Steelers. We’ll see what he does as the season progresses to remain consistent. And if these two teams meet for a third time this season in the playoffs, I’ll still feel confident that Pittsburgh has the far superior quarterback.
Click Here for the rest of Part II
The label “Franchise Quarterback” is thrown around too often these days. Just because a player is a starter for his team and they might make the playoffs occasionally does not mean he’s a “Franchise Quarterback.” The purpose of this countdown is to pick the quarterback with the best chance to turn a team into a Team of the Decade (i.e. win as many Super Bowls as possible in a 10-year stretch).
Why use a decade? Because we’re using ages 25-35 as a quarterback’s prime. I’m also using 38 as the end of a career. I realize a QB could win a Super Bowl after 38, but for the purposes of this exercise, that’s the oldest a player could win one. Coincidentally, the oldest to win one is John Elway – at 38 – in Super Bowl XXXIII.
Why did I say “turn a team into a Team of the Decade” instead of “turn HIS team into one?” Because I’m doing my best to remove a player’s surrounding factors from his evaluation. Stats only tell part of the story – as do the players surrounding a QB.
Here are the factors I will consider:
– Age (at the beginning of the 2012 NFL season)
– Years Experience (including the current 2011 season)
– Attributes (size, speed, overall skill – again, trying to keep this independent of surrounding players)
– “Intangibles” (which I don’t know how to explain because, by definition, they’re not tangible)
This will be a multi-part series that includes 40 quarterbacks – 33 from the NFL and 7 from college football. Not every team is included as some QBs simply weren’t considered skilled enough or were too old to turn their careers around and win multiple titles in a short window.
