My Favorite QBs

This Sunday morning post is about football, given that I'm looking forward to watching a couple of scintillating NFL playoff games today!

Football fans like to have discussions around the question, "Who is the greatest QB of all time?" I think Tom Brady and Joe Montana get the most votes because they've won the most championships. Other QBs who piled up gigantic yardage and touchdown stats during their careers (Manning and Brees come to mind) also get some votes, and then again, some people simply harken back to their childhood favorites. Their vote is not simply based on stats, but on the feeling of excitement they got when watching the guy play.

And that's pretty much how I look at it. Football is primarily a form of entertainment, so the best QBs were simply the most entertaining. In my book, that means they often engineered great come-from-behind victories in the 4th quarter, they scrambled and could throw accurately while on the run, and their general demeanour on the field was, well, fun to watch. Also, they did this over a long time, not just for a few years. Longevity helps.

And so, with that in mind, here are my top 5 NFL QBs of all time:

1. Brett Favre. Hands down. No competition. He could do it all, he seemed to enjoy the game, wasn't averse to taking wild chances with extreme payoff/penalty results, and generally played like a schoolkid with a peewee football in the street. I've met a lot of football fans that seem to hate him. I don't get that.
2. Joe Montana. More polished than Montana, perhaps working within a better "system" than him, so he seldom had to play that seat-of-the-pants style. But he was always classy and seemed indomitable. 
3. John Elway. He played on a lot of okay teams and single-handedly made them better. Like Favre, the consummate gamer. 
4. Kenny Stabler. The Snake. He just found a way to beat you.
5. Randall Cunningham. Well, I just love a running quarterback. He was the first to make running a weapon in his arsenal, not just a last resort after everything else broke down. The foreunner to many great running QBs in the game today.

Honorable mentions. Sure, Brady and Manning and Brees. They were great, over a lot of years. Of this group I'd say Brees is the most fun to watch, Brady is a great technician of the game (but statuesque QBs who simply go down upon first contact lose points on my fun-to-watch meter), and Manning was great and said Omaha a lot.

In the contemporary game my favorite QBs for being incredibly entertaining are Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. If these two continue to play the way they do over the long haul, they'll definitely crack my top 5!