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It’s one of the oldest barstool debates known to sports fans: who’s the greatest quarterback of all time? With all the different players and styles of play throughout NFL history, how exactly are you supposed to measure that? Do you give it to the guy with the best stats? The guy with the most wins? Or the guy with the most Super Bowl rings? Is it Manning? Is it Montana? Is it Brady?
With so many all-time greats to choose from, making this list wasn’t easy. Without further delay, here are the 15 Greatest Quarterbacks in NFL History.
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Ishkabibble says
Manning spent half his career playing indoors. IMO, a HUGE +1 goes to Brady, Favre, Rodgers and Jim Kelly, who put up with wind, cold and precipitation that Manning rarely saw. Would’ve been interesting to see how well Peyton would’ve done in November, December and January in GB, Buffalo and Foxboro.
Of course he did play in adverse conditions during his career and his numbers weren’t pretty. He also had a record NINE one-and-dones; including several home upsets where they were sizable favorites. Also worth noting, by the time Brady and Brees are done Peyton may not have a bunch of those marks he currently holds. Incredible QB but there’s zero chance he belongs ahead of Montana.
mike says
So Bradshaw (4 rings) and Aikman (3 rings) don’t even make the list in favor of guys who never won a championship? Really stupid list!
Walt says
Winning a Super Bowl is not the only criteria.
2Tom_Smith6 says
Manning over Montana? Cmon man. Next to Brady, Montana was the best field general the NFL has ever seen in the heat of the post season. Brady is a solid #1, and Montana is a solid #2. The rest is debatable
woolbe says
About the worse list of QBs I have ever seen. To leave off Bart Starr, who by the way won 5 NFL championship titles in just 9 years and just missed a sixth, shows the author of this list to be ignorant at best. No other QB can lay claim to such a record. Starr didn’t have the flashy stats, all he did was win!
Owen Duncan says
I notice that unlike in baseball with greats like Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson this survey ignores older pros like Otto Graham who, according to Wikipedia, “With Graham at quarterback, the Browns posted a record of 114 wins, 20 losses, and four ties, including a 9–3 win–loss record in the playoffs. While most of Graham’s statistical records have been surpassed in the modern era, he still holds the NFL record for career average yards gained per pass attempt, with 8.98. He also holds the record for the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback, at 0.814.”
dennis says
this list is woefully iinadequate without bart starr…one of best ever..5 championships and the only one EVER to win 3 straight.
michael says
I’ve seen all the greats from the 60’s on, and the idea that Joe Montana belongs anywhere but a very strong number two behind Brady is ridiculous. Peyton Manning was a fine QB until it came to post-season, and the second of his two rings were in spite of his mediocre play in the playoffs. Bradshaw also belongs on the list, even if he sort of grew into that role. People disregard Bradshaw because they credit the defense with the 70’s Steelers championships, but he had a rocket arm. Favre is too high.
LongGiang Le says
Most likely the author of this publication is under 40 – probably even much younger.
I knew a woman who was in law school 10 years ago – she bought a Peyton Manning jersey.
A lot of that generation has very little idea what Joe Montana was like or who Terry Bradshaw was etc.
Bart Starr…. might was well be Bart Simpson to those kids.
One of the son-in-laws of this lovely couple that grew up in the Great Depression – their family hosted me at Christmas for all the years I was growing up. And the son-in-law told me that “Terry BRadshaw could thread the ball in such a small tight window”.
Kids today can be so disrespectful, if you quote Terry Bradshaw, the kids will just say “Oh so what he’s human. WHo cares what Bradshaw thinks”.
Oh ok. You’ve won 4 Super Bowls like Bradshaw??
MOntana is quite gracious to publicly say in recent years he has no problem being rated below Peyton.
“Humility can be a strong sign of true confidence”
My law school colleague didn’t respect Peyton – this colleague played QB in HS and he’s now a sports agent… He mocked Peyton for padding his stats by throwing from the 1 yard line – that kind of thing.
That’s why it’s misleading to judge QBs by stats like “career yards, # of wins, # of TDs overall”.
A lot of those stats can be a function of how long someone played (even if they were past their prime, and not winning in the playoffs/not being relevant to the championship anymore etc).
The key for Peyton not being on the same level as Montana and Brady is that it took Peyton years to win a playoff game – it seemed Peyton lost in the 1st Round of the playoffs for at least 4 years before he finally got that monkey off his back.
The 1st Time Peyton went to the Super Bowl it was Peyton’s defense that made the game-saving last second INT of Brady. And when Peyton went to the Super Bowl, he threw an INT, and it was his running game more than Peyton that really won that game. And the defense intercepting Rex Grossman.
Peyton was a technical wizard at making beautiful and accurate throws – but as a competitor he was not that dependable in big games to be a source of cool confidence.
Montana was a big-game clutch player going back to college (which distinguishes him from Brady, who did not have a remarkable college career). Did Peyton or Brady win a Natianal Title like Mantana? No.
That’s a reason why, contrary to what this author says, Aaron Rodgers to me could never claim the top spot on this list: Not when Rodgers couldn’t win the starting job over Brett Favre for years (And when Rodgers did get the starting job, he went 6-10 … and that was already Rodgers’ 4th season).
Montana was already the Super Bowl MVP by his 2nd or 3rd year in the NFL. He didn’t have Jerry Rice until 1985 – and by then Montana had won 2 Super Bowl MVPs.
Being a QB is more than making eye-pleasing throws and scoring lots of points: Just as a Home Run hitter can pad stats by racking up HRs on weak pitchers in small ballparks in the regular season (… A Rod, are you out there?), A QB can rack up stats but then consistently come up short in the biggest games.
That makes Brady & Montana the most likely top 2.
Montana never lost in the Super Bowl, the way Brady has twice (and nearly again in 2015 and 2017). Brady had the ball in his hands to end the 2008 and 2011 Super Bowls. Brady had the time but couldn’t win the game – that was never the case with Montana.
Like Michael Jordan, every time Montana started a Super Bowl game, he let the team to victory.
Montana had 5 TDs in 1990’s Super Bowl. Brady’s only gotten to 4 TDs once in the SB – 2015… but he also threw 2 INTs in that game which were nearly very costly to his team.
Montana threw 0 INTs in all Super Bowls.
By the way Montana basically didn’t play in the 4th Q of the 1985 and 1990 Super Bowls –
bc he dominated so much his team had already blown out the other team.
Brady’s super Bowls have always been close – never a blowout –
P.S. Then you throw in how Montana played against defenders who were permitted to be more violent and who were legit better defenses in Montana’s era compared to Bradys:
Lawrence Taylor, Bruce Smith, Reggie White… the 80s Chicago bears of Buddy Ryan… Tom Brady did not face defenses with as many sacks as Smith and White had in their careers – and Montana did not get the protections with penalties on the D that Tom has received.
Add to all this the Deflate-gate scandals…. And Montana has a legit case for the #1 spot.
John says
What happened to Terry Bradshaw? This is a crap list.
Chris F says
What??? Brett Favre didn’t bring two Super Bowl titles to Green Bay, he had just one Super Bowl win. The 2nd time he went to the SB the Packers lost.
Gary Doherty says
Elway in his first 3 SB loses you can’t find one hall of famer from the offense. He single handedly took the teams to those SB. If he would have had a Jerry Rice or an Emmitt Smith. He would of easily won 3 0r 4 more.
LongGiang Le says
I like Elway – but I watched Elway’s 1990 Super Bowl carefully…. he played pretty badly. His passes were off-target. He looked flustered. He seemed to have choked.
John Madden said during that game “THis is not the Elway I’ve seen all year”.
Montana did not have Jerry Rice for his 1st 2 SB wins. So it’s not a good excuse to point at Elway’s teammates for John’s inadequate play.
But that’s part of what greatness is: dealing with pressure.
It’s easier to play well in the regular season… harder to produce that when the entire world has only one pro football game to watch on Super Bowl Sunday.
This is why Lebron left Cleveland to go to Miami: Less Pressure on you when you can spread the burden to 2 other max players who were the franchise leaders of their own teams.
Larry Hart says
you can be the best at your job but a team will make or brake you most all picked here had great players making great plays giving there quarterbacks a chance to be great ONE MAN CANT MAKE A TEAM
Thommy Berlin says
Danny Marino was the best QB I ever saw…. imo… and I saw them ALL.
michael says
Marino was the most over-rated QB on this list. Everyone praising Marino always mentions his second season where he threw for a ton of yards and then got schooled by Montana in his only Super Bowl. Marino had a great arm but so did Joe Namath, Dan Fouts, Kenny Anderson, Bradshaw, etc. etc. – I hate to say it but I’d take Jim Kelly over Marino for his toughness and consistency.
Scott Wegner says
Marino won the least amount of games of any QB on this list. He was the most over-rated QB of all time…