Classic QBs Would Thrive in the Modern NFL
League changes and technological advancements make statistical comparisons between NFL eras unfair. Image: Argus / DALL-E 2
By ELLIOTT PIERCE
Present day quarterbacks in the National Football League are bathing in passing yards and showering in touchdowns, and one reason why is the jacuzzi tub that is the modern NFL.
Most modern offenses are engineered to throw the football, which inflates passing statistics. And recent rule changes have greatly reduced the level of contact a defensive player is allowed to use on QBs, reducing injury risk. Like it or not, the NFL is a quarterback’s league.
Modern NFL offenses throw the football on 56% of their plays, compared to around 47% throughout most of the 1970s, when an elite running back was often the most valuable offensive weapon.
Due to their increasing role in a team’s success, quarterbacks are proclaimed by the media as either saviors or scapegoats, making them an attractive topic for those good ole top 10 lists. NFL fans have become addicted to getting triggered over player rankings that for the most part are completely based on personal preferences. And there isn’t a hotter hot topic out there than ranking the top 10 greatest quarterbacks of all time.
With statistical expectations ever increasing, more legends continue to fall out of the conversation. Otto Graham, Bart Starr, and Roger Staubach, the greatest QBs of long-past eras, are fading from memory as their numbers grow increasingly unimpressive compared to the modern juggernauts. Younger fans often look to a player’s statistics as a quick way to gauge how good older players were.
A relatively popular consensus among younger viewers is that modern QBs should be ranked higher because of their superior arm strength and higher passing yardage and touchdown totals, often saying something like “If this great quarterback of a past era were to play in today’s NFL, he would be average.” This is largely unfair to the greats of the past and can damage NFL history.
This mindset ensures that the best QBs of the moment will always be the best. Imagine if the NFL survives to 2050 and people are saying that Patrick Mahomes was not as good as their parents said he was because his arm talent was average. It seems absurd, but this has already occurred before.
Look at Johnny Unitas, one of the first superstar QBs, who is credited with popularizing the NFL in the late 50s and 60s and who revolutionized the way the position was played. Unitas is perhaps the only QB of the pre-Super Bowl era who still has recognition among casual fans, and that recognition is beginning to slip away because of the stigma that now plagues many before and after him. If you teleported the Johnny Unitas from the 1950s to the present, he probably wouldn’t be up to par. But that’s not how life works.
The modern generation of QBs is so talented because they have access to better training, more information, have been throwing the ball more, and have gotten to watch the great QBs of the past and learn from them. If Unitas had those same advantages, he would likely have a better arm and more experience with a pass-first offense. There’s no way to accurately predict how Unitas’s career would turn out because there are too many unknown variables.
Therefore, the best way to rank the quarterbacks of NFL history is to judge them on what they did when they played instead of diving into hypotheticals. Think, how did they compare to and separate themselves from everyone else in their era?
NFL fans should also avoid looking at season totals as a way of comparing QBs because the league has increased the amount of games in its seasons multiple times. Using per game statistics gives a much more accurate description of how well a quarterback played during his career.
Football is an ever-changing game. New stars break out as older ones retire. New strategies, new rules, and new technologies will continue to advance the performance of quarterbacks as the league carries on. As long as fans and experts alike can acknowledge the differences in eras, then history will be maintained.