Joe Montana vs. Tom Brady

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by KRS-1:

Originally posted by NinerGM:

Originally posted by ghostrider:

Originally posted by verb1der:
All I'm saying is if Big Ben gets a 3rd ring, I bet sportsnation will include him in the discussion for "greatest ever" discussion.

I think Ben is as clutch as they come, and when his career is all said and done, who knows how many rings he'll have...of course assuming he'll end his career as the QB of arguably the most consistent franchise in NFL history.

Just sayin!

So proceed with Montana & Brady. For now.

Best ever, though? Let's assume he wins his 3rd ring and let's assume you were starting a franchise today and had your pick of active QB's. Would you pick Ben? I sure as heck wouldn't.

Here's a list of QB's I'd pick over Ben without even batting an eye...

Brees
Brady
Manning
Rodgers
Rivers

That would make Ben no better than 6th for me in active QBs let alone all time. lol.

You stick any of those QBs with the Steelers, they're nearly unstoppable with that OL and that defense. None of those QBs maybe except for Brady has enjoy such defensive dominance on the other side for so long.

That OL is not as good as you think. They gave up 1 sack fewer than we did, granted they faced some injuries yet again but even when fully healthy they are not great by any stretch. They are pretty solid run blocking but not in pass pro.

Ben and his ability to escape/avoid the rush and keeps plays alive is incredibly impressive and he may not give you eye popping stats (the Steelers play traditional Steeler football which doesn't ask Ben to do the same things Brady and Manning are asked to do in their offense) but he has a knack for making plays when they need him to.

Ben is good, not great, and if he were on another team we may not even know he was that good.

We can look at this season and see that the Steelers went 3-1 without Ben, beating the #1 regular season team in the NFL with DENNIS DIXON at QB and the 10-6 Bucs with a 100 year old Charlie Batch at QB (they also beat Tennessee with Batch at QB and lost to the Ravens by a FG with Batch as well).

Holy crap, some of you guys are like an encyclopidia.

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by KRS-1:

Originally posted by NinerGM:

Originally posted by ghostrider:

Originally posted by verb1der:
All I'm saying is if Big Ben gets a 3rd ring, I bet sportsnation will include him in the discussion for "greatest ever" discussion.

I think Ben is as clutch as they come, and when his career is all said and done, who knows how many rings he'll have...of course assuming he'll end his career as the QB of arguably the most consistent franchise in NFL history.

Just sayin!

So proceed with Montana & Brady. For now.

Best ever, though? Let's assume he wins his 3rd ring and let's assume you were starting a franchise today and had your pick of active QB's. Would you pick Ben? I sure as heck wouldn't.

Here's a list of QB's I'd pick over Ben without even batting an eye...

Brees
Brady
Manning
Rodgers
Rivers

That would make Ben no better than 6th for me in active QBs let alone all time. lol.

You stick any of those QBs with the Steelers, they're nearly unstoppable with that OL and that defense. None of those QBs maybe except for Brady has enjoy such defensive dominance on the other side for so long.

That OL is not as good as you think. They gave up 1 sack fewer than we did, granted they faced some injuries yet again but even when fully healthy they are not great by any stretch. They are pretty solid run blocking but not in pass pro.

Ben and his ability to escape/avoid the rush and keeps plays alive is incredibly impressive and he may not give you eye popping stats (the Steelers play traditional Steeler football which doesn't ask Ben to do the same things Brady and Manning are asked to do in their offense) but he has a knack for making plays when they need him to.

Ben is good, not great, and if he were on another team we may not even know he was that good.

We can look at this season and see that the Steelers went 3-1 without Ben, beating the #1 regular season team in the NFL with DENNIS DIXON at QB and the 10-6 Bucs with a 100 year old Charlie Batch at QB (they also beat Tennessee with Batch at QB and lost to the Ravens by a FG with Batch as well).

In those 4 games, they had 3 passing touchdowns. It was the run game, defense and special teams that propeled them to a 3-1 record during that stretch not Dixon and Batch. Not one opposing back ran for over a buck (they shut down Turner, Rice and Johnson), they made their opponents one dimensional.

8 FG's during that stretch
1 kickoff return for a TD during that stretch
534 total rush yards (over 4 a carry and over a hundred per game) + 4 rushing TD's compared to 862 yards over the final 12 games (3.6 a carry and 71 yards per game)
606 yards passing (avg 151 per game) with Batch/Dixon compared to 3200 yards 17 passing TD's over 12 games for Ben (avg 266 per game)

As evidenced with Ben the passing game was much much better. Yes Ben is great. He is not on the same level of Brady or Manning but he is great nonetheless.

[ Edited by KRS-1 on Jan 29, 2011 at 10:52:42 ]

Originally posted by KRS-1:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by KRS-1:

Originally posted by NinerGM:

Originally posted by ghostrider:

Originally posted by verb1der:
All I'm saying is if Big Ben gets a 3rd ring, I bet sportsnation will include him in the discussion for "greatest ever" discussion.

I think Ben is as clutch as they come, and when his career is all said and done, who knows how many rings he'll have...of course assuming he'll end his career as the QB of arguably the most consistent franchise in NFL history.

Just sayin!

So proceed with Montana & Brady. For now.

Best ever, though? Let's assume he wins his 3rd ring and let's assume you were starting a franchise today and had your pick of active QB's. Would you pick Ben? I sure as heck wouldn't.

Here's a list of QB's I'd pick over Ben without even batting an eye...

Brees
Brady
Manning
Rodgers
Rivers

That would make Ben no better than 6th for me in active QBs let alone all time. lol.

You stick any of those QBs with the Steelers, they're nearly unstoppable with that OL and that defense. None of those QBs maybe except for Brady has enjoy such defensive dominance on the other side for so long.

That OL is not as good as you think. They gave up 1 sack fewer than we did, granted they faced some injuries yet again but even when fully healthy they are not great by any stretch. They are pretty solid run blocking but not in pass pro.

Ben and his ability to escape/avoid the rush and keeps plays alive is incredibly impressive and he may not give you eye popping stats (the Steelers play traditional Steeler football which doesn't ask Ben to do the same things Brady and Manning are asked to do in their offense) but he has a knack for making plays when they need him to.

Ben is good, not great, and if he were on another team we may not even know he was that good.

We can look at this season and see that the Steelers went 3-1 without Ben, beating the #1 regular season team in the NFL with DENNIS DIXON at QB and the 10-6 Bucs with a 100 year old Charlie Batch at QB (they also beat Tennessee with Batch at QB and lost to the Ravens by a FG with Batch as well).

In those 4 games, they had 3 passing touchdowns. It was the run game, defense and special teams that propeled them to a 3-1 record during that stretch not Dixon and Batch. Not one opposing back ran for over a buck (they shut down Turner, Rice and Johnson), they made their opponents one dimensional.

8 FG's during that stretch
1 kickoff return for a TD during that stretch
534 total rush yards (over 4 a carry and over a hundred per game) + 4 rushing TD's compared to 862 yards over the final 12 games (3.6 a carry and 71 yards per game)
606 yards passing (avg 151 per game) with Batch/Dixon compared to 3200 yards 17 passing TD's over 12 games for Ben (avg 266 per game)

As evidenced with Ben the passing game was much much better.

Thank you for just proving my point.

[ Edited by Gavintech on Jan 29, 2011 at 11:12:48 ]

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by KRS-1:

Originally posted by Gavintech:

Originally posted by KRS-1:

Originally posted by NinerGM:

Originally posted by ghostrider:

Originally posted by verb1der:
All I'm saying is if Big Ben gets a 3rd ring, I bet sportsnation will include him in the discussion for "greatest ever" discussion.

I think Ben is as clutch as they come, and when his career is all said and done, who knows how many rings he'll have...of course assuming he'll end his career as the QB of arguably the most consistent franchise in NFL history.

Just sayin!

So proceed with Montana & Brady. For now.

Best ever, though? Let's assume he wins his 3rd ring and let's assume you were starting a franchise today and had your pick of active QB's. Would you pick Ben? I sure as heck wouldn't.

Here's a list of QB's I'd pick over Ben without even batting an eye...

Brees
Brady
Manning
Rodgers
Rivers

That would make Ben no better than 6th for me in active QBs let alone all time. lol.

You stick any of those QBs with the Steelers, they're nearly unstoppable with that OL and that defense. None of those QBs maybe except for Brady has enjoy such defensive dominance on the other side for so long.

That OL is not as good as you think. They gave up 1 sack fewer than we did, granted they faced some injuries yet again but even when fully healthy they are not great by any stretch. They are pretty solid run blocking but not in pass pro.

Ben and his ability to escape/avoid the rush and keeps plays alive is incredibly impressive and he may not give you eye popping stats (the Steelers play traditional Steeler football which doesn't ask Ben to do the same things Brady and Manning are asked to do in their offense) but he has a knack for making plays when they need him to.

Ben is good, not great, and if he were on another team we may not even know he was that good.

We can look at this season and see that the Steelers went 3-1 without Ben, beating the #1 regular season team in the NFL with DENNIS DIXON at QB and the 10-6 Bucs with a 100 year old Charlie Batch at QB (they also beat Tennessee with Batch at QB and lost to the Ravens by a FG with Batch as well).

In those 4 games, they had 3 passing touchdowns. It was the run game, defense and special teams that propeled them to a 3-1 record during that stretch not Dixon and Batch. Not one opposing back ran for over a buck (they shut down Turner, Rice and Johnson), they made their opponents one dimensional.

8 FG's during that stretch
1 kickoff return for a TD during that stretch
534 total rush yards (over 4 a carry and over a hundred per game) + 4 rushing TD's compared to 862 yards over the final 12 games (3.6 a carry and 71 yards per game)
606 yards passing (avg 151 per game) with Batch/Dixon compared to 3200 yards 17 passing TD's over 12 games for Ben (avg 266 per game)

As evidenced with Ben the passing game was much much better.

Thank you for just proving my point.

How is your point proven ?

The team averaged 110 pass yards more a game and nearly twice as many TD's (.75 a game w/o Ben and 1.4 w/Ben). If it wasn't for Ben they might not have even made the playoffs considering how productive the run game wasn't over the last 12 games. They became one dimensional on offense (Mendenhall went over a buck just once in those last 12 games). Ben despite being sacked 43 times, helped that team win the division by making plays when they needed him to, by throwing for 250+ yards in 10 of those 12 games and by throwing only 5 picks (Batch/Dixon had 4 in 4 games).

Did he NOT lead the Steelers down the field to win late in the 4th quarter in the SB vs Arizona to win the game ? Great players play great when the game is on the line, when their team needs a spark. Ben does that for the Steelers.

You can believe he isn't great but you are turning a blind eye IMHO. I don't think he is on the level of Brady or Manning, nor is he in the discussion of greatest QB of all time but he is still a great QB and one I'd take anyday of the week on my team.

[ Edited by KRS-1 on Jan 29, 2011 at 11:44:15 ]

joe montana was the best ever look at his record 4-0 you knew if you were down in the fourth quarter as long as you had montana you had a chance to win the game brady he's won super bowls or his kicker game winning field goal his number dont compare to montana in super bowls look at when montana drove them down the field to beat cincy in the last 2 minutes of the game he almost took k.c. if they dont drop the ball in the endzone he would've stayed a forty niner im sure he would've won 2 more

Montana never dated a super model!

Winner = Brady

/thread.

he dont need a model he has a super wife for super joe

Joe is still number 1 in my book... He never lost a superbowl..

Originally posted by fakers23:
Joe is still number 1 in my book... He never lost a superbowl..

not troy smith??

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:
Montana never dated a super model!

Winner = Brady

/thread.

"He met Jennifer Wallace, an actress and model, while the two worked on a Schick commercial, and the two married in 1985."

Originally posted by fakers23:
Joe is still number 1 in my book... He never lost a superbowl..

Neither did Terry Bradshaw, and he'd been to just as many. So if "never losing any of the 4 Super Bowls you've been to" is your sole criteria, Terry Bradshaw is just as good as Joe Montana.

Also, let's get one thing straight. Joe Montana (and, for that matter, Terry Bradshaw) didn't win Super Bowls. No QB wins Super Bowls. TEAMS win Super Bowls. Football is a team sport, the QB is just an important player. To win the Super Bowl, you need more than just a QB...you need 10 other good guys on offense, good defense, and good special teams. It all has to come together.

When Montana was winning Super Bowls, his team's defense ranked in the following ways:

Super Bowl XVI: 2nd in points surrendered, 2nd in yards per game.
Super Bowl XIX: 1st in points surrendered, 10th in yards per game.
Super Bowl XXIII: 7th in points surrendered, 2nd in yards per game.
Super Bowl XXIV: 3rd in points surrendered, 4th in yards per game.

His team's rushing offense ranked in the following ways:

Super Bowl XVI: 28th in yards per rushing attempt.
Super Bowl XIX: 2nd in yards per rushing attempt.
Super Bowl XXIII: 2nd in yards per rushing attempt.
Super Bowl XXIV: 13th in yards per rushing attempt.

Everyone knows how good Bradshaw's defense and rushing attacks were, and they want to credit all 4 of the Steelers Super Bowls in the 70s to those things - in the process re-writing history and forgetting that Bradshaw was Super Bowl MVP for 2 of those games. But they conveniently forget just how good those aspects of the game were on Montana's 49ers. Montana was ALSO consistently working with a great defense and a good rushing attack...for two of the Super Bowls, a GREAT rushing attack.

NO QUARTERBACK WINS SUPER BOWLS - OR EVEN GAMES - SINGLE-HANDEDLY. TEAMS WIN SUPER BOWLS.

If it were all up to QBs, Dan Marino would have had at least 3 Super Bowl wins and Trent Dilfer would have 0.

As for the Roethlisberger wild card you guys are proposing, the members of this forum who doubt Roethlisberger as an elite NFL QB should check this out. It's a comparison of Montana to Roethlisberger in their first 7 years (Roethlisberger's entire career thus far) as starters. It may surprise you, and it may clear up the "Steelers are primarily a running team" misconception that pervades the national media narrative. These Steelers are eerily similar to the Montana 49ers.

This thread could possibly be updated to title: Joe Montana vs. Brady/Big Ben.

Quote:
And what is the reason for not judging QBs on their wins and losses? If not then obviously Favre is the greatest QB ever because he holds all the records. Then Marino. Then Manning. Hell, if you didn't count wins and losses then Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman ... all of these HOF QBs would be second rate - none of their statistics approach Favre's or Manning's.

Great players are "great" because they win games, not simply pile up statistics.

Experiment: let's look at the records Favre holds and rank these players on a per-attempt basis. After all, Favre holds mostly counting stat rankings, and he's played (Sandlot voice) FORRRREVVVVVVER.

Favre holds the records for the following (excluding starts, wins and all that jazz...performance-based stats only here.):

Passing TDs, passing yards, competions, interceptions

On a per attempt basis, the players you listed rank as follows:

Yards:

Starr: 7.8 yards per attempt
Manning: 7.6 yards per attempt
Montana: 7.5 yards per attempt
Marino: 7.3 yards per attempt
Bradshaw: 7.2 yards per attempt
Favre: 7.1 yards per attempt
Aikman: 7 yards per attempt

Manning is still one of the best of all time in that ranking, behind only Starr. Favre falls way down.

Passing TDs:

Manning: 5.5% of passes thrown for TD
Bradshaw: 5.4% of passes thrown for TD
Montana: 5.1% of passes thrown for TD
Favre: 5% of passes thrown for TD
Marino: 5% of passes thrown for TD
Starr: 4.8% of passes thrown for TD
Aikman: 3.5% of passes thrown for TD

As a percentage of passes thrown for TDs, Manning is the leader of those QBs, followed by Bradshaw, and both of them are far ahead of the rest of the pack.

Completions:

Manning: 64.9% career completion percentage
Montana: 63.2% career completion percentage
Favre: 62% career completion percentage
Aikman: 61.5% career completion percentage
Marino: 59.4% career completion percentage
Starr: 57.4% career completion percentage
Bradshaw: 51.9% career completion percentage

And again, we see Manning as the leader of the pack here. He's pretty far ahead of everyone else as well. Of course, we have to considr in Starr and Bradshaw's cases that they played in a much different NFL that was much less friendly to the shor passing game, and thus they had to take more chances downfield with lower-percentage passes. You really can't compare completion percentage across eras in the NFL until the passing rules changed. (Also, as we all know, the all-time leader for completion percentage is none other than Chad Pennington.)

Interceptions...the most dubious of all Favre's records:

Montana: 2.6% of passes thrown for interceptions
Manning: 2.7% of passes thrown for interceptions
Aikman: 3% of passes thrown for interceptions
Marino: 3% of passes thrown for interceptions
Favre: 3.3% of passes thrown for interceptions
Starr: 4.4% of passes thrown for interceptions
Bradshaw: 5.4% of passes thrown for interception

Montana leads the pack here, with Manning close behind. Same caveat applies here for Starr and Bradshaw: much different era in the NFL's passing game. Downfield passes are less accurate and more likely to get picked off, explaining their ugly INT% numbers. For their times, those numbers were actually pretty good.

Conclusions to draw: Nobody compares to Favre on a counting stat basis, but on the basis of comparing QBs based on passes thrown, Favre isn't very good compared to those other QBs, whilst Manning is among the best, and Montana is up there as well. Maybe...hmm...this...this could be a revolutionary idea. I'm not sure if you're ready for it. Maybe...MAYBE...good stats correlate with winning. Maybe...just MAYBE...stats aren't just kind of made up and represent what actually happened on the field instead of the faulty human memory's perception of those events. MAYBE. Call me crazy. MAYBE I'm right, MAYBE I'm wrong.

Also, Troy Aikman was an over-rated QB and a terrible announcer, but that's neither here nor there.

[ Edited by Thisguy on Jan 31, 2011 at 13:32:09 ]

Joe was 4-0 on the biggest stage in football with 11 TD's ZERO Interceptions and a 127.8 QB Rating while completing almost 70% of his passes.

End thread

[ Edited by Sims84 on Jan 31, 2011 at 13:41:54 ]

Originally posted by Sims84:
Joe was 4-0 on the biggest stage in football with 11 TD's ZERO Interceptions and a 127.8 QB Rating while completing almost 70% of his passes.

End thread

Joe had 4 first-round exits in the postseason with 2 TDs and FIVE interceptions and QB ratings (AKA the dumbest stat of all time) of 65.6, 32.4, 42.0 and 102.8 while completing only 56% of his passes.

Before the last-minute drive that culminated in "The Catch" he threw 3 INTs that game.

Look, I can cherry-pick too!