Was Elway Overrated?

[saevel25]

Player A

Player B

Both have 2 Super Bowl wins, One has a higher comp. %, higher TD' rate, lower INT rate, same Y/A, higher rating. 

Player A: Elway, Player B: Eli Manning

I kind-of think Elway may be a bit overrated. I personally, don't think Eli deserves to be in the HOF, but Elway got in on his first try. Does this mean Eli is a first time HOF QB? 

I just wonder why Elway got so much love. 

[boogielicious]

8 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Player A

Player B

Both have 2 Super Bowl wins, One has a higher comp. %, higher TD' rate, lower INT rate, same Y/A, higher rating. 

Player A: Elway, Player B: Eli Manning

I kind-of think Elway may be a bit overrated. I personally, don't think Eli deserves to be in the HOF, but Elway got in on his first try. Does this mean Eli is a first time HOF QB? 

I just wonder why Elway got so much love. 

When he first came out, his arm strength was incredible. He was very hyped for a long time and his teams were based around passing and offense.  It wasn’t until he was on a more balanced team with a great running game that he won the Super Bowls. I think he was a better QB than Eli though.

[Bucki1968]

8 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Player A

Player B

Both have 2 Super Bowl wins, One has a higher comp. %, higher TD' rate, lower INT rate, same Y/A, higher rating. 

Player A: Elway, Player B: Eli Manning

I kind-of think Elway may be a bit overrated. I personally, don't think Eli deserves to be in the HOF, but Elway got in on his first try. Does this mean Eli is a first time HOF QB? 

I just wonder why Elway got so much love. 

As a Cleveland Browns fan....I gotta say no.😒

[mcanadiens]

People tend to rate quarterbacks as much on their team's performance as whatever they actually did on the field. Under Elway, the Broncos were 148-82-1 and made five Super Bowl appearances. There aren't a lot of other quarterbacks that can say that. Obviously winning the two at the end of his career was a massive shot in the arm for his legacy and people surely wouldn't think of him the same away if those Super Bowl wins had not happened.

To a degree, this is also another example of trying to compare one era of a football with another on simple statistics. The passing game has evolved considerably in just a few short years, so Elway's numbers in the 80's and early 90's are not directly comparable to Eli Manning's. 

The interesting thing about Manning is that his best Giants teams came relatively early in his career and then made just one playoff appearance in the last eight years of his career.

[dennyjones]

Times were different.   Elway was one of the best of his era.   His numbers don't match Manning but he did what it took to win.    It's a Jack vs Tiger thing.     It's also the players that supported him.    I'm not a Lions fan but if you're just talking numbers and numbers alone, Matt Stafford would compare.   Stafford won't make it to the HOF because he played for the Lions.   I believe that Manning will be a first time selection.

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

It wasn’t until he was on a more balanced team with a great running game that he won the Super Bowls. I think he was a better QB than Eli though.

I just think he gets way too much acclaim. I think winning back to back SB later in his career really solidified the opinion of him as a great QB. Its not even like he was better in the playoffs versus the regular season. His completion % is the same. His TD rate is the same, and his INT rate is the same. 

 

28 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

Times were different.   Elway was one of the best of his era.   His numbers don't match Manning but he did what it took to win.    It's a Jack vs Tiger thing. 

Not really because Elway isn't close to being one of the greatest QB;s of all time. Being a team sport, I don't weight SB wins as much as other do. Tiger v Jack is comparing all time greats. 

The thing that stands out to me is the sub 60% completion percentage, the sub 8.0 Y/A. This tells me that they nickel and dime you down the field. Don't throw INT's. It is very hard to improve your completion % in the NFL. Most QB's lose completion % from college to the NFL. Elway was a 62% completion % at Stanford. 

If Elway was in the modern game, I am not sure he would be an elite QB at all. There are plenty of people who come out of the NFL with cannons. The best QB's over the past 20 years don't have the strongest arm. I put it more likely Elway would be just another QB in the modern game not one of the best of his era like people think he is. He's probably not even top 5 QB in the 90s. 

Again, I don't rate SB wins as a QB stat though it does have some weight in the argument. 

[Club Rat]

Elway had a tough go in his early years. Poor protection, poor offensive game plans by Reeves, plus their Defense was only marginal.
When Shanahan became coach, he had better years, but had already suffered leg injuries.

The team became better in all areas, offense / defense / special teams and coach's.
They would have won more SB's if Terrell Davis career hadn't been cut short by a stupid play which he went out with the ACL
The team had tough receivers, a great running back and a really good defense and offensive line.

IMO, he was a Golden Boy who was started too early as a professional.  HOF- well deserved...

[DeadMan]

It's really hard to compare QBs from the 80s and 90s to QBs from 2000 on. The league adjusted its rules and the widespread adoption of spread and air raid offenses at high school and pro level have made comparing NFL passing stats really tough.

I don't know if Elway is overrated. He's not in the conversation for GOAT, and he was never the best QB in the game. He was some where between above average and elite for his entire career, which is rare for QBs of any era, and rarer for QBs in his era. He's somewhere among the best 20 or so QBs of all time.

As to why Elway is thought so highly of - look at those 3 teams the Broncos had in the Super Bowl in the late 80s. The only hall of famer on those teams is John Elway (except Steve Atwater as a rookie in 89). There are a lot of names that even people Broncos fans won't remember. Elway didn't have much offensive talent around him until the mid-to-late 90s, but he still got teams to the Super Bowl. And then the way he got the Broncos to the Super Bowl was pretty incredible at times. That's a big part of why he's thought of as better than you would think by just looking at his stats.

[mcanadiens]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

he thing that stands out to me is the sub 60% completion percentage,

Another statistical difference in eras.

The league average completion percentage was an all-time high 65.2% this year. It's been over 60% for every year since 2007. Prior to that it was never above 60%. 

 

[mchepp]

1 hour ago, mcanadiens said:

Another statistical difference in eras.

The league average completion percentage was an all-time high 65.2% this year. It's been over 60% for every year since 2007. Prior to that it was never above 60%. 

 

But don't you think that today's quarterback has to be more accurate than in Elway's era? I think Elway had a TON of arm strength but was not very accurate. His accuracy problems in my opinion would have held him back in today's game.

[saevel25]

12 minutes ago, mchepp said:

But don't you think that today's quarterback has to be more accurate than in Elway's era? I think Elway had a TON of arm strength but was not very accurate. His accuracy problems in my opinion would have held him back in today's game.

Especially when you look at his yards per attempt. He mostly in the low 7's. He didn't push the ball downfield, but had an accuracy under 60%. 

I think in todays game he would be just another strong armed passer that would struggle with accuracy. Typically, accuracy does not improve in the NFL versus college. 

[boogielicious]

4 hours ago, saevel25 said:

. I think winning back to back SB later in his career really solidified the opinion of him as a great QB. Its not even like he was better in the playoffs versus the regular season. His completion % is the same. His TD rate is the same, and his INT rate is the same. 

His team was loaded too and there were some, ahem, salary cap violation issues they got away with. He is nowhere near as good as the current set of great QBs, but it was a different time. Receivers could get jammed further off the line. In 2004, the Colts got the NFL to change the illegal contact rules. After that, QB number went up drastically.

[saevel25]

13 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

His team was loaded too and there were some, ahem, salary cap violation issues they got away with. He is nowhere near as good as the current set of great QBs, but it was a different time. Receivers could get jammed further off the line. In 2004, the Colts got the NFL to change the illegal contact rules. After that, QB number went up drastically.

I think his numbers would be better, but I don't think he would be 65%+ completion %. I listened to Sharpe talk about how Elway threw the ball so hard that you had to use your hands or it would bounce off your body. I just think he threw a hard to catch ball. Same with Favre. He threw the ball so hard sometimes, I wonder if it did him a disservice. They compared it to Brady who just seems to throw the ball with the right balance of speed to get it there, but also very catchable. He gives himself a lot of leeway for the WR to make adjustments or catch the ball when it is not thrown perfectly.

[mcanadiens]

1 hour ago, mchepp said:

But don't you think that today's quarterback has to be more accurate than in Elway's era? I think Elway had a TON of arm strength but was not very accurate. His accuracy problems in my opinion would have held him back in today's game.

Your phrase, "in today's game", is exactly the point I'm trying to make. They are different games. It is absolutely impossible to predict what Elway would have done had he been born 15 years later.  He might have played pro baseball for all anyone knows.

If you boil it down to these sort of statistics with no frame of reference, Dwayne Haskins, with his 61.4% completion percentage is a better quarterback that Johnny Unitas. 

Really of all these GOAT arguments people love to engage in, comparing quarterbacks from different eras is about as unfair as it gets.

Edited February 16, 2021 by mcanadiens

[DeadMan]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

Especially when you look at his yards per attempt. He mostly in the low 7's. He didn't push the ball downfield, but had an accuracy under 60%. 

I think in todays game he would be just another strong armed passer that would struggle with accuracy. Typically, accuracy does not improve in the NFL versus college. 

Look down at some of the advanced stats on that page. They show that Elway was above average almost every year in yards per attempt, completion %, and QB Rating. 

[mcanadiens]

Put it another way. 

Here is a list of the career passing yardage leaders. Notice that the only QBs who played in the 80s are Marino at #6 and Elway at #10. The only 70s name in the top 20 is Fran Tarkenton at #13. 

Also in the top 20 are such legendary figures as Carson Palmer, Vinny Testaverde, Joe Flacco and Kerry Collins.  

NFL Passing Yards Career Leaders | Pro-Football-Reference.com

---

1. Drew Brees (80,358), 2. Tom Brady (79,204), 3. Peyton Manning (71,940), 4. Brett Favre (71,838), 5. Philip Rivers (63,440),

 

[colin007]

Eli Manning looks like he eats his boogers.

[mchepp]

1 hour ago, mcanadiens said:

Your phrase, "in today's game", is exactly the point I'm trying to make. They are different games. It is absolutely impossible to predict what Elway would have done had he been born 15 years later.  He might have played pro baseball for all anyone knows.

If you boil it down to these sort of statistics with no frame of reference, Dwayne Haskins, with his 61.4% completion percentage is a better quarterback that Johnny Unitas. 

Really of all these GOAT arguments people love to engage in, comparing quarterbacks from different eras is about as unfair as it gets.

But then what fun would we have arguing with each other whether our oranges are apples or not. 😁

For example, I don't think Johnny Unitas got to play with under-inflated balls, that was definitely his issue.