Hostile said:
Good post, and I agree with much of this. I'm certainly not saying he's incapable. But he has not been spectacular as some have been. That is why I have been discussing impact.
I was the one who brought up his contemporaries. To compare them you went right ot stats. I'm simply not doing that. The QBs of his early years were legendary figures.
Marino
Elway
Young
Favre
Aikman
Kelly
To be in the top 5 of that era you'd have to tell me he is better than one of those guys. I don't see it.
Now in the latter part of his his career there is a new era of QB.
Manning
Brady
McNabb
Culpepper
Vick
Again, in comparison he's going to lag behind. That is no fault of his. He just happened to land in the NFL at a time when there are some QBs grabbing bigger headlines than he does.
Is it fair? I can't answer that. It's reality and it's about impact.
Can't make these comparisons in a vacuum. Again, it's all about context.
First, consider their relative supporting casts (Culpepper w/o Moss is a textbook example). The fact the Bills OL set a league record for sacks given up over the three year period Drew played in Buffalo is very relevent to this disussion, for example. (Now recall what Aikman had to work with, and I don't mean Emmitt/Michael/Jay/Moose/etc.)
Second, you're asking us to compare HOF QBs in their prime (Marino, Young, Favre, Elway, Aikman, Kelly) to a rookie who was thrown to the wolves in '93 on a 2-14 team (several years before Glenn/Martin joined him, I might add). Elway and Marino were 10 year vets Drew's rookie season. Kelly and Young were 8 year vets.
Still, in just his second year in the league ('94) - when all six of the QB's on your list were still playing - Bledsoe finished #1 in completions and yards and #4 in passing TDs (just two years removed from a 2-14 NE team, doing so without the help of Terry Glenn or Curtis Martin). And he did it again in '96 and '97 (#1/#2 completions, #3/#3 yards, #4/#3 TDs).
As for your second list of contemporary signal callers, I take Bledsoe over Vick and Culpepper right now, and to be fair, Drew never had a supporting cast as talented as McNabb and Brady are/have been playing with. All things considered, Drew stacks up reasonably well with some pretty heady company, IMHO.