Denver Broncos: Is John Elway the best quarterback of all-time?

Where does Denver Broncos great John Elway rank among the all-time great quarterbacks?

Gil Brandt, senior analyst and personnel guru for NFL.com, posted his rankings of the all time greatest quarterbacks the other day. The list of players were surely astonishing, mostly due to the fact that long time greats Bart Starr and Joe Namath didn’t even crack the list, who are two of the greatest quarterbacks to ever lace up a pair of cleats.

Brandt ranks John Elway, former quarterback for the Denver Broncos, fifth on on his list, behind Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana and Otto Graham. Is this ranking adequate? Or should he be ranked higher on the list?

Elway finished his historical career passing for 51,475 yards, ranking sixth all time behind Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Dan Marino. To achieve this feat, he had to pass for 220 yards per game over the course of 16 seasons which equated to 234 total regular season games. He ranks tenth all time with 300 career passing touchdowns and sixth all time with 4,123 passes completed. During his career, he managed to make the trip to the Pro Bowl on nine separate occasions and earned the AP NFL MVP Award in 1987. He was also pronounced the Super Bowl MVP in 1998.

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Not only was he a tremendous passer but he was very effective as a runner, rushing for 3,407 yards and 33 touchdowns during his career. In 1987 he rushed for 304 yards and four touchdowns while averaging 4.6 yards per attempt.

Elway rounded out his career with a 2-5 Super Bowl record with Super Bowl victories in 1998 against Green Bay and 1999 against Atlanta. He was tremendous in the playoffs, passing for 4,964 yards and 27 touchdowns while averaging 7.6 yards per attempt. His 79.7 quarterback rating in the playoffs helped him obtain a 14-7 career playoff record.

He had four fourth-quarter comebacks and six game-winning drives in his 21 playoff appearances. With that being said, Elway is one of the most “clutch” quarterbacks in the history of the NFL when the game is on the line in the fourth quarter or in overtime.

What keeps him from being out of the top spot in today’s “consensus” quarterback rankings is his three Super Bowl losses, 226 career interceptions and the lack of sheer passing volume compared to the quarterbacks of today. Elway has only one season with over 4,000 yards passing, which is well below the norm in today’s NFL, considering there were 13 passers with over 4,000 yards passing last year, with one of them eclipsing the 5,000-yard mark.

This is not Elway’s fault, he played in a different era when the passing game wasn’t universally involved in the offense compared to today’s standards. But in the future, it will allow other quarterbacks to slowly pass him in the rankings, due to the sheer volume of total yardage, potentially diluting the efforts of some of the passers from previous generations.

It’s quite humbling that Brandt has Dan Marino and Brett Favre behind Elway in his rankings, but that doesn’t reflect everyone’s quarterback ranks. Marino passed for 61,361 yards and 420 passing touchdowns during his NFL career and some people can make the case that he had a better career than Elway.

Favre’s career is nothing to shake a stick at either, considering he passed for a grand total of 71,838 yards and 508 touchdowns, while being voted into the Pro Bowl eleven times during his NFL career. Brandt has Favre slotted directly behind Elway in his rankings and it’s not hard to argue that Favre should be ranked even higher.

Due to his three NFL Championships and three MVP awards, it’s easy to see why Otto Graham was ranked fourth overall, but he played in an era that was totally different compared to today’s NFL. He accumulated just 2,626 pass attempts in 10 seasons. Elway’s 220 yards per game trumps Graham’s 187.2 yards per game average. Not taking anything away from any of Graham’s achievements, but it’s hard to place him in the top five when there are so many other quarterbacks that has more than double the passing yards and touchdowns.

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No matter where Elway is placed in your rankings, one thing everyone can agree on, is that he’s a legend and is one of the best quarterbacks to have ever played the game.

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