Now that Favre is officially done, where does he rank all time?

[Mc2guy]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I guess it depends. You have to stand on one side of the era adjustments or the other:

1) All player statistics are already representitive of the competition they faced and the weapons they had, and era adjustments are not necessary.

2) The game has changed in a way that has put past performances at a decisive disadvantage. We must adjust their accomplishments accordingly to some benefits the new rules would have given then.

I think saying that Sammy Baugh in his prime would throw for 6,000 yards every year in today's game is pretty ridiculous, but there have been enough rule changes over time that he didn't benefit from that I would say he would rank among the top 3 passers of the 90's with that sort of assistance. It's a tough thing, the toughest thing about all-time QB rankings.

I think it would be a totally reasonable argument for someone to say that Sammy Baugh's skill set (mental and physical) would produce a below average NFL QB today (and a sub-Jurgensen level QB in the 60s) because a lot of QBs today are just better than he ever was. I just tend to think that he was too great for that to be the case.

I appreciate your earlier feedback, and I think this is one of the great debates in all of sport...how to you objectively quantify players of different eras? Because we have no consistent imperical evidence against which to base our opinions, any arguement has to be heard frankly. You can make a strong case that the players of the past were slower, smaller, and played weaker competition (lack of full integration in league sports). On the other hand you can argue that with the benefit of modern coaching, training, and rules, some past players would be even better than their modern bretheren.

Personally, I think there is a little of both. I'll take your example:
Sammy Baugh played when the rules were squarely set against the forward pass, yet he succeeded at doing just that. With a rounder ball, no personal foul rules, and with D-backs mugging the receiver, he accomplished stats that would be impressive even in the modern era. This is while he was on the field for every snap of the game, mind you, with no TV timeouts to catch his breath. Now, would that traslate to 6000 yards in the modern era...impossible to tell, but one has to believe an athlete that gifted could succeed under any conditions, but even Sammy didn't have Peyton's mind or body.

For others on this board looking at the gaudy stats of the modern "live ball" era, you are missing some of the true greats. Yes, Steve Young took the WCO to levels never seen, even under Montana. He had a great arm and was as efficient as any quarterback could be in that system and more. That said, Young only had one championship and benefited from having Jerry Rice and one of the best offensive minds ever. How can you overlook guys like Star who had 5 NFL championships, more than Bradshaw, more than Brady, more than Montana?