Dilfer played for 13 seasons. That's just over 1,500 yards a season. I know, however, even though you're the one who brought up that stats, you're going to wiggle your way around it so here are more:
In Dilfer's best season he threw for 2,859 yards
His high for TD's in a season was 21.
His avg rating is 70
In 13 seasons, he started all 16 games only 5 times. He started less than 10 games six times.
He didn't make a lot of mistakes, but didn't make very many big plays. He was the prototypical bus driver.
Just for argument's sake, how many Super Bowls does quite possibly the most elite of all quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, have?
QB is the most important position on the field, so I will give you it clearly has great significance on winning games, but what has greater significance is good coaching, defense and a solid rushing attack.
So, you don't think Romo is "elite" then?
a lot of this is minutiae.
1st. This was 20 years ago not last week. QB stats have skyrocketed.
Ravens were definitely a better defensive team than offensive one.
But that same Ravens lost games early before moving to Dilfer.
Dilfer was an experienced vet that knew how to win games.
There wasn't really another QB lighting it up. Marshall Faulk was league MVP.
It was the start of Payton's career and Favre was in a weird way. Gannon was considered the best QB going.
But again the fact these arguments have to go back that show out of touch it really is.
It was a very soft QB era post Montana/Young/Aikman/Kelly.
You had the beginnings of Payton and Favre.
But you look at Brady/Rodgers/Payton/BigBen the last 10 years and they've all made the Conference Finals oodles of times.
Payton has 26 career playoff starts. He'd likely have 40 if it weren't for Brady and Big Ben two other elite AFC QBs during the same era.
If you don't want to accept that elite QBs return to the playoffs yearly while teams built around elite defenses flounder around not sure what to tell you except go live with Rex Ryan for a while.
Denver's defense with largely the same cast of players was a dumpster fire just last season.
Not having a weak link on defense is really hard to maintain week to week much less year to year.
But an elite QB gives you 8 to 10 years of excellent play with maybe a couple injury seasons tossed in.
It isn't rocket science as to what teams strive for more.