Does the current QB crop top that of two decades ago?
Posted: Wednesday October 16, 2002 6:06 PM
A few years ago I had a feeling that NFL quarterbacks just weren't as good as they used to be, so I decided to do a team-by-team QB comparison, contemporary vs. 20 years previous. The old-timers won by a considerable margin. Every year the gap has been closing, and now they're very close, mainly because the game of 20 years ago is not so radically different from what we have now, and the Walsh offense already had taken hold in 1982 and not too many quarterbacks were calling their own plays.
I tried to be fair in my comparisons, but I know I'm going to get a lot of heat. The history buffs will wonder how I could dare to compare someone of today with an earlier hero. The young fans won't even recognize the names I'm calling up ... actually, they won't recognize any past quarterbacks except maybe Unitas and Namath. I'm not using the NFL's rating system for my evaluations, since I believe it's an artificial creation overweighted toward high-percentage, safe throwing. The comparison, alphabetically, by teams:
1982
2002
ARIZONA (ST.LOUIS in '82)
Neil Lomax
Jake Plummer
Lomax was a high-efficiency, two-time Pro Bowler whose career was cut short by injury at age 29. Plummer's been up-and-down during his career.
EDGE: Lomax
ATLANTA
Steve Bartkowski
Michael Vick
Bartkowski was a long-range gunner and two-time Pro Bowl choice. It's too early to tell about Vick, a magical runner who could be great someday.
UNDECIDED
BUFFALO
Joe Ferguson
Drew Bledsoe
An easy one. Bledsoe's having the season of his life. Fergie was a respected old pro.
EDGE: Bledsoe
CHICAGO
Jim McMahon
Jim Miller
McMahon's rookie year, but you could tell he had it. Miller is efficient, running a conservative, boring offense.
EDGE: McMahon
CINCINNATI
Ken Anderson
Jon Kitna
An overmatch. Potential Hall of Famer vs. ????
EDGE: Anderson
CLEVELAND
Brian Sipe
Tim Couch
Sipe, the leader of the original Kardiac Kids, holds all the team's major passing records. Couch doesn't seem to have progressed much during his four years in the league.
EDGE: Sipe
DALLAS
Danny White
Quincy Carter
The fans resented White because he followed Roger Staubach, but he kept getting the Cowboys into the playoffs. Carter is a work in progress.
EDGE: White
DENVER
Steve DeBerg
Brian Griese
Stop No. 2 in DeBerg's five-team odyssey. Griese has his ups and downs with the coaching staff, but I like his toughness and resilience.
EDGE: Griese
DETROIT
Gary Danielson
Joey Harrington
Tough to say right now. Danielson was efficient. He knew how to work a game. Harrington is far from that level, but he lends flair and excitement.
EVEN
GREEN BAY
Lynn Dickey
Brett Favre
Dickey was a good, tough QB who would win a few of these matchups if he weren't going against the king.
EDGE: Favre
INDIANAPOLIS
(Baltimore)
Mike Pagel
Peyton Manning
No contest. Journeyman against Pro Bowler.
EDGE: Manning
KANSAS CITY
Bill Kenney
Trent Green
Kenney was a young gunslinger at this point in his NFL life. Two years later he would make the Pro Bowl. Green is having his best season of an up-and-down career.
EVEN
MIAMI
David Woodley
Jay Fiedler
Woodley became a trivia question. Name the last Dolphins QB before Dan Marino. But he did take the Dolphins to the Super Bowl after the '82 season. Fiedler's an occasional spray passer who beats you with late-game toughness.
EDGE: Fiedler
MINNESOTA
Tommy Kramer
Daunte Culpepper
Kramer came into the league as a wild, untamed talent but he did eventually settle down enough to earn a Pro Bowl spot. Culpepper's on a downer right now, along with the team, but he also has one Pro Bowl notch on his belt.
EVEN
NEW ENGLAND
Steve Grogan
Tom Brady
A hard one. Grogan, the ultimate tough guy and a great favorite of the fans, was benched for Matt Cavanaugh during the '82 season, but he reclaimed his job after the Foxboro faithful nearly revolted. Brady went from hero to goat within the space of three weeks. Right now it's fashionable to rip him. Not in this column. I think he's the real thing.
EDGE: Brady
NEW ORLEANS
Ken Stabler
Aaron Brooks
Archie Manning was traded to Houston after one game, replaced by the 36-year-old Stabler, who was just about at the end of the line. Brooks is having a live year and has great potential.
EDGE: Brooks
N.Y. GIANTS
Scott Brunner
Kerry Collins
Phil Simms was out for the season with a knee injury. Brunner was a tough kid and an erratic thrower. It's been up and down for Collins, who's still capable of big numbers at any time.
EDGE: Collins
N.Y. JETS
Richard Todd
Chad Pennington
It was easy to knock Todd, as the successor to Joe Namath, but he had a decent career, taking the Jets as far as the AFC Championship in '82. It's too early to tell about Pennington, but the team does seem to respond to him.
EDGE: Todd
OAKLAND (L.A.)
Jim Plunkett
Rich Gannon
Two old vets. Plunkett had already won a Super Bowl with the Raiders and would win another in '83. Gannon has gotten better with age.
EVEN
PHILADELPHIA
Ron Jaworski
Donovan McNabb
A very tough call. Both were, and are, pretty close to the best in the league. Jaws was a master craftsman, McNabb is pure dynamite.
EDGE: McNabb
PITTSBURGH
Terry Bradshaw
Tommy Maddox
Are you kidding?
EDGE: Bradshaw
SAINT LOUIS
(L.A.Rams)
Vince Ferragamo
Kurt Warner/Marc Bulger
Ferragamo was a strange, moody player who lasted nine years, but only four as a starter. The real Warner would be an easy pick, but now he's hurt, and he wasn't throwing well before that. So far Bulger is a one-game wonder.
EDGE: Warner/Bulger
SAN DIEGO
Dan Fouts
Drew Brees
Hall of Famer vs. young comer.
EDGE: Fouts
SAN FRANCISCO
Joe Montana
Jeff Garcia
Sorry, Jeff. You're up against the best.
EDGE: Montana
SEATTLE
Jim Zorn
Trent Dilfer
Zorn was such a dynamic leader and scrambler that you tended to overlook his passing mechanics, which weren't always great. Dilfer has evolved into a competent workman, but an element seems to be missing.
EDGE: Zorn
TAMPA BAY
Doug Williams
Brad Johnson
Frustrated by years of being underpaid and undercoached, Williams bolted to the USFL after the season, but he later resurfaced in Washington and showed what he could have been all along when he was named Super Bowl MVP. Johnson never seems to have been as effective as he was in his early years in Minnesota.
EDGE: Williams
TENNESSEE
(Houston)
Archie Manning/Gifford Nielsen
Steve McNair
A young Archie could have given McNair a run for it, but he was 33 when he went to the Oilers on a trade from New Orleans, and his body had taken too much punishment. Nielsen, a journeyman, started four of the nine games in the strike-shortened season.
EDGE: McNair
WASHINGTON
Joe Theismann
Patrick Ramsey
All-Pro and a two-time Super Bowl winner vs. a one-game starter.
EDGE: Theismann
Final tally -- 1982 wins it, 12-11, with five even or undecided.
Now, I realize that a lot of this is colored by an old fogy's rosy memories, but '82 really wasn't that long ago, and besides, I tried to lean over backward in favor of the current crop, when I could. Completion percentage throughout the league is four-and-a-half points higher now, thanks to all the dink passing, but they were down-the-field throwers in the old days. Ten passers averaged better than 13 yards per completion in 1982. This year? Only one. Patrick Ramsey, who's had only one start, and who knows what he'll be like when he's been coached down to the rest of the league.
I'm not saying it was a better game them. It's always been a great game. But the quarterbacks in those days had more personality. You could really see their stamp on a contest. Fouts, Montana, Theismann, Bradshaw, Zorn, Williams, Plunkett, Jaworski, McMahon, Anderson, Sipe, Kramer ... the list is endless. Now? Well there's Favre, of course, and Vick and Bledsoe and the two Macs, McNabb and McNair, and I guess Peyton Manning, but there's also a great mass of look-alikes who seem proficient enough and technically correct while they're completing their five-yard checkdowns.
It's an old man's musings, and I'm sure many of you out there disagree with everything that's been said, but I just thought the chart might be interesting.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL beat for the
magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr.
Z's Mailbag, click here.
