NFL All Time QBs: Where Cowboys QBs rank?

[pete026]

Useful comparison list at the Pro Football Reference HOF Monitor.
Staubach is 17th among QBs. Aikman has the 2nd lowest score among HOF QBs, only above Jim Kelly.
Per their list, Staubach, Aikman, Romo, White. Sounds right to me.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/hof/hofm_QB.htm

Interesting to look at Staubach's stats and season rankings. 4 years tops in the league for passer rating, various yards/att metrics, int%.

71 was simply freakish. Passer rating 15 points higher than the next best QB, while running 41 times for 8.4 ypc. Craig Morton was 9th in the league, and 30 points behind Staubach.

Always gotta normalize for the era a player was in. Normally rank in the league is a good metric, but there's being 1st, then there's being miles ahead of the pack. 1st just doesn't express what Staubach did in 71.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/S/StauRo00.htm

The HOF monitor shows him playing 10 years when he really only played 7 years. Not intentionally, but it penalizes him for serving his country and being way ahead of the times in understanding the long-term effects of concussions. Most of the other QBs have 15-20 years playing and this ranking places a lot of value on playing for good teams for a long time. Longevity should count but it is a significant multiplier in this case.

But Roger won because he was even more successful after his NFL career ended. I am sure his brain capacity and capability had something to do with it.

 

[CT Dal Fan]

The way football has changed makes it very hard to compare QB's of different eras.

In today's numbers-obsessed league, the true greatness of Troy Aikman will never be appreciated like it was 25 years ago. The guy ate pressure for breakfast. The bigger the game, the better he played.

 

[Aviano90]

The way football has changed makes it very hard to compare QB's of different eras.

In today's numbers-obsessed league, the true greatness of Troy Aikman will never be appreciated like it was 25 years ago. The guy ate pressure for breakfast. The bigger the game, the better he played.

And he demanded excellence from his teammates.

 

[NeathBlue]

Can only comment on what I’ve seen since 1982, so sadly I can’t really say how Staubach rates against the others...
As of the others, Marino is my favourite non Cowboy, he threw the best spirals I still have ever seen, and if he’d had the surrounding cast that Montana had, then he’d have won a cabinet full of Super Bowls..
Elway to me is always overrated, he was a great QB, but not as high as he’s always listed... he didn’t win the titles until he had a totally dominant RB who had a few astonishing seasons.

 

[Aviano90]

Can only comment on what I’ve seen since 1982, so sadly I can’t really say how Staubach rates against the others...
As of the others, Marino is my favourite non Cowboy, he threw the best spirals I still have ever seen, and if he’d had the surrounding cast that Montana had, then he’d have won a cabinet full of Super Bowls..
Elway to me is always overrated, he was a great QB, but not as high as he’s always listed... he didn’t win the titles until he had a totally dominant RB who had a few astonishing seasons.

Loved watching Marino play. He would be unstoppable with today’s rules.

 

[RonnieT24]

As one who started watching the NFL in 1965 it would be hard for me to rank any QB ahead of Roger Staubach. I don't think youngsters who started watching in the 90's have any concept of how much more difficult it was to throw the ball back in those days. Defenders had carte blanche to be physical with receivers all over the field. Pass rushers literally could whack blockers upside the head on the way to the QB and if the blocker's hand's got away from their bodies at all it was called holding. I have zero doubt that if you put guys from that era in today's marshmallow soft NFL they would absolutely light it up and many of them would play to age 50. Raw numbers don't begin to tell the story with these guys so you really have to try and evaluate guys within their eras. If you take great players from any bygone era and provide them with modern nutrition, modern training methods and modern rule changes they would do just fine. There is no single "best ever" at anything if you ask me. Especially not in football with the thousands of variables that go into the game.

 

[RonnieT24]

Who is the QB who led his team to the title game like 9 out of the 12 years he played and I think he won 8 of the 9. Was it Sammy Baugh? Any list that doesn't include that dude is null and void IMHO.

 

[RonnieT24]

Disagree with the order. Staubach should be top ten, and I’d take Aikman over Farve, Warner, Bradshaw and Cunningham, at the very least!

Roger would be top 5 for me. Basically only started 8 full seasons and was in the Super Bowl for half of them. Made the playoffs in all but one season. Led the NFL in passing I believe 4 times.. People get fooled by the numbers guys put up these days. They would not come anywhere near those numbers in the pre-skirts on QBs and receivers era. And don't even get me started on the legalized holding rules.. Roger could do anything you needed a QB to do.. throw it at a high level.. run it.. escape sacks .. and call plays.. as evidenced in how efficient he was in the 2 minute offense.

 

[ESisback]

Roger would be top 5 for me. Basically only started 8 full seasons and was in the Super Bowl for half of them. Made the playoffs in all but one season. Led the NFL in passing I believe 4 times.. People get fooled by the numbers guys put up these days. They would not come anywhere near those numbers in the pre-skirts on QBs and receivers era. And don't even get me started on the legalized holding rules.. Roger could do anything you needed a QB to do.. throw it at a high level.. run it.. escape sacks .. and call plays.. as evidenced in how efficient he was in the 2 minute offense.

Amen brother!✊

 

[BHendri5]

Dude did you see all those guys play Cunningham should not even be an honorable mention I to

 

[Captain-Crash]

dak should be up there in the top 1000.

 

[Blackrain]

Before you make a list like this get on YouTube and watch vintage 60s and 70s football to gain a perspective of how radically the game has changed . After watching you will realize an all-inclusive list is not at all realistic .

Divide the list into decades and have the top 10 QBs of that decade 60s 70s 80s 90s and so on up to present. The legends of the earlier decades should not be undervalued just because the game has changed .

 

[quickccc]

Before you make a list like this get on YouTube and watch vintage 60s and 70s football to gain a perspective of how radically the game has changed . After watching you will realize an all-inclusive list is not at all realistic .

Divide the list into decades and have the top 10 QBs of that decade 60s 70s 80s 90s and so on up to present. The legends of the earlier decades should not be undervalued just because the game has changed .

Again,.. there's a limit to YouTube game footage and eye ball research when it comes to the old timers days of 60's and 70's, on a full game basis much is still not available, ..
I really believe because it's the popular Cowboys, i'm able to see full games of their old school footage

And we'd be lucky if someone, somehow is able to put together black and white 8 mm film footage into modern day digital video and to where its' visual clear to see
and to where it's a full game,.. not just highlights.
And with Highlights ... it's a ready why they call 'em " Highlights " ….

 

[atlantacowboy]

I sense much recency bias. You went by stats which are impossible to compare between eras. Brees, Rodgers, played in a pass happy era with different rules for wrs. He's not better than Steve Young or Dan Marino. Aikman was better than Fouts. If you actually lived through these eras and saw these guys play week in and week out, your list would look a lot different.

 

[RonnieT24]

I sense much recency bias. You went by stats which are impossible to compare between eras. Brees, Rodgers, played in a pass happy era with different rules for wrs. He's not better than Steve Young or Dan Marino. Aikman was better than Fouts. If you actually lived through these eras and saw these guys play week in and week out, your list would look a lot different.

Yeah just because a guy has passing stats does not make him great. Just as those of us who are too young to have seen Sammy Baugh, YA Tittle and that bunch guys born after 1970 probably have little recollection of Staubach, Bradshaw, Unitas and that bunch. And guys born after 1990 don't even remember Aikman and Young.. The passing numbers are always going to get better because the league mandates it. Sprinkle in free agency and the salary cap and teams are not keeping defenses together for 10-12 years anymore so there's always a chump or two on the field that the good QBs can target. I'm not big on these lists because of how different the game can get from era to era. Yes the truly great ones could play in any era. But the question is would they be great in any era? One thing I can say with 100% certainty is that Brady and Brees would not have been able to keep playing into their 40's had they been around in the 1970's. QBs took waaaaay more punishment back in those days. Both would have been battered and broken by 35 back then.. hands down.

 

[gjkoeppen]

Where do the Cowboys QBs rank among the Best All time QBs in NFL History:
( * still active)

1) Tom Brady *

2) Joe Montana

3) Peyton Manning

4) Aaron Rodgers*

5) Drew Brees *

6) Dan Marino

7) John Elway

8) Brett Favre

9) Dan Fouts

10) Pat Mahomes *

11 Steve Young

12 Kurt Warner

13) Roger Staubach

14) Terry Bradshaw

15) Ben Rothlisberger

16) Russell Wilson *

17) Jim Kelly

18) Randall Cunningham

19) Troy Aikman

20) Warren Moon

Honorable mention: Tony Romo, Joe Namath, Phillip Rivers, Eli Manning

I listed mine here in according to the ones I've seen play or had research to some extend. Its so really hard to count those I've never seen play or not enough research tools available; ala YA Tittle, Jonny Unitas, Sammy Baugh, Fran Tarketon, Otto Graham, Sid Luckman Bart Starr etc. etc.

Gee forgive me if I don't agree with your list. It is just your opinion. Granted it is a tough thing to do and I'm not going to even attempt it but I do think if a list comprised by a group of people that have seen all the QB's at least on film, that Aikman would be higher than 19th. Also most people in the sporting world now have Rodgers, even though he just lost his chance to return to the Super Bowl just an ever so slight bit lower than Brady. After Super Bowl LIV a sportswriter did his list of the top 20 all time QB's and Brady was #1 but it was right after the Super Bowl and he had Mahomes at #4 all after just one good season that got a Super Bowl win. That's how foolish some of these lists can be.
.
.

 

[dwmyers]

Again,.. there's a limit to YouTube game footage and eye ball research when it comes to the old timers days of 60's and 70's, on a full game basis much is still not available, ..
I really believe because it's the popular Cowboys, i'm able to see full games of their old school footage

And we'd be lucky if someone, somehow is able to put together black and white 8 mm film footage into modern day digital video and to where its' visual clear to see
and to where it's a full game,.. not just highlights.
And with Highlights ... it's a ready why they call 'em " Highlights " ….

You're getting a lot of grief for not getting to the old guys, but you also said that this isn't a best QB list, it's a best QB list of the ones you saw.
Raw stats suffer from recency bias. Rules changes affect QB play and their stats.

JMO, though, probably should divide the NFL into eras and find who is best on an era by era basis. It would be hard to /objectively/ correct for the rules changes as such.
Players that are major outliers in their era (i.e. Otto Graham) need to be noticed.

D-

 

[dwmyers]

1. Brady (33 playoff wins)
2. Montana (16 playoff wins)
3. Elway (14 playoff wins)
4. Payton Manning (14 playoff wins)
5. Bradshaw (14 playoff wins)
6. Staubach (11 playoff wins)
7. Marino (8 playoff wins)
8. Rodgers (11 playoff wins)
9. Aikman (11 playoff wins)
10. Mahomes (6 playoff wins)

Mahomes will likely keep ascending and eventually wind up second on the list.

Bradshaw was a horrible QB when he started, was mediocre really until the later 1970s. By 1977 or so he could carry a team, which is not true of his earlier playoff victories. Those were on Franco Harris and that superb PITT defense. And I say this having grown up close enough to Shreveport to have to endure his awful Saturday morning TV shows. Anyone ever catch reruns of "Terry Bradshaw goes Fishing"??

D-

 

[75boyz]

Yeah just because a guy has passing stats does not make him great. Just as those of us who are too young to have seen Sammy Baugh, YA Tittle and that bunch guys born after 1970 probably have little recollection of Staubach, Bradshaw, Unitas and that bunch. And guys born after 1990 don't even remember Aikman and Young.. The passing numbers are always going to get better because the league mandates it. Sprinkle in free agency and the salary cap and teams are not keeping defenses together for 10-12 years anymore so there's always a chump or two on the field that the good QBs can target. I'm not big on these lists because of how different the game can get from era to era. Yes the truly great ones could play in any era. But the question is would they be great in any era? One thing I can say with 100% certainty is that Brady and Brees would not have been able to keep playing into their 40's had they been around in the 1970's. QBs took waaaaay more punishment back in those days. Both would have been battered and broken by 35 back then.. hands down.

This is a really well explained opinion of NFL quarterback play during the past several decades. The league has transitioned to several offensively favored rules changes that have changed the entire NFL landscape.
You really captured how things have truly evolved imo with your post here man.
Great job.

 

[CowboyRoy]

Disagree with the order. Staubach should be top ten, and I’d take Aikman over Farve, Warner, Bradshaw and Cunningham, at the very least!

Staubach top 10? LOL Cmon give me a break.

Aikman over Favre? Cmon!!!!

Aikman was a very good QB and leader that had the success he did because of the incredible talent that surrounded him and Jimmy Johnson. The moment the Cowboys werent the most talented team in the NFL Aikman struggled big time.

He was a very accurate, short to medium passing range bus driver type that had great leadership.